The Birth Lounge Blog

Cesarean Recovery No matter how we bring our children into this world, our bodies will have some healing to do. Bringing a baby earthside is physically taxing, and involves so many different systems of the human body. In the case of cesarean delivery, there are a few more steps added to the recovery process. We tend to neglect these steps when leaving the hospital, but it’s important to know what tools are available in your recovery toolbox. Here are the five most impactful tools that ensure a faster and more complete recovery. Walking - After surgery your epidural or spinal will be removed and over the next few hours the numbness will begin fading away. While you may leave the OR expecting to take it as easy as possible, you will quickly find that the first task on your “to-do list” is getting up and taking a walk through the hospital corridor. While this can be painful and feel like it adds insult to injury, ambulation is imperative to proper recovery. Why? Because it is the action o...

Breech Birth Breech birth is a variation of normal. Hopefully you’ve heard this before, but oftentimes parents carrying breech babes are met with dead ends and discouragement that leaves them with the idea that their baby or body hasn’t done its job properly. Before we go any further, allow me to repeat myself. Breech is a variation of normal, occurring in 3-4% of term pregnancies. Breech fetal presentation means our body, which has answers no text book can teach us, has chosen this position for reasons we may not understand. Remember, things are not inherently bad or dangerous just because we don’t understand them. It just means we have knowledge to gain. What’s important to know is that vaginal breech birth is absolutely possible, and not only that! Vaginal breech birth, when properly supported, can be totally safe. While many providers may push a planned cesarean, you have the right to decline . The Safety Factor If breech presentation is normal, why are discoveries of Breech babie...

Tearing in Birth: What is the Norm? If there was ever one hill almost every doula would die on, it would almost certainly be that episiotomy and tearing are not by default, a normal part of birth. While episiotomy is blog for a different day, now is the perfect time to dive headfirst into perineal tears, labial lacerations, and everything in between. Let’s discuss why they occur, how to prevent them, how to know how severe they are, and how to heal them. When we think about tearing during childbirth, we often jump to thoughts of torn perineums, but the truth is that tears can affect almost every part of the vagina and vulva. Each tear comes with its own set of challenges, and some are more avoidable than others. However, no matter the location(s) of your tearing, healing will require care, delicacy, and kindness towards yourself. - Perineal Tearing : Tearing of the perineum is the most common and widely discussed area where tears take place. This is the tissue located between the vagin...

Things that F*ck Up your Birth Plan LATE PREGNANCY ULTRASOUNDS Ultrasounds are a ‘normal’ part of pregnancy if you ask any American woman—BUT if we look at the science behind them, you might be surprised at what you find… While you may enjoy seeing your baby, it’s worth discussing the risks before saying ‘yes’ to any and all ultrasounds and scans. Pregnant people routinely go through a number of ultrasounds during pregnancy.  Most commonly: - 11-14 weeks to confirm pregnancy - 18-22 weeks to confirm anatomy is looking normal - 35-38 weeks which is known as the growth scan (we check the ‘size of baby’ and baby’s position) I put ’size of baby’ in quotations because the accuracy of ultrasounds is so laughable that it’s ridiculous to lead anyone to ever believe we could accurately predict the size of a baby that way. Ultrasounds also get less and less accurate as the baby grows. However, there are risks with late-pregnancy ultrasounds and some are severe like misdiagnosis, unnecessar...

An Inside look at Obstetrical Violence (Derived from a podcast conversation with Tranquility By HeHe team members HeHe Stewart and Caitlin LeBeau in Episode 136 of The Birth Lounge Podcast, find it here !) Have you ever heard the term “obstetrical violence” and wondered what it meant? Or maybe you envisioned this blatant act of disrespect or an assault of sorts. These are both examples of obstetrical violence, but there is another side to it, too. A sneaky side. We're going to share a few instances of medical manipulation in the birth room. Not always aggressive, not violent. And that is a tactic- they are trying to get you to do what they want. Which is so hard to say because we are conditioned to trust our doctors, we want to trust our doctors. This isn’t about batting heads- this is about questioning, looking into research/evidence, looking into policies so you know if they are being influenced/pressured. Have that open communication if you can. You can say, 'That's not...

