What preparation helped you cope best when you were in labour?

[mameulah]

Sorry for posting on aibu but I am getting closer and closer to my due date and am getting a bit nervous.

And this is our second baby. I feel like I know less this time round than last time.

Any practical (or any at advice at all) advice would be much appreciated.

tia

I was tempted to write "I want an epidural" across my bump with permanent marker...

Stay at home until you can't stand it any more
Listen to the midwifes
Don't waste energy screaming or shouting unless you really need to ?? (yes I had a silent birth only because it hurt more when I spoke)

Listen to your body it knows what it's doing
And always remember the pain does end and you get a beautiful squishy baby at the end
Oh and after birth if medication is offered take it I had horrible after pains with my 2nd

Controlled breathing really worked for me.

I did hypnobirthing which really helped with staying relaxed and the breathing and had a tens machine.

Don't have a birth plan. My second was nothing like my first.
Stay at home as long as possible.
The breathing technique was the most useful.

And if you don't go for pain relief get local anaesthetic if it looks like a tear or episiotomy is going to happen.

Mine was to ensure my DH and I were perfect in tune with what we wanted so that he was my rock.

Keeping upright as much as possible helped me, so maybe doing some walking to keep your leg muscles strong. (My legs were killing me the day after a long labour with dc1!!)

Practice deep breathing.

Definitely relaxation techniques, just try not to panic.

Hypnobirthing. If you don't have time to read the book or do a course then focus on slow breathing. Count your breath in and out, focus on the counting to take your mind off everything else.
Another vote for gravity as well. I was upright with upper body leaning forward (on kitchen bar or birthing ball while on my knees). Moving my hips round in big circles really seemed to help.

Tens machine definitely helped, put it on when contractions start as the effect builds up.

My birth plan really helped me. It was not hippy dippy with whale sounds, it was very practical and I lost the plot during labour. It was nice that my thoughts were written down coherently.

For me, the best thing was not to get too hung up on what I wanted/didn't want to happen. A few women I know really struggled with the fact that their birth didn't go as they planned even though physically they and their babies were completely fine.

Try not to worry too much about it.

bouncy ball to sit on , good music to listen to and lots of cheesy wotsits . And bloody no one hassling me to "go and have a nice bath" fuck off

I sometimes think the anticipation is worse!

I agree with the advice to stay on feet, I did with my first and much quicker than second. Also your muscles are lax with second, so you need to get bouncing on that ball to get the head down into the birth canal to progress labour I found. If not the head bobs up and down and you get a stop start or forever lasting early labour.... Urrghhhh

TENS was fab, only used with my second. I did both labours with only gas and air, and it was fucking painful but not more than I could handle. I had pool births, and this really helped make the pushing part more bearable.

Good luck, it will be painful but it's what we're built for ;)

I discussed, at great length with my DH, the things that I did or didn't want during my labour. It meant that meant he could be my voice when I was out of it.

I told myself that thousands of women have done this for hundreds of years and most have no problem at all. Accepting what was happening as a process that has to happen to get the baby out, and just going with it worked well for me. Just stay calm, accept what your body wants to do and you'll find its much less sreessful

I am afraid nothing can really prepare you because you just don't know how it is going to go. Just be free to go with whatever will come your way, not sticking to a birth plan, because in all honesty they often go out the window depending on circumstances. So be happy to go with the flow knowing it will all end with a beautiful baby. Stay calm and focused if you can. Listen to the midwives. Listen to your body. Nobody is going to lie. It hurts. A lot. But women are amazing!

Absolutely nothing. DD's birth was a nightmare and no amount of breathing, positive thinking and being relaxed helped.

The epidural was fab, though

The best thing I did was to get a TENS machine and learn how to use it. They really are amazing.

Also don't go to hospital until you really have to. My contractions were 4 minutes apart when I left home however they increased to 10 minutes when I got to the hospital.

Tens machine was very good, it provided 'distraction' from the pain.

Count through contractions - with dd1 for most of it I got to about 17 then the pain started to tail off. So I knew when the labour was progressing as the pain was worse until a higher number, iyswim.

Relax. This made a huge difference. I literally needed reminding with every contraction, but each time I was reminded I untensed and it hurt much less.

Twelve hour labour for me. 8cm before we got to hospital. I used a Tens machine which really helped as I had something else to focus on. I took paracetomal about an hour in and had a long, warm bath and sat and straightened my hair, stopping for each contraction to bite down hard on a towel! Sounds silly but the shift of focus really helped. Once we got to hospital I just took each few minutes as they came and focused on that.

I had on my birth plan that I was open to any pain relief, but don't offer it to me - wait until I asked.

During contractions I went into an internal headspace. They were more intense than painful. During each one I tried to relax and focus on the function of them. I was imagining my cervix opening more with each one.

After the initial hour of contractions when I had a bath, I ended up on my hands and knees with my head on the bed for the rest of them. My midwife encouraged me to try other positions and to move around, but the best I could manage was to hold on to the raised head of the bed, belly down, which I guess meant that gravity helped too.

I wouldn't have been without DH for anything! He was the one who held the gas pipe for me as I couldn't really move.

Good luck OP!

Carry on as normal for as long as possible.
With my 1st I was in hospital so couldn't really do much. With my 2nd I did the hoovering and stuff , with 3rd (home birth) I did the ironing until the contractions got too painful.
It took my mind off things and really the only bad bits were the pushing parts, which were over quite quickly.

I found this book really reassured me www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0091935504?pc_redir=1403927115&robot_redir=1

I also used the natal hypnotherapy cd and found it helped.

I had a pretty awful birth, was hooked up on the induction drip and not allowed to move from the bed, when I desperately wanted to move around. They even put me in stirrups, despite me and DH protesting! But the contractions were totally manageable, as long as I closed my eyes and focussed through each one. I counted - I think I counted to 6 for an in breath and 8 for out breath, and imagined I was in a happy place (for me, it was in my garden, in a deckchair, in the sunshine). I very carefully imagined all the details - the feel of the sun on me, the smell of suncream, etc etc. It really distracted me and kept me calm.

I really clung onto the fact that my body was designed to do it, and if I stayed calm and didn't tense up, it would be fine. Those techniques really helped me - I was chatting away in between contractions and didn't need pain relief until the very end.

Good luck!