Birth Standing

Writting a specific birth story is challenging because of all of the births I have seen in the past three months, they blend together. I was going to write about my last catch but I am not so great at narrative. I thought it better to write some of the more intense moments instead, kinda like looking through a photo album of snapshots of the past 3 months here.

I could even catagorize them according to interesting little details no?

Moms standing and squatting during pushing...

1. A mama came in pushing, we brought helped her to the "peach room", barely had time to put a chux down, before her baby came out hollering. Her huband stood behind her and held her elbows as she squatted with each back to back contraction and pushed. None the less, he had a backache afterward.

2. Sylvia...one of the strongest woman I have ever seen. A 3rd time birthing machine, she followed her instincts so amazingly. She birthed standing until the head began to come, then moved gracefully to the birth stool where to rest of that 9 1/2lb baby came sliding out. We were a little worried as the heart tones slipped below 90bpm as the head was compressed (very normal but it always seems to bring a bit of worry into the room). Baby came out a litte gunky but beautifully pink.

3. The first time I assisted was with a momma standing. The baby's head came sllllllowly out without restitution and then had some sticky shoulders. A slow 2 minutes ticked by before we moved her to the bed into McRoberts, that seemed to work to birth the rest of the body. The baby was great and the parents were estatic. The whole labor and birth we had been speaking in Spanish. As the momma received her little girl, she looked at all of us and said "OH THANK YOU, I am so happy"

A little side note:

I have seen a lot of sticky shoulders, for awhile I was equating it with bed dystocia, or "mammas birthing on their backs" dystocia. I don't know now though...I have seen hands and knees dystocia too. I also used to think that dystocias were caused by directed pushing too, but that theory hasn't panned out either. Most of these babies were under 8 lbs too.

I wonder sometimes if the dystocia is about fear, or disturbing the birth space as well. I imagine that Michel Odent would agree...

At any rate, the sticky shoulders have always easily resolved...so maybe that would not define a true dystocia? I am still working it out in my head and may never draw any scientific conculsions. Birth never seems to follow the paridigm of science, there are too many variables to adequately give theories about labor patterns and complication patterns that apply regularly: ie, dystocias are more likely to occur with babies over soo and such weight. It just doesn't seem to happen that way....

I was talking about birth stories was I not? It is so easy to get off topic...part of my writing is processing all of these experiences and information. To be continued.