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Childbirth

Massage during labour

3 replies

Dolphin123456789 · 14/08/2013 14:32

Would it just be more incredibly painful if you were to gently massage your belly during labour or if you had to have a forceps/ventouse delivery, especially in that case since the baby is already being pulled so pushing might help?

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glorious · 14/08/2013 17:18

I'm not a professional but my understanding is that pushing the baby out through pressure on the belly isn't advised (it's called fundal pressure and used to be done but not any more in the UK because it caused problems for the pelvic floor and didn't really help the delivery ([www.scienceandsensibility.org/?tag=fundal-pressure])

I found lower back/sacral massage extremely helpful but didn't want my front touched. Everyone is different though.

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Icedink · 15/08/2013 10:50

I couldn't stand my belly being touched (actually shouted at the mw to get off me ) but dh rubbing my lower back helped a lot.

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Dolphin123456789 · 15/08/2013 22:02

Thanks you two, glad I'm not totally mad!

I had a colonoscopy and I was very moody then because of the pain from the prep, and thinking about it, it was probably not too dissimilar to childbirth. :)