This is it - the finish line. You and your partner have been training for this event for the last 40 weeks and there is no turning back. Hopefully, you have registered in a prenatal class (aka childbirth education class) to help prepare you for labor and delivery. And if you haven’t already registered, then you should as soon as possible since spaces always fill up early. Very few couples, who are of sane mind, decide to face the delivery room without any preparatory training.
That said, this article is not intended to be your sole resource on childbirth education; rather, it is only a simplified version of what you can expect. You may use this article as part of your pre-prenatal education program or as part of your post-prenatal review. However you choose to use this article is entirely up to you, provided that you do not use it as your only information source.
Labor, like pregnancy, is divided into three parts: stage one, two and three. Stage one is further divided into three phases: early labor, active labor and the transition period. Don’t worry if this doesn’t make any sense to you now or if you find it slightly boring, since everything will become clearer after you read this article and take your prenatal classes. That said, you should be forewarned that childbirth education is a complicated topic.
After all, it is about childbirth and the labor process is laborious for both you and your partner. To make matters worse, the entire labor process is long, lasting an average 12-20 hours. Really. While the average length is about 15 hours for the first pregnancy, labor actually gets shorter with each subsequent pregnancy. Whatever you do, do not use this little piece of information as a way to console your partner while she is in her 18th hour of labor - she will be in incredible pain and is not in the mood to discuss future pregnancy plans. Enough said.
Now, let’s try to decode the stages of labor.
Stage One
Early Labor - At Home (Phase I): This is the longest part of labor, lasting anywhere from a few hours to a few days. This phase will begin by regular contractions (which are different from the Braxton-Hicks contractions your partner may have been experiencing irregularly over the last several weeks as her body began preparing for labor and delivery). These contractions are the real-deal and will intensify as your partner’s cervix begins to dilate. However, the contractions will be manageable and it is not necessary to go to the hospital yet. Your partner may also experience a small amount of spotting (i.e., blood).
Once this phase has begun, your partner should not eat anything unless her doctor specifically says it is okay (Note: Drinking water is highly recommended throughout all stages of labor). You, however, should eat and drink as necessary. Remember, you will need the energy to help coach your gal through all of this.
Your role during this phase is simply to help keep your partner comfortable and relaxed. Go for a walk, watch television or take a nap.
Active Labor (Phase II): This phase is generally shorter (about 3-4 hours), but more intense than the first phase. The cervix continues to dilate, bloody spotting increases and the infamous “water” will break. This is the time to call your doctor and head to the hospital. Still, there is no need to panic. Despite all the cliche scenarios depicted on television and in movies, childbirth is a slow process.
Reassure your partner that you are there to help her and that you are willing to do anything she wants. This may mean massaging her, feeding her ice chips or just leaving her alone.
Transition Period - At the Hospital (Phase III): This phase lasts a few hours and is characterized by intense pain as your partner’s cervix becomes fully dilated. If your gal is going to ask for pain medication during labor, this will be the time. She’ll be tired, sweaty and exhausted. Despite the desire to begin pushing, your partner will be ordered to resist, which will only make her more irritable. Your job is to encourage her to breath, relax and not push. She will only prolong the birthing process and cause undue strain on her body if she begins pushing too early.
Your partner will need a lot of support and, given the incredible pain, will not likely be nice or polite. Thicken your skin and be a man. Don’t argue with her, don’t try to reason with her and don’t get upset if she swears at you. Just suck it up and continue to coach her through the labor process.
Stage Two
If you thought that the transition period was bad, wait until you get to stage two. The pain intensifies and the amount of blood increases. Fortunately, this is the shortest stage of labor and the most rewarding. Your partner will be given the green light to begin pushing. Listen to the doctors and don’t interfere with this process. Just continue to support your gal with words of encouragement and within about two hours, your baby will be delivered!
Stage Three
The contractions continue for another 30 minutes as your partner’s uterus tries to expel the placenta. Both your partner and yourself will be exhilarated as the reality of what just happened hits you. After 40 weeks and many hours of labor, YOU ARE NOW PARENTS. Congrats!
So, if there are any lessons to be learned here, it would be these three:
1. Know your stuff and be prepared for labor. This means enrolling in childbirth education classes and preparing a birthing plan.
2. There is no rush to get to the hospital. If possible, try to relax and rest in the comfort of your own home during the early labor phase of stage one. The remaining phases and stages will be at the hospital and will be intense.
