March 18, 2025 • 28 mins
When Minnie's home birth plans shifted to a hospital delivery after two days of stop-start labor, she didn't just accept her "Plan B" – she got creative. Her unexpected strategy? Dressing "like a celebrity avoiding paparazzi" complete with sunglasses, headphones, and clothes pulled over her head.
Despite synthetic oxytocin making contractions feel "like being hit by lightning," Minnie found herself overcome with relief and joy during the final moments, laughing her daughter Charlie out into the water and her husband's waiting hands.
From birth pool to home by dinner time, Minnie's story proves that positive births aren't about location but feeling empowered through every contraction.
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Diary Of A Birth features mums telling their miraculous stories of bringing life into the world. If you’d like to share your birth story, we’d love to hear from you at podcast@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note here.
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CREDITS:
Host: Ksenija Lukich
Birth Story: Minnie Collins
Obstetrician & Gynaecologist: Dr Bronwyn Devine
Producers: Ksenija Lukich , Tina Matolov & Lee Stamps
Audio Producer: Leah Porges
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our respects
to elders past, present and emerging, and feel privileged to
continue the sharing of birth stories and knowledge that has
been a fundamental part of Indigenous culture. Hi. I'm Cassenya
(00:45):
Lukisch and this is diary of a birth. I had
both my kids in hospital with an epidural, and I'm
very happy with my choice. What I don't like is
the discourse that's often involved in a mother's right to
choose how she gives birth. You want an elective cesarean
amazing love that. You want an unmedicated birth, that's absolutely incredible.
(01:10):
Today's mom has done just that, giving birth the way
she wanted to. What I wasn't expecting is her laughing
her baby out.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I just felt this like overwhelming relief kind of just
rush over me, and I guess that sort of translated
as laughter.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I loved her calm approach to birth and was so
inspired it almost almost made me want to try an
unmedicated birth. So let's meet today's mum.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Hi, am Minni, and this is the diary of my
birth with Charlie.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Charlie is your second and you had your first baby
in the UK.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, So I had my first daughter over in London
while we're living there.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
For five years.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I had a really positive, unmedicated birth with her in
a birth center in a hospital there with her when
I was in early labor. I had a really smooth
early labor and I labored really well at home. When
I got to the hospital, I was eight and a
half centimeters dilated. But the transition to the hospital I
had a crazy taxi driver who was praying madly but stressful.
(02:21):
Arriving at the hospital was really stressful and it just
sort of stalled my labor. My husband and I sort
of joked that we could have had the baby at
home with my first baby. Going into my second berth,
I really didn't want that same experience of stalling and
kind of being.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Quite stressed going into.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
That really key part of labor. So I started thinking about, well,
what birth environment would look good for me and how
could I stop that from happening? What would look like
in environment where that wouldn't happen, And the more I
kind of thought about it, the environment that made sense
for me was home. So I started looking into how
I would have a home birth for my second.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Daughter falling pregnant with Charlie. Is that something that came
up immediately when you fell pregnant.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
It took a lot of convincing with my husband. He
had a lot of sort of concerns and it was
quite worried about it. I had actually been born at
home myself, and I'd seen my brother and sister being
born at home over in the UK quite a lot
of my friends that actually had homebirths because they're supported
by the government over there, so they're much more common,
(03:27):
so it didn't seem so bizarre and crazy to me.
So for me, I kind of approached it as a
bit of a research project. I spent a lot of
time online looking at home birth association websites, looking at
different midwives in my area. There didn't really seem to
be that many midwives, to be honest, who were independent
midwives who do homebirths. So I approached a few of
(03:50):
them straight away. I didn't really gel with some of them,
and then I found one who seemed quite good over
the phone when I spoke to her, I went and
visited her in person armed with like a list of
a million questions from things like, you know, what are
your qualifications, how many births have you supported? What happens
if something goes wrong? All of the questions bombarded her
(04:13):
with those. The midwife I found was hugely experienced. She
had been a nurse, she had been a midwife in
the hospital system, and she'd also been an independent midwife
supported lots of mums for many, many, many years. So
there's sort of that rational part of it, but there's
also the emotional part of it. You know, this is
birth is such an intimate thing to go through and
(04:35):
you want to just one hundred percent trust this person
who you choose at the end of the day. And
I made sure she met my husband too, because he
had to feel comfortable because obviously birth support partners are
so key during a birth, but especially a home birth.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
What was your pregnancy like, So you had a six
year old at home and were you ill? Did you
have any complications?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Obviously being pregnant second time around, having you know, six
isn't so little, but they're still quite dependent on you.
