What is induction of labour? Induction of labour is any process that exerts external influence to try and start the body's process of labour and birth. This may include anything you try to do yourself such as having sex or eating curry and anything you have done by a holistic practitioner such as a chiropractor, acupuncturist or reflexologist to help your body do what you want it to do.
It also includes the 'stretch and sweep' or 'membrane sweep' procedure which involves your care provider inserting their (gloved) finger into your cervix and separating the membranes holding your waters away from the cervix with a circular sweeping motion. This is not always recognised as part of the induction of labour process but it is an intervention with the object of starting labour off. As with any intervention your care provider needs to make sure you're making an informed decision on whether or not to accept that intervention. So, they will be very happy to help you go through the benefits, risks and alternatives with you and to let you know what will happen if you do nothing. You can ask as many questions as you need and think through what your instincts are at the time before making your decision. This way of thinking through your choices is very useful and you will notice we frequently reference it. We remember it with the acronym BRAIN (benefits, risks, alternatives, instincts, nothing).
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1. In (almost) all health situations you alone have the right to make decisions about your own health care. The only exceptions are
7/8/2024 0 Comments Normal Newborn Feeding We need support to feed our babies not "breastfeeding promotion" Maybe the most common question you will have been asked in your antenatal appointments is how are you planning to feed your baby? The most common advice is likely to have been you “should” breast/chest feed. So many parents find the flip side of this is once the baby is born if they have any experience other than a perfectly latching and growing baby with no effort the advice changes to perhaps you “should” just give them a bottle. This situation leads to so many parents feeling they have failed and feeling guilty. This is the difference between breastfeeding promotion and baby feeding support. So let's be really honest. Establishing breast/chest feeding is probably more often than not an intense experience where challenges have to be faced and worked through. It is completely normal to need support with feeding your baby. Am I making enough milk? Should my nipples be this painful? The most common concerns that new parents have are making sure their baby is getting enough milk and having comfortable nipples.
Having realistic expectations can really help you with feeling confident that your baby is getting enough milk. Knowing your baby will need to feed AT LEAST 8-10 times in 24 hours can help but experiencing that may still feel overwhelming. Most babies don’t feed at exactly regular intervals. Eight times in 24 hours would be once every three hours but more likely there will be times when your baby sleeps for 4 hours and times when they want to feed again 10 minutes after the last time they fed. It’s very common for there to be a time of day, often early evening, when your baby feeds constantly on and off for a couple of hours or so, this is called cluster feeding. It’s also important to remember that feeding can be for lots of reasons not just for hunger, sometimes it’s for comfort or pain relief or connection. A taste of our online meet-ups. Everyone's experience and opinion is valid. When we set our topics for our meet-ups we try to find topics that will be interesting to a wide variety of people. Often we talk about perinatal mental health and we sometimes find people aren't sure if that applies to them. Even people who have struggled with feeling anxious or low mood while pregnant or parenting can be given the impression by society and the healthcare system that they should just get on with it and not moan because other people have it worse. So for future reference, if you see mental health on our topic list and wonder, yes this is for you. Another important note when we're talking about perinatal emotional and mental health we're not just talking about mums and birthing people. Partners, dads, all parents can struggle during the year or more around having a baby and all of the same things about reaching out for and providing your self with support apply to all of us. Peer support matters.  Hopefully, the tide is turning and we're getting the message out to more people that we all deserve love and support and we don't need to reach a level of not coping to reach out for that support. Our meet-ups (and other groups that connect you with people who are pregnant at the same time or have a similar age baby) are one of the things that fill the gap between trying to struggle through alone feeling overwhelmed and being really unwell and needing medical care for mental illness. Never underestimate the importance of connection with other people (especially people at a similar life stage to you) for positive mental and emotional well-being.
One of the things that many of the people at our recent online meet-up (where we covered this topic) identified with was that they don't always know how to put into words how or why they feel anxious, overwhelmed or sad but when other people talk about how they feel they can recognise that in themselves. Just knowing they are not alone helps many people to feel a little better. Our favourite part of talking about mental and emotional wellness is everyone sharing the things that help them to develop healthy coping mechanisms in the long term and the things that help them pull through the tough moments. Birth is just the start. This post is about planning for your birth and beyond in the context of planning for the fact that birth is just the start of the rest of your life. It's a bit like a post on planning your wedding that is mostly about planning for your marriage. Your birth and parenting experience is a journey into the great, exciting, unknown. You can't control everything, some things will happen that you're not expecting but you can give yourself the gift of support and knowledge that allows you to not just survive but thrive.
There's a saying: "It takes a village to raise a child" and that used to be naturally built into our daily lives. But modern-day parents are increasingly finding themselves coming into parenting with the expectation that it's all on them. We see parenting reflected in the media and on social media as something done inside a small nuclear family. We get the impression that we're expected to be able to meet all our children's needs by ourselves and even, if we're doing it "right", to find that experience blissful and fulfilling. |
AuthorPosts by team members who are doulas, antenatal teachers, placenta specialists and birth nerds among other things. Archives
March 2025
CategoriesAll Birth Birth Plan Mental Health Peer Support Postnatal Postnatal Plan |
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