Your Partner’s Role in Childbirth
Your Partner’s Role in Childbirth - Pregnancy & Childbirth Secrets
By: Gail Dahl
Excerpted from the book by Gail Dahl “Pregnancy & Childbirth Secrets”.
Here are a few ideas of what your partner can do for you during labor and delivery:
- Ask your partner to make sure that you have plenty of water, juices and tea to drink.
- Have your partner remind you to breathe slowly and deeply.
- Have your partner to remind you to urinate every hour to make more room for your
baby’s descent.
- Have your partner massage your lower back, neck and shoulders. Current
research shows that as you become more relaxed during labor your pain
decreases.
- A warm bath or shower, a gentle massage, a shoulder to lean against, a
gentle hug, encouraging words and a hand to grip will aid greatly in
naturally reducing pain during labor.
- Let your partner know before labor how much you love him. Warn him that
sometimes women say things during labor that they don’t mean. Let him
know not to take anything personally.
- Your partner is your cheering section. Even whispered words of encouragement can
help see you through to the end.
- Be clear in telling your partner what you need during labor, don’t assume
or expect your partner will know what you want during each stage.
-Walk around the hospital as much as possible during your labor and use your
partner to lean on during contractions. Having someone to lean on when
you are standing during a contraction will shorten the length of the
contraction.
-Your partner should encourage you to change positions whenever you can.
Moving into a new position, standing, walking, resting on the left
side, kneeling, moving to the bath, climbing stairs, squatting, and
leaning over furniture or birth balls will help your body and your baby
to work more efficiently.
-During delivery, have your partner hold the mirror so that you can see
your baby’s head as this will encourage you and help you to focus.
-Have your partner or professional labor support use the warmed oil you
have brought to massage your perineum and your baby’s head to ease
delivery.
-In the final stages of birth, a slow, controlled delivery in a
squatting, hands and knees or supported standing position can help to
increase the opening of the birth outlet helping to avoid tears or
episiotomy. A slow, controlled delivery will create an easier and safer
birth for both you and your baby.
-Upright positioning during childbirth will help release the natural
fetal ejection urge that occurs in a squatting, hands and knees or
supported standing position. There is no need to push the baby out in
one of these positions. Your partner can help by supporting you in one
of these positions.
-Ask your partner to make sure the cord has stopped pulsing before
cutting the cord in order for your baby to receive every bit of the
vital cord blood supply.
-Your partner can assist you in immediate breastfeeding within moments of
birth to help take advantage of your baby’s instinctual urge to
breastfeed which is the strongest the first hours after childbirth. In
an unmedicated birth, your baby will be ready, willing and able to
breastfeed within moments of birth….. Continued in “Pregnancy &
Childbirth Secrets”
Copyright
2008, Copyright released with references. “Pregnancy & Childbirth