3. Expect a lot of blood and other bodily fluids, including poop (honestly!). Take a deep breath and go with it.
If you are an expectant father, make sure to visit www.thefunkystork.com for more male-oriented articles on pregnancy.
Owner and creator of http://www.thefunkystork.com - the only online guide for modern expectant fathers.
EPIDURALS CAN SAVE YOU FROM THE “HORRORS” OF CHILDBIRTH
It is true that an epidural may make a woman have an easier birth, but may also complicate matters? Recently, I heard of a new study written by an anesthesiologist, stating that epidurals do not increase the woman’s risk of cesareans. I immediately dismissed it as an attempt to sell a book. The audience is for women who are wanting the validation that it is OK to have an epidural. Guess what? It is OK to have an epidural. If that is what a woman wants, I am all for her right to choose. However, there are still risks with any medical intervention. To sell a book to women who are wanting an epidural and convincing them there are no complications is a farce. This author loves what he does. He loves to save and protect women from the “horrors” of labor contractions. I would love to have him inside my labor and delivery room, if I desired an epidural.
WITH NATURAL CHILDBIRTH YOU DON’T NEED “SAVING”
I am passionate about what I do as a childbirth educator and a birth Doula. I have been at hundreds of births from the first to the last contraction. I bet money that this physician has never seen a natural delivery in a hospital setting where the mother is silent, controlled, enduring, and taking each contractions as it comes. These women act as if they have the whole world supporting them. Some of these women never seemed to have any discomfort because of the body’s endorphins. They view birth as natural and healthy and they don’t need to be saved.
HOWEVER:
With the typical birth in the hospital, most deliveries will be induced or augmented with pitocin. Pitocin makes the contractions stronger and more intense than nature intended. Other medical interventions will take place sooner than later. The woman is stuck in bed with a lot of pain. She isn’t able to move around and treat labor as natural, normal and healthy. Therefore, she has no choice but to have pain medications to endure the “wrath of the managed labor.” That is why I am glad that the epidural is available for those women really needing it.
BENEFITS OF A NATURAL DELIVERY
The epidural vs. no medication is this analogy. Are you going to hike up the most beautiful mountain canyon or are you going to take a tram? The ultimate goal is to reach the top. Both ways will reach your goal. One will endure more beauty as you take part of the entire scene. Taking the tram allows you to see some beauty but not all of it. You miss the power that you see in yourself as you hike. You miss out on the support system that is there to help you endure.
I have had two epidurals myself which I will never apologize for. However, I have also had the most beautiful unmedicated delivery. I did say immediately after that delivery that I wanted to do it all over again. It is true that no one throws you a party for not using the epidural. But, I will never forget the love, support and guidance from my birth team. I would not have had that if an epidural had “saved me.”
Julie L. Johnson is a wife and mother of three who has experienced every pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and breastfeeding situation there is and has lived to tell about. She is a Certified Lamaze Childbirth Educator, Certified Doula and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant practicing in Southern California. Her website http://www.birth-angel.com provides services and products to help ease the transition into motherhood.
Any casual glance at child rearing guides will reveal that particular attention is paid to baby sleep habits. The reason is fairly obvious: one of the most difficult things for a new parent to get used to is dealing with constantly being awoken in the night by a newborn. There are no hard and fast rules to getting your baby to sleep well, as all newborns are different. There are, however, some baby sleep tips you can employ that will help. The important thing is to understand that your judgment as a parent is paramount: don’t get stubborn with tips that don’t seem to work, and try a wide variety and things to find out what works best for you and your baby.
A good place to start, in terms of baby sleep tips, is to establish a bedtime ritual for your baby. The reason that your newborn doesn’t sleep well through the night at first is because he is used to falling asleep with his mother. When he awakes in the night he naturally cries for his mother - the only way he knows how to go back to sleep. As your newborn grows older a slow transition will occur whereby he learns to go to sleep on his own, and - more importantly - when he wakes in the night he can learn to fall back asleep on his own. Your goal as a parent is to try and speed up this transition as much as possible, the result will not only be a good night’s rest for you, but a development of better sleeping habits for your child in the long term.
To get your child to sleep well on his own, focus on a consistent bedtime routine. Babies are very dependant on routines - their world is so narrow that they generally focus on only a few things throughout the day - the way to create transitions in their day, therefore, is to change how these things are presented to them.
