Dr. Shannon’s Tips for a “Natural” or Un-medicated Birth
Dr. Shannon (a family medicine physician) just prepared this handout for patients in her practice who want a “natural” or un-medicated birth. Although she believes in the ability of all women to give birth normally, Dr. Shannon knows firsthand that a little bit of preparation goes a long way. Here are her tips for those of you who want a natural birth! If you are a doula, childbirth educator, midwife, doctor, or nurse, you can access a free, printable version of this handout here for your clients.
Dr. Shannon’s Tips for an Un-medicated Birth
© 2012 by www.evidencebasedbirth.com
If your goal is an un-medicated birth/natural vaginal birth…read below!!!
- Prepare and Practice! You wouldn’t run a marathon without training, would you? Labor and birth can be long and hard. Take a natural birth or Hypnobabies class at an independent childbirth education center NOT affiliated with a hospital. If you do this, you won’t even need to read the rest of the list! You will already know it all!
- Practice your relaxation exercises every night. Get your partner involved.
- Hire a doula. This is a woman who provides continuous labor support. They are trained to provide encouragement to you and your partner as well as massage, instruction on labor positions and help in navigating the medical world of labor and delivery. In research studies, doulas decreased C-section rates and epidurals and shortened labor duration, even when a supportive partner was present. They are worth every penny! For a list of doulas in the area, contact your local independent childbirth education center.
- Exercise, eat a nutritious diet and gain the appropriate amount of weight during pregnancy. Go to prenatal yoga classes or rent a prenatal yoga video.
- Visit http://spinningbabies.com/ to review healthy sitting positions for the third trimester and exercises that are vital to getting your baby in a good position before birth. Do 40 “Cat-Cow” poses every day!
- Read as much as possible on natural birth. These books are often available at your local library or for cheap at www.half.com:
- Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin (strongly recommended)
- The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence by Lothian
- Husband-Coached Childbirth by Robert Bradley
- Your Best Birth by Ricki Lake
- Birthing from Within by Pam England
- Birth Matters by Ina May Gaskin
- Do not watch television shows (A Baby Story) or movies that show negative birth experiences. Do not read or allow people tell you hospital horror birth stories. It is important for you to develop a confident mindset that birth is normal and healthy.
- Write down your birth preferences and give them to your partner, doctor, and nurse.
- Avoid an induction unless it is absolutely medically necessary.
- For every intervention that is offered, ask, “Is mom okay? Is baby okay?” Then use the BRAND acronym:
- What are the Benefits?
- What are the Risks?
- What are the Alternatives?
- What if we do Nothing?
- Give us time to Discuss and Decide.
- If this is your first baby and your provider says it’s okay, stay at home as long as possible during labor! If labor might be starting, try to ignore it. Walk, eat, stay hydrated, and relax. If it is nighttime, sleep, and if it is daytime, go about your normal activities. Try to keep moving during labor and avoid lying on your back. (If your water breaks, ask your provider what they recommend.)
- Be flexible! Every baby has its own timing and way of being born. Try not to get too worried about having a specific experience. Just try and make you and your baby as healthy and as ready as possible!
Have you used any of these suggestions before? Do you have any additional tips you would like to share with readers?
If you liked this post, click here for more articles featuring Dr. Shannon
In addition to her recommended readings I would highly recommend Ina May Gaskin’s, “Guide to Childbirth”. This has been THE most inspirational childbirth book for the mothers I teach and for me personally!
You are so right! That is actually in #6, but it is kind of buried in there because it’s not on the bulleted list. I will edit the list so that it’s in the bullets so people don’t miss it, because it is one of the best books out there!
Also visit http://www.birthsource.com and http://www.thebirthfacts.com for more information via the web.
another awesome source link: http://www.birthingnaturally.net
Fabulous list. So great to see it out there. It is information that pregnant families need to know and yet the message isn’t getting through. Have shared on Facebook.
This post is not too bad for advice on trying for a natural birth. Many good points. What I find a fault in your evidence based advice is referencing a celebrity Ricki Lake who has no medical training. Ina May Gaskin is definitely an icon in natural birth circles, but she doesn’t even have any formal medical training. Gaskin stole the maneuver for shoulder dystocia management from South American midwifes and named it after herself. Gaskin’s cervix is a sphincter claim has been discounted by every medical review. Gaskin allowed her own 32 weeker to die OOH because of her lack of knowledge that pregnancy is not always “normal and healthy” as you put it.
