Tag: progress

birth, labour, reflections

Leave the clock behind

Roshnii Rose

As a pregnant woman, surrounded by a birth culture that is obsessed with monitoring the progress of labour, it is hard not to focus on how long labour has lasted and how long and frequent your contractions are.

Yet it appears to me that the habit of ‘watching the clock’ from the first rhythmic twinges of early labour can make the process seem long, drawn out and eventually exhausting.

timing-contractions

Every woman’s labour is different to the next and the effacement and dilation of the cervix can happen in fits and starts rather than along a predictable curve, so even if you are closely timing your labour it doesn’t mean you know how far you’ve come or how far you have to go, which is ultimately what all women long to know.

In the world of birth, you hear a lot about long labours, fatigue and lack of progress, which then lead to interventions such as the use of synthetic oxytocin to speed up the labour or epidural anasthesia to enable a mother, who has been labouring for many hours, to rest .

But what if our image and expectations of labour were different? What if, instead of watching the clock or the smartphone app to time contractions, a woman in the early stirrings of labour set her mind on some other absorbing task? Continue reading “Leave the clock behind” →

events, groups

Talking about Home Birth

Roshnii Rose

On Saturday, Supriya and I helped organise the first of many (hopefully) home birth meetups in Coimbra for Uma Mãe Nasceu.

To our joy, the event was well attended with around 25 participants including midwives, doulas, parents and interested folk.

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We watched a short film showing four births in different contexts, which gave rise to some interesting discussion about the different dynamics that develop around labour and a birthing woman.

In the near future, we are planning to organise more meetings like this one to bring people together around the topic of home birth and how to make it more accessible in Portugal. We are hatching some plans to take the topic to different cities so we can connect with others who are passionate about this subject.

birth, labour

Toques: Ferramenta útil ou intervenção desnecessaria? / Vaginal exams: Useful tool or unnecessary intervention?

Roshnii Rose

Inserir os dedos na vagina de uma mulher deve ser uma das formas mais íntimas ou invasivas de tocar o corpo de uma mulher. Ainda assim, este continua a ser o método mais utilizado para determinar a progressão do trabalho de parto.

Existem de facto muitas maneiras para uma parteira avaliar o quanto o trabalho de parto de uma mulher já progrediu, tais como:

  • escutar os sons que ela faz;
  • sentir o odor presente na divisão;
  • verificar a linha púrpura que pode surgir na pele entre as nádegas;
  • notar como a mulher está a interagir com os que a rodeiam.

Continuar a ler este artigo na Vida Ativa.

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Inserting one’s fingers into a woman’s vagina must be one of the most intimate or invasive ways to touch a woman’s body. And yet, this continues to be the most commonly used method of assessing a woman’s progress in labour.

There are in fact many ways that a midwife can assess how far a woman’s labour has progressed, such as: listening to the sounds she makes; observing the smell in the room; checking for the purple line that may rise on the skin between the buttocks or simply noticing how the woman is interacting with those around her.
As well as being an invasive and sometimes painful procedure that may make a labouring woman feel uncomfortable or tense at a time when she needs to feel relaxed and at ease, vaginal exams (VEs) can be problematic for a number of reasons.

Continue reading “Toques: Ferramenta útil ou intervenção desnecessaria? / Vaginal exams: Useful tool or unnecessary intervention?” →