You know, it's much more tiring second time around, when
you're already caring for someone as well as yourself and
growing a baby.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
But Poppy was just she couldn't.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Have been more excited. She was just absolutely over the
room that she was getting a brother or sister, and
probably five hundred times more excited that it was a
girl as well, so she's.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Getting a sister.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
The plan was for her to be there during my
birth as well, and my mum and my husband, and
she was just so excited that she could be part
of that. So that was a really lovely thing for her.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
So tell me about going into labor.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
My water's broke at about thirty nine weeks pregnant. I
was lying in bed one morning, sort of sat up
and just felt a bit of a gush of water,
not a huge, kind of dramatic gush like the movies,
like you'd see when people's waters breaking in a film,
but I just sort of felt like i'd wet myself.
And I was actually really excited because I kind of
(05:55):
thought that it was my water's breaking and that that
would mean that my baby was going to be here soon.
So I was really excited. Got up, went to the bathroom,
put the beautiful disposable granny undies on that you get
when you're pregnant and called my midwife and she came
over a little bit later, and midwives just have an
amazing sense about these things, and she was like, Yep,
(06:15):
it's definitely your waters that have broken. I was really excited,
and my mom came around, and my daughter was there, Poppy,
and we were sort of dancing to the birth soundtrack
that I'd made during my pregnancy, just to get those
kind of oxytocin kind of vibes happening that are really
good for helping labor sort of get along.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
The only thing was.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That I probably was a little bit too excited and
probably have chilled out a little bit more, probably tired
myself out a little bit, given how long my birth.
Kind of the days ended up being for my birth.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So you were having sort of irregular contractions.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Quite light contractions on and off for a couple of days,
so it sort of seemed to be a bit of
a pattern. In the morning, I'd wake up and contractions
would be there, and I'd be all excited and seat
of just doing really gentle kind of movements as felt
kind of right around the house. Poppy was there with
the straw drink with electrolytes, and it giving it to me.
She was such a massive help, and my mom was there.
(07:11):
The contractions would start each morning, but they'd sort of
peter out each evening. That sort of happened for a
couple of days. Once your waters have broken. There is
a risk infection after a sort of a number of
days if labor hasn't progressed and you don't sort of
go into labor. So I had been having iv antibiotics
because I tested positive for grip B strap, so that
(07:32):
was sort of a bit of comfort. But yeah, I
had a discussion with my midwife and there's this great
tool that I used called the brain tool. So the
different acronyms of the B stands for benefits and it's risks.
What if you did nothing, what would happen? So use
that tool with her. And I hadn't had any vaginal
(07:52):
examinations my entire pregnancy with her, but at that point
she said to me, would you like me to do
an examination just to see how far dilated you are
and we can kind of use that in the decision
making process. I agreed to that. She looked at me
and I could tell straight away it wasn't good. I
think she said something like I'm so sorry, You're two
(08:14):
centimeters dilated, and my heart just sankus slowly devastated. I
kind of knew that that was the case because it
was so stop start coming up.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
How many used celebrities avoiding the perhaps as inspiration for labor.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
And at that point she said, you know, it's up
to you the whole pregnancy. I felt so supported and
like I was able to make decisions at the whole
point along the way, which was fantastic. She said, you know,
if you want, you know, we can keep trying and
seat of seeing what happens, or I have a partnership
with an obstitucian at a private hospital an hour away
(08:56):
from my house was quite away. We could see if
they'll take you in there as a private patient, and
she said, they've got birth pools there, so you know,
we could still do that and we could have an
induction to help move things along. So I spent quite
a bit of time talking about it with her, with
my husband and my mom as well, and I decided
(09:17):
that that's what I was going to do. I was
so determined and to have like as less interventions as
possible in my birth, and I just really didn't want
to have a cesarean. That was my at that point,
my main goal.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
So the one hour drive to the hospital, you're obviously
feeling a little bit disappointed because it's not the birth
that you had planned, but you know, after two days
in labor and a broken waters, you kind of had
decided that that's probably what was safest and best for you.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I think probably the hardest thing was because my mum
and my daughter Poppy had wanted to be part of
the birth. Poppy ran up to me as I was
getting into the car to go, and she was just
crying and she was so sad, and you know, she's sick,
and she didn't really understand what was happening. So there
was all that emotion as well of the disappointment and
her tears, and yeah, I just as much as possible,
(10:07):
just really on that drive, I just closed my eyes,
I didn't talk to my husband, I put my headphones in,
I listened to just really relaxing music, and I had
my sunglasses on, so, you know, trying to sort of
stay in my labor zone as much as possible and
just really tried to like focus on my breathing. I
was still having really mild contractions at that point. So
for me with both my births, breathing has been the
(10:30):
key that's got me through all the contractions and anything
else that's going on.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You're a better woman than me.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Me.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Breathing never really helped me much.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Oh look, it's different for everyone, but yeah, it was
really really important in my births. So I arrived at
the hospital and one of the things that I had
read about and I'd tried to do, so I really
didn't want that kind of interruption to my birth again
like happened the first time. So I read about this
brilliant thing which I tried to do, which was to
dress like a celebrity, avoiding the preparatzi, to just really
(11:00):
try and stain your zone. So I had my sunglasses on,
I had my sort of like clothes pulled up over
my head, and headphones in so no one could talk
to me, and all of that kind of thing, which
I think really helped. So I arrived at the hospital.
I had my own birth suite with a birth poll
in there. I was really fortunate that they had one
available at the time. My midwife was there another support
(11:24):
midwife as well, like a backup midwife, because you need
the two there for a home birth, so she came
in as well and they put the drip into me.
I basically just sat there, just really closed my eyes.
I didn't talk to anybody, listening to the hypnobirthing tracks
on my headphones, and just sort of really gently moved
around to my birth ball. I never got on the
(11:46):
bed in the room apart from afterwards to breastfeed my
daughter after the birth. So when things kind of ramped
up with their synthetic oxytocin drip, I sort of leant
on the bed, just sort of gently sort of moved
around the room, leant on a wall, cuddled into my husband,
just like rocking my hips, moving because that really helped
(12:07):
me with birth before, so I tried to do that
again this time, and I really last time with my
first birth, had gone into it like a labor land,
like I just felt like I was on another planet
quite high, didn't really feel like I was actually in
the room. But with Charlie's birth, not having that natural
hormones going through me in the natural pain relief, I
felt really in the room and very aware of what
(12:29):
was going on, and when the contractions really started ramping up,
I think They kind of felt like it being hit
by lightning, is how I describe it. They were so
intense and just bam bam bam, one after the other.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
And were you in the pool at this point? You
were in the bath.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I only got into the pool right towards the end,
so my midwife she could sort of see I was
sort of going through transition a bit like shaky, and
she was like, okay, that's right before pushing stage. So
she encouraged me to go the toilet and then hop
into the birth pool for that final kind of stage
of labor.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
The big hook for me when you sent in your
story was that you laughed your baby out. The obviously
are the happy hormones that you get during labor, but
it is generally considered to be an extremely difficult time.
So laughing during that time, yeah, Can you tell us
a little bit about your mindset and where that sort
(13:24):
of overwhelming laughter came from.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, yeah, so it does sound quite crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Actually, I hadn't really thought about the fact that I'd
laughed my baby out until I was at a picnic
sort of a couple of weeks after my birth with
all the mums of the independent midwife that I used,
and she introduced me to the other mums and said,
this is the mum who laughed her baby out, and
I thought, oh my god, yeah I did, but yeah,
hadn't really thought about it until that point when she
described it like that. So how it happened was I
(13:53):
got into that birth pool, the warm water. I was
just game changing. It was such a relief and felt
so wonderful. So when I was in the birthpool, I
felt my daughter dropped down kind of into my pelverse
at that point where you kind of felt like you
need to get the toilet, and you know that that's
kind of things are happening. It's pushing stage. I was
so determined this time around. I tore it a little
(14:15):
bit in my first birth. I was really determined that
that didn't happen again this time. I'd res w's like
mad to make sure I kind of understood all the
things I could do, And so one of them was
sort of pushing when you felt the urge to do it,
not doing that kind of movie purple like gritting your teeth,
kind of pushing and moving around kind of as you
felt like in more kind of upright positions. So I
(14:36):
kind of moved into the pool sort of like sitting
squatting kind of thing. And while I was doing all
of this stuff, my midwife, when Charlie was in my belly,
poppy name to my bump, Charlie. It was never meant
to be her birth name, but it kind of just
was what we used at that time, and actual obviously
ended up being her real name. So my midwife was
there and she's like, as I was pushing, and she
(14:58):
said to me, Charlie's coming. You know you're going to
meet Charlie soon. And I just felt this like overwhelming
relief kind of just rush over me. And I guess
that sort of translated is laughter. It just was so
happy that like I didn't have a cesarean, that my
baby was actually coming, like, you know, because I've been
(15:20):
in the stop start labors for like two days and
I think I was so tired and just the contractions
with being induced was so intense, and yeah, I think
just this wave of just like really frushed over me,
and yeah, I just burst out laughing. And while I
was pushing, it was all it was all.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
A bit crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
One of the things I'd read about to help not
tearing was reaching down between your legs instead of just
like really gently guiding your baby out so they didn't
rush out. So yeah, I reached down and made sure
she didn't rush out, and yeah, with each push, I
was sort of laughing, and yeah, just obviously it was
really really hard work. Won't downplay that at all, but yeah,
I just felt so happy, so relieved, and yeah, just
(16:03):
so excited to finally like I could feel her in
my hands, that she was here and she was coming.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, and your husband caught the baby.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He did.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, it was such such a wonderful thing. He was
so thrilled to be able to do that. He leant
down into the water and really gently pulled her up
and pulled her onto my chest.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And you have this really beautiful tone. You're clearly a
really calm, beautiful person. All the people that I've met
that have had like home births or unmedicated birth there
is this certain energy to them. And as someone who's
very highly strong, that is so beautiful to me. You know,
(16:41):
to be able to step outside of yourself and just
almost relinquished control and allow your body to do what
it needs to do is really take my hat off
to it. Not that there's anything wrong with other births.
I just I think it's a really it's an energy thing,
it's a mindset thing, and when people are able to
relinquish control like that, I find it quite inspiring.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, so bub comes out, she's on your chest. I've
always wondered when they come out in the water, if
there's obviously they're still breathing through their umbilical cord, but
do they come out with their eyes open? Are they like,
what does that look like?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
So they don't breathe when they're into the water. They
take their first kind of breath when they come out
out of the water. My husband sort of pulled her
and we put her on my chest and I sort
of sat back. And it's quite common when babies are
born in the water that they take a few sort
of seconds to sort of start breathing. So she did
need a little bit of oxygen help, which is pretty common,
and I knew you to expect that, so I wasn't
too alarmed. So she s took a a little minute,
(17:42):
a few seconds, which felt when you're a mum and
you just had a baby, it feels like a long
time until they start having that first breath. But she
took a little minute to do that and then let
out a big cry, and you kind of like everything's good,
and yeah, then we really carefully got up out of
the birth pool and moved across into the hospital bed.