If knowledge is power, than knowing and hearing stories of high risk pregnancies is important to learn the signs and symptoms of conditions that may require hospitalization and interventions to know that your own pregnancy is void of these issues and may actually be low risk to attempt an unmedicated natural birth.
Otherwise preparing yourself with a plan of how to manage the pain of labor and practicing it is important. Many hospital childbirth classes ARE actually teaching this. Good luck to you all, and may all your pregnancies and labors go smooth.
If you look at my website carefully, you will see that I post 2 main categories of articles– evidence based articles that follow a method described here (http://evidencebasedbirth.com/about-2/methods/), and testimonials. This post was written by a physician friend of mine about one month after I started blogging. I changed my whole approach in August 2012 (see the Methods article I mentioned above). However, I kept this handout in here because it was quite popular and many people who I consider to be “experts” in natural birth (both consumers and care providers) have said that it is both useful and reflects their experiences pretty accurately.
I find the language that you use when talking about Ms. Gaskin to be very disturbing. She “stole” a maneuver and “named it after herself” sounds like she did something terrible, until you consider that most major medical discoveries that are named after male physicians probably went through the same process– but we never use that language when talking about them, do we? She “allowed” her own baby to die? That may or may not have happened, but I did read her account of that in Spiritual Midwifery… I would encourage you to do so as well (if you haven’t already). As a medical professional and a professor, one of the things that I always teach my students is to be careful when using judgmental language. It is not proper as a medical professional to judge someone and claim that they “allowed” their own family member to die. It is easy to get caught up in the heat of arguments between the natural vs. medicalized birth extremists, but I think it is more professional to try and stay above the fray. Here at Evidence Based Birth, I am now solely interested in the evidence-base behind the care that we offer. I don’t really care what women choose– whether they want a natural or medicated birth. I am all for options and informed, shared decision making. Like I said earlier, this article is archived from the beginning of my blog and people have found it very useful in prepping for their births.
I would actually be very interested in seeing the medical reviews about the sphincter claim that you reference, because I haven’t examined the evidence for that myself. I always thought of it more of an analogy about why privacy and trust are important to the birthing process, rather than an actual sphincter.
As far as your claim that it is important to watch stories about high-risk pregnancies that require hospitalization so that you can recognize whether or not your own pregnancy is low-risk— I just don’t see how this is necessary. If you are receiving good prenatal care, shouldn’t it be obvious that your care provider would teach you how to watch out for complications? I just don’t see how watching “A Baby Story” improves outcomes. I would love to see a research study on whether watching stories about high-risk moms (many of those moms become high-risk because of iatrogenic harms, by the way) is helpful to a low-risk pregnant woman– do you know of any studies like this? Since there aren’t any, and since this is not an evidence-based article but merely a handout with “tips” from a provider who is experienced in natural birth, I don’t think it hurts to stay away from ridiculous shows like A Baby Story and to listen to all the horror stories that are shared at baby showers, etc. It definitely encourages a culture of fear around childbirth. A little bit of fear is a good thing, but a whole ton of it is not helpful for the mindset of a woman who is attempting an unmedicated birth. As we all know, fear increases tension and pain!! Anyways, in this clinician’s opinion (Dr. Shannon), watching these negative shows has not helped her clients, so she felt that it was prudent to recommend this as a “tip,” to stay away from them. Not really evidence-based, but not really non-evidence-based either, if you know what I mean!
Finally, I would love to see some examples of hospital childbirth classes that actually teach you how to manage the pain of labor without medication. Take, for example, this class. http://50.63.182.198/~cfreeman/services/maternal-infant-health-center/childbirth-education-classes/ Do you really think this class would prepare someone who was interested in an unmedicated birth? In my personal experience, hospital classes basically inform women of the typical policies and procedures they will encounter (regardless of whether or not these policies are evidence-based), but may not equip women with the many skills that can help a woman and her partner through an unmedicated labor. However, I am sure that there are some good hospital courses out there as well. I actually would LOVE to see if there is a research study that has compared hospital versus independent childbirth education courses. I will ask my readers to stop by here and let us know if they know of any studies, or to share their personal experiences about hospital versus independent childbirth courses.
Again, these are “tips,” from a care provider who is experienced in natural birth (both first-hand and as a care provider). Check out articles that were written past August 2012 for strictly evidence-based information. Thank you!
Rebecca: PERFECTLY stated!