#cascade of interventions

8 Steps to Creating Your Dream Birth

Birth can be one of the most beautiful experiences a woman ever has or it can be a horrendous nightmare. The difference is knowing how to prepare for birth. These 8 steps will help you create the birth of your dreams. I expand on them more in my course Creating Your Dream Birth you can take here.

1.       Choosing a Location There is a big difference in hospitals and the policy they have greatly changes your birth experience. Always visit and talk to the nurses at a hospital before you deliver there. In my course I go through a list of questions to ask and how to determine if a hospital is mother-baby friendly. Especially if you are high risk, it is worth knowing beforehand the hospital policy.

2.       Choosing a Care Provider It is important to be comfortable and feel safe with your care provider. You need to know they will support your desires. Most care providers work in a practice so it is important to know if corporately they will support your birth plan. There are so many good doctors and midwives get some recommendations from other moms and the nurses at the hospital.  3.       Good Nutrition Is the Key to a Good Birth If you asked me what makes the biggest difference in pregnancy, for the health of the mom and baby, I would say nutrition. Good nutrition builds healthy tissues, expands blood volume, gives nutrition and oxygen to the baby, and prevents anemia. It lowers your chances of a long labor, postpartum depression, and difficult nursing.

4.       Preparing Your Body. You are about to run a marathon and then be the sole source of food for another human that is nursing. It is important to prepare your body with exercise, your tissues so you don’t tear, and your nipples for breastfeeding. If you prepare your body physically you will have an easier labor and be more able to enjoy your new baby.

 5.       Be Proactive Not Reactive with Complications Know what risk factors you have and you may be able to prevent them from happening. You can help prevent many complications with diet and lifestyle and good supplements. These complications include preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and preterm labor. Some care providers have a wait and seen instead of prevention mind set.

  6.       Have A Good Birth Team Have a team around you to support you so you feel safe. This enables you to relax and labor to go more smoothly. Your birth team may not all be at your birth but should include a doula for your birth and a postpartum doula. You should seriously consider also having on your team, a lactation consultant, pediatrician, chiropractor, photographer, placenta encapsulation specialist, and childcare for other kids.

 7.       Prevent the Cascade of Interventions The cascade of interventions are small interventions that often end in a c-section. They include induction, continuous fetal monitoring, Pitocin, epidural and c-section. All of these can be good interventions when needed but oftentimes are not needed and lead to other unnecessary interventions, each with their own negative side effects. When you know when these are needed and how to avoid them if they are not it will help you avoid an unnecessary c-section.

 8.       Have a Simple Birth Plan Summarize your desires for your birth on a simple one page birth plan that you OK with your doctor before labor. This is an easy way to share with the hospital staff what your desires are for labor so while in labor you can focus on having a baby. Check out my free course how to create a birth plan.

When you have the above steps in place they will help you to create the birth of your dreams. If you want to know more about how to implement each step please take my course Creating Your Dream Birth.

Since the dawn of time, women have been giving birth.  They have been giving birth in the fields, in huts, alone or surrounded by loved ones and handling birth as they should be handled; as a natural, normal function of the female’s body.  So why do we treat them like medical emergencies?

Today in this country, mothers, especially new mothers who don’t have family or friends to support them in a natural birthing plan, run the risk of being shuffled through the medical system as they prepare to have a baby. It is as much like it sounds, a system, much like a conveyor belt where the doctors and hospital’s policies take precedence if not questioned.  There is little honor or respect given to mothers, and there is no celebration of the new life which has entered the world.  From the warm darkness of his momma’s womb to the cold, bright, loud delivery room in a hospital, it can be a harsh environment for baby to be born into. The effect on the momma can be no less harsh for them either. Psychological wounds resulting in depression can result, as can an unsatisfying birth experience which she will always remember.  In some cases, women are so disrespected and their choices removed that it has been compared to rape.

I don’t say these things lightly, and I’m not saying them to scare you. My goal is to remind you that you have choices.

In our society, we are taught from a very young age that we need to seek an outside authority for validation and for guidance.  Most of us weren’t raised in settings where critical thought was welcomed, and as children we were just taught to obey by parents, teachers, and other adults.  This fits us neatly into the mainstream medical industry, and this is the thought process we as women continue to work to overcome in ourselves in many areas of our lives.

Prenatal visits are scheduled at particular intervals, and there is poking, prodding, measuring, and testing at every turn.  It can be uncomfortable, and even invasive, but we have been conditioned to accept this as normal.  Especially in the case of new mothers where they don’t know what to expect, they look for reassurance and guidance from the medical establishment. Sadly, what they get is systematized treatments.

This all culminates at the time of the “expected” due date.  A baby is ready when he or she is ready. Sometimes a little early, sometimes a little late.  That sort of view doesn’t work in the schedules of hospitals, though.  No, a doctor needs to have this whole “birth” thing planned out, he has places to be, after all, and other patients that need his attention.  Pop that baby out when he says to!  This leads to what is known as the Cascade of Interventions.  These usually include Pitocin, rupturing of the membranes, and “pain management”.  While we can’t say these interventions are the cause of our high rate of birth by cesarean section, there is evidence which suggests a correlation between them. It all sounds reasonable at each turn, this little thing to help with that, and so on.  But it results in an experience that has nothing to do with the joy of motherhood and the magnitude of creating a baby.

It’s devastating to see how many mothers miss that golden hour, that hour right after birth, to have their little one placed against their skin to bond and to begin suckling.  Babies have their cords immediately cut, get washed, wrapped, and stuck in an incubator with monitors.  In the vast majority of cases, this post-birth separation is needless and can create a psychological gap between mother and baby.

What kind of damage can an epidural cause?