For example, your bedtime routine may consist of a warm bath, a feeding and changing, and some rocking before bed. If you repeat this every night your baby will slowly begin to associate these things with sleep. Every night, then, your child will naturally start to fall into a “sleeping mode” when you do these things. If you are inconsistent, however - if, say, you only bathe him on odd nights, or change the order of bedtime events - you will confuse the child and he will be unsure of what happens next: he won’t know whether he’s going to sleep after his bath, or being read a story.
A bedtime routine should also employ spending a good amount of time with your baby. Even from a very young age, babies will learn to manipulate their parents, and if you don’t spend enough time with your baby before he falls asleep, he will start to stretch out the bedtime ritual in order to spend more time with you.
In establishing a bedtime ritual for your child, you primary concerns should be to make it consistent. To ensure better sleeping habits for your baby, don’t focus so much on what you do before bed, rather, pay attention to doing the same things in the same order every night.
Brandon C. Hall maintains Free Info Blog which contains many articles and resources on baby sleep tips as well as many other topics.
When we consider that the word allowance means, “allowing for,” it puts that “A” word into better perspective.
Children will need access to their own stash of cash when they reach a certain age. Kids develop this need around age 8 or 9 and it grows into the monster it will become by about age 15 or 16 … they do get more expensive with age, don’t they?
At age 8, we began giving our older daughter money for each A on her report card and for each 100% on tests. We receive flack from other parents about it to this day. Mainly, their argument is that children should do well in school because they “want to.” Is this the same as “just because?” Sounds like it to me. I think parents are afraid to reward their kids for good grades simply because they feel this will set a bad example. But a bad example for what? That if they work hard and do well, they will get rewards? Isn’t that precisely how the world works? We still think it’s a good idea, even 4 years later.
This same daughter gets an allowance plus her good grade money. She can spend her “own” money on whatever trips her wire. She has learned not to squander everything on one momentarily gratifying purchase, she’s a whiz at making sure she’s given the correct amount of change and her shopping savvy is positively inspiring. She also must put ten percent of her money in the bank. It’s an amount not likely to be missed, but teaches her the benefits of “paying yourself first.” She’s amassed quite the savings account!
My younger daughter is in first grade and beginning to demand her share of the booty. She now gets money for perfect test scores and for a “good” report card. She receives a lot less than her sister but she’s 5 years younger and hasn’t learned to tell the difference … yet. She also gets a small allowance. She knows how much she has to spend and is learning the rituals of managing her own money, too.
While some children don’t really care about going to the mall or buying their own special treats, most kids do care … an awful lot. Children will begin craving all sorts of pricey, impractical things by a certain age. A good alternative to spending a fortune catering to their whims is teaching them to save for frivolous luxuries. If they want something impractical that we can’t rationalize buying for them, they’re on their own.
A potential problem I see occurring when children don’t have their own money is a possible desire to steal, be it from their parent’s wallet or something cool they feel they have to have from a store. Without the ability to “earn” or make the money fairly, they might feel the only way to attain something they want is to take it. Naturally, we teach our children that stealing is wrong but when kids, or adults for that matter, feel helpless they tend to take morality into their own hands. Besides, kids need to learn fiscal responsibility. I think the earlier we allow them to experience the rewards and triumphs of good spending habits, the better judges of value they will become.
One controversy is paying children for doing chores. This is a tough call. I have just begun implementing mandatory chores in our home. Considering it’s never been one of my better parenting abilities, I’m still struggling through the details. I have been known to threaten their allowance if they don’t do their chores but it doesn’t really work the way I want it to. My older daughter decides if it’s “worth” it at that point and that’s not the point at all, is it? So, I’m backtracking on this one and being firmer about chores just getting done and trying not to threaten their livelihood.
I think allowance is a great teaching tool when given in the spirit of generosity and practicality. It’s never too early to learn or teach responsibility and when we consider that allowance is a good math lesson, we’ve just added to our children’s knowledge base considerably.
Copyright 2002 - 2005 - Rexanne Mancini
Rexanne Mancini is the mother of two daughters, Justice and Liberty. She is a novelist, freelance writer and maintains an extensive yet informal parenting and family web site, Rexanne.com - http://www.rexanne.com -Visit her site for good advice, award-winning Internet holiday pages and some humor to help you cope. Subscribe to her free newsletter, Rexanne’s Web Review, for a monthly dose of Rexanne: http://www.rexanne.com/rwr-archives.html