Gentle birthing book by mothi gowri? have a question if you have read the book, otherwise might not make sense!

[jellyjelly]

Have been looking at the website and it mentions to pretend to push to please the staff but not really do it. Cant understand why and have yet to read the book but wondered if any of you knew already.

thanks

I have read this book but its been a while, I am thinking that it is possibly refering to the fact that midwives can often be very active in guiding women in the second stage of labour when in fact it is not always neccessary, but you should never be in a position where you have to pretend to do something in labour just to please the staff. If you google "birth without active pushing" you should come across an article in pdf format by Jean Sutton on the subject which explains why it can be harmful for mum and baby to do the old cheerleader style "PUUUSSHHH!!!" routine. I have seen many births where women have had long second stages and have needed to push, but similarly seen many (including my own) babies born without any active pushing. Hope this makes sense!

yes it does, i was on her site and reading the birth stories and one said "i pretended to push like you said" Or something like that but didnt know the reasons behind it. I have read books about doing shorter pushes rather than pushing to ten. Have you read many other books about alternative ways to labour?

We teach this in HypnoBirthing, we call it "breathing the baby out". Basically it's better for mum and baby if the mum does no active pushing in the second stage , your body will "expel" the baby on it's own (called the natural expulsion reflex, Michel Odent wrote lots on this), it takes roughly the same amount of time than with active pushing but is gentler on the baby and the mum's perineum! we tell our mums to stick their face in a beanbag, that way nobody knows whether they're pushing or not! the very worst thing you can do is coach a labouring woman to push (you know "1, 2, 3, puuuuush"). I guess that's what she's talking about since she seems to have lifted a lot of her book from HypnoBirthing.

HTH
Sarah

Birthfriendly - do you mean the Foetus ejection reflex ?

Jelly - Good midwives won't make you actively push if your body is pushing. You get to be "coached push" when you have an epidural or when they feel you have been in active 2nd stage for too long and the baby is distressed.

Jelly-sorry havent read book,but was advised that contractions SHOULD push the baby out.

didnt actively push dd or ds