This could start off as a small intervention and then moved to the next one and then the next one. Examples can include:
- A midwife suggests to mum that she has her waters broken to speed up labour…
- Baby doesn’t respond well to the sudden change in his position (i.e. dropping onto the cervix …
- Continual foetal monitoring is required to monitor the baby’s heart rate, so mum has to be on her back … Mum finds the contractions much harder to cope with in this position, so requests an epidural …
- Labour slows because of the epidural, so syntocinon (artificial Oxytocin) is required to speed it up …
- Baby doesn’t like the intense contractions caused by the syntocinon, heartbeat drops …
- It is decided baby needs to be born quickly so mum is given an episiotomy to make an instrument (forceps or ventousse) birth possible or, if baby isn’t that close to being born, a Caesarean becomes necessary.
What began as a low-risk, uncomplicated birth has become a heavily medicated and assisted birth.
Using BRAINS, you can weigh up both sides of the coin. If the discussion is happening before labour has actually started then the resources below may be helpful.
- sarahwickham.com (Dr. Sarah Wickham is a midwife with a doctorate in research – she breaks down all the information
- aims.org.uk (Association for Improvement in Maternity Services has many useful research articles)
- evidencebasedbirth.com (which is an American based organisation but has many useful articles which will help you make more sense of what you’re being told)
Before labour do your research on the risks and what you could be faced with. Risk implies danger what are the actual risks for YOU? This could be a completely different story for YOU. Some interventions are necessary and life-saving others not so much.
Coached pushing or Purple pushing – we did an exercise in class where we took a breath tucked our chin in and exhaled and feedback is that is doesn’t feel comfortable, that the breath is being forced, that the pelvic floor felt locked, possibly even feeling discomfort/pressure in your lower back.
This is a little exercise we do when seated imagine if you were laying on your back …
This video might give you an understanding of what coached pushing / purple pushing looks like: