Tips to prevent an Unnecessary Cesarean

While labor and birth can be quite extraordinary and even more unpredictable, there are some things a gal can do help prevent an unnecessary cesarean.

• Find an honest provider. Get with a provider who isn't going to unnecessarily induce you or perform any unnecessary medical interventions for their own convenience or because they lack  patience.
• Exercise. Exercise is such an under utilized tool in pregnancy and birth. Good exercise helps to promote circulation during pregnancy. It helps to prevent excessive weight gain in the mother and in the baby. It also helps to ripen the cervix when done consistently throughout pregnancy.
• Avoid excess sugar and white flour. Sugar and white flour have what non-nutritive calories commonly known as "empty calories." These are calories that will satiate an appetite, but they will not contribute to nutrition or health.
• Await spontaneous labor. Whenever possible avoid an induction, especially if the cervix is not favorable for induction. Great ways to promote spontaneous labor include: sexual intercourse, stripping the membranes, exercise, and acupuncture.
• Be confident and stay positive. Trust in your body's ability to birth and in your ability to labor brilliantly.
• Work with a birth companion. Birth companions, doulas, and labor coaches are great support during labor and can a be a great advocate when the time comes to birth. They can also delay use of medication for pain, which may increase the need for medical intervention. 

The Unnecesarean

The Unnecesarean: noun, often capitalized

1. A delivery performed via cesarean section for which there is no medical indication
2. A medically unnecessary cesarean section
3. Excess C/S

Delivery by cesarian is performed at astronomically high rates in the United States (33%).  A medically safe rate of cesarian is around 15%, while some hospitals have rates as high as 40-50%. That means that more than half of the cesareans that are performed are medically unnecessary.

Check out my most recent blog post for Baby-Birth about unnecesarians. Click here

 

Midwifery Model of Care

Often, I am asked about how midiwves care for women differently than other obsterical providers.  And while, it's different midwife to midwife, there is the basic Midwifery Model of Care that I'd like to share as a fundation for why we are different.

Midwives Model of Care™

The Midwives Model of Care™ is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life events. The Midwives Model of Care includes:

·       monitoring the physical, psychological and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle

·       providing the mother with individualized education, counseling, and prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery, and postpartum support

 

·       minimizing technological interventions and;

·       identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention

Patience in the Post Term

You are not alone. More than 1 in 4 pregnancies go past their expected due date in the United States. This is even higher for women who are having their first babe and for women who are having a boy.
Going over due can be discouraging and can weigh on our patience, both as a provider but more often as a mother.  It can seem like the babe's birthday is never going to come. But this period of waiting can be a great time for reflection, preparation, and intimacy.  Sometimes we are in such a rush to get everything done, we need to be reminded to stop and take it all in.
I went one week overdue with my son, my second.  I remember it weighing on my patience but I also remember it being a time of joy and rest with my husband and my little daughter, my first.
In Judaism, there is a Yiddish word B'shert, (Yiddish: באַשערט).  It literally means "destiny" and can even mean a destiny that is divine. A baby's timing is b'shert, meant to be, by their very own diving timing.
So take heart, have patience, have hope, and know that you can and will do this most magnificent thing, give birth.