 Nubain: A Magic Pill? I think that a lot of times when people think about pain relief in labor, they think about unmedicated or they think about at the general use and it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other. There's actually a spectrum of pain relief that you can choose from when it comes to your birth. So if you need to be induced for some reason- what the reason is may also play a role in what your options are for pain relief. These are all discussions that you'll have to have with your doctor, but you really need to be having those discussions if you don't know what your options are. You need to empower yourself going into your labor. So that is why I wanted to talk about Nubain and Staidol in labor. A lot of people, when they think about having a baby, the first thing they think about is the pain and what it is going to feel like to actually have a baby. While this is a valid thought and concern, it is not necessarily where you need to start. You nee...

When Nurses Perpetuate the Patriarchy All right. I had something planned for you, but then, after being in a birth I decided to bring something different to the table today.  It's just something that I walked away with a reminder of and I wanted to pass it along so if you are having your baby soon, hopefully you will remember this and you'll come back to this conversation and find that confidence to speak up.  So what I want to share today about is how nurses can perpetuate the patriarchy of birth. And when I'm talking about the patriarchy of birth, I truly am talking about the medical system taking the power away from birthing people.  I think that there is a place where our medical system can be second tier, right? And that birthing person is the top tier. They're literally the top of the totem pole. They are number one on the pyramid. They are the peak, right? And the medical system, the medical staff, the doctor are below them. I truly believe this.  So, so deepl...

Why Your Baby's Position Matters Today I want to talk about why your baby's position is quite possibly the most important thing that you need to be focused on at the end of pregnancy. And when I say end of pregnancy, I pretty much mean the entire third trimester. Your baby's position is literally everything as your baby starts to snuggle into position and the real estate, if you will, your belly kind of gets smaller. Your baby is going to start to push on these nerve endings, ligaments, and tendons, and the pressure, those sensations that your baby is sending to your body are intentional. Your body is looking for specific nerves and tendons and ligaments to be pressed. Your body is looking for specific signals and your baby is looking for specific signals too. Your baby's position is everything for this process.  We want to make sure that in the third trimester, we're really working on your baby's position. Now I'm not going to give you tips on how to get yo...

Magic Words in Birth Hello, happy 2021 friends. I cannot wait to see what this year holds. And you know what, when I look back over 2020, it hadn't all been bad at, if you look at Episode 121 of The Birth Lounge Podcast , I actually talk about some of the positives that have come up for women's health from Coronavirus, specifically within the birth world. But in general, I think we're going to start to see some positive strides. I know that 2020 has been a hard year for so many people in, in the birth world. I was just actually talking to the birth workers and we were all sharing that collectively things just feel heavier in the birth space. It feels like outcomes aren't as great and that there's a lot more medical manipulation (Check out Episode 136 of the podcast on medical manipulation). Recently, we had a really amazing birth at TBH. It was so beautiful. Total hours was only 11 hours. And this birthing person only pushed for 20 minutes and she had zero tearing ...

Do Inductions Really Rise Around the Holidays? As long as I can remember in my doula career, I have been told, both seriously and sarcastically, that inductions rise around the holidays because doctors want to control the births they will have to deliver on..let’s say Thanksgiving day or Christmas Day.  I have to be honest in that I never really paid much attention to it because our team typically takes off the end of the year! It has been an intentional decision in years past to not take births in the months of December and January. This provided us with the time to disconnect, visit family and friends, and wrap up one year + dive into the next with a solid foundation. As you well know, 2020 has changed so much of what we knew and, for us, this meant not having the space to disconnect without leaving birthing people vulnerable in a global crisis and not traveling for this holidays. With this, we decided to work straight through 2020 into the start of 2021. And in this moment, the ...