rose scent in child birth

[hazchem]

I'm having a home birth.

I've been reading shelia Kitzinger and she talks about a practice in spain(?) where they put a dried desert rose in the birthing room and in the heat of the room the rose opens up. both giving the room a nice smell and also symbolic ect of opening up to have the baby. i know i wont be able to find a desert rose in bromley in the midle of winter so i wondered about gettign some rose oil.

has anyone else use scents oils in childbirth?
did it help ?
was it distracting?
thanks

I'm sure it will be lovvely, but very little will actually distract you from the excrutiating pain of pushing a baby out of your vagina, so don't get too hung up about it.

Sounds lovely!

Am sure you can find a lovely rose that's close to opening. Something to look at to rest your mind on.

Get yourself to Neal's Yard and get them to check what's safe for massage etc.

My selection of oils helped me in first stages. How exciting for you! Future congrats.

lol yeah Im sure the scent of roses will diminish the pain of pushing something the size of a mellon out of an opening the size of a lemon

sorry am not feeling very nice today

Just get some gas and air, bit of pethidine and possibly an epidural and then you'll be pain free, but rose scent ..... er no!

What colditz said too!

You won't be thinking about scents in final stage! But if it takes ages at least the room will smell nice..

Thanks for the replies
i'll check out Neals yard. it sounds like a good excuse to buy lovely products for myself!
Mosschops no gas and air for me i've had it before i started seeing shit i was totally freaked out. Don't think i can hand the melon lemon pain and have audio and visual hallucinations

hahahahaha at what colditz said. But I like rose. Go for it.

I was given some aromatherapy oils by a midwife when I was in labour. To be honest, to start with, I thought what on earth is this all about and sniffed it for a bit just to humour them. I was shocked that it actually really helped keep me calm if I took deep breaths of it between contractions. It was a mixture of frankincense and lavender oils.

Later on my contractions slowed down a lot and I was trying to get the placenta out. I was expecting them to say, let's get out the drip, but they got some clary sage oil out then and I breathed that in and my contractions came back. This was all at an NHS hospital by the way. It actually changed my opinion of aromatherapy completely.

I say don't knock it till you've tried it! Keep meaning to look into aromatherapy more but just don't have the time at the moment....

Marylou our NHS hospital use aromatherapy oils too for both the birth and for healing afterwards. I found it really great not sure it helped with pain but it was certainly something to focus on at stages.

It is a drop in the ocean yes but I putbsome lavender on my pillow which I do find relaxing anyway ( often use it when can't sleep) and it certainly didn't hurt and maybe helped me relax a bit between contractions at least

My MW did the same on the lavender then clary sage thing - it really did seem to work!

thanks all.

i'll let you know how it goes in about 4 months time!

My due dates today so I can try it for you?! Only got some lavender and clary sage no Rose though, apart fom sniffing them what else can I do with the oils.

good luck with that....