I was caring for a young lady having her fourth baby, a girl after 3 boys just like me. On taking over her care from the night staff I found Tailor sat on a birthing ball leaning forward on the bed using entonox. She was very tense and when she had a contraction she was crying with the pain. I knelt down next to her and started talking her through the contractions, teaching her how to relax her shoulders and then the rest of her body. It took her about 15 min to master the relaxing and she was amazed at how the contractions did not cause her any more pain. She was able to remain relaxed and started laughing and joking with her family who were very supportive. We got to 10 cm dilated in no time at all now that her cervix was not being held shut by adrenalin (see why labour hurts 3).
I cannot pretend that the second stage of labour is pain free cos you have a bony head stretching your perineum, have you ever had a Chinese burn? It is something like that! Tailor got onto the bed and adopted a hands and knees position. It is always so much easier to give birth in this way as the pelvic outlet is bigger and there is less pressure on the perineum, an English burn instead of a Chinese one, maybe? Taylor was brilliant throughout and soon gave birth to a beautiful bouncing baby girl delivered by my lovely student Jo. Awwww.
No comments:
Post a Comment