And yeah, that was the first time I'd actually used
(18:02):
the bed when during my whole labor. But yeah, I
sat back and I bought a really nice little blanket
from home, so it felt all familiar and nice, and yeah,
I had the first kind of breastfeed, and then we
were back home that night. So the whole labor was
fast and furious. It was one hour from start to finish,
(18:23):
and so we went in a sort of lunchtime, and
then we left, I think just before dinner time. But
we were ready to go about like an hour after
she was born, which just took a while to track
down a doctor who'd sign us out because obviously they're
really busy.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So Poppy was obviously waiting for you at home. What
was her reaction when she finally met Charlie.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Actually, she had quite a funny reaction because you know,
obviously we'd told her we knew we were having another girl,
and so she was really excited to have a sister.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
And her first reaction.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Charlie was born with a lot of hair, so black hair,
and she looked quite like a bit older than she
was because of that. In her six year old mind,
her first reaction was, it's a boy. You said, we're
having a girl. She was a little bit disappointed. Actually,
I don't know if she expected her to come out
with long platts or something.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
If you could do it again, would you change anything
about the way would you change any of those decisions.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I think,
you know, telling someone that story, you might sort of think,
well that maybe it doesn't sound so great. But for
me it was such a positive birth. Yeah, it was
one of the best moments of my life, like giving
birth to my girls. I wouldn't change it at all.
I think that for me, the reason it was a
really positive birth, despite I call it my plan B birth,
(19:43):
for me, it was really positive and I think, you know,
all the research around it kind of rings true for me,
and that is that a positive birth isn't how you
birth or where you birth, It's about how you feel
about your birth. So for me, I felt so supported
by my amazing independent midwife throughout the whole process and
my husband and my mom and my daughter. In those
(20:05):
early labor stages, I felt so informed going into it
about all my different options I had, and I felt
like I made the.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Decision to be induced.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
It didn't happen to me, and I really weighed up
all those pros and cons. I felt like just on
top of the world after my birth, I was. It
was just an amazing experience. So for me, that was
such a positive thing.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, I've got a cousin who talks about how she
actually really loves giving birth because she's like, it's like
a high, And I've never heard anyone describe it like
that until you, because you were like, it's almost like addictive.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, it's such a high.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I think when I had my first birth, that was
definitely more of a high. For a longer amount of time,
Like I went into that labor land, it was like
being on another planet this time around, because it was
a synthetic, obviously induced birth, synthetic hormone going through me.
I didn't feel it through the birth, but during that
pushing stage and I was just feeling so relieved and
(21:03):
so happy. I felt it then, and then I think
it was with Charlie's birth. It was after the birth,
I just felt such a high, so in love with
my baby, so proud of myself for not having the
cesarean that I didn't want, and yeah, just so full
of all the love hormones. And I said to a
lot of people, I kind of felt like like a
goop covered superwoman, Like I walked out of that hospital
(21:26):
carrying her my baby in the little bassinet thing for
my husband and come pick us up. I kind of
felt like, you know, people should be like popping champagne
and comedy and fireworks, like I just had a baby.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I mean, that's the whole point of his podcast is
to celebrate the way that women give birth, Like it
is incredible, like the fact that we grow these tiny
little humans from a speck to arms, legs, brains, like kidneys, lungs.
Like whenever I was having a bad day or yelling
at my husband, I'd go, you know, I grew a
(21:58):
brain today, so leave me alone. So it's incredible, So
you should be proud of yourself.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I think that's like it's so important for people to
know that it kind of doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, like how we are, your birth.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
You can still have a positive birth even if it's
not kind of your plan.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Abor Here at Diary of a Birth, we want to
ensure you have all the information, and today we have
obstitution and gynecologist, doctor Bronwyn Devine to answer our burning
medical questions. So what is group B strep and why
(22:39):
do we test for it in the last trimester?
Speaker 4 (22:41):
So group B strep is a bacterium that colonizes the
genital tract and the gastrointestinal tract of about one in
four women. And because it's a colonizer, it doesn't usually
cause a problem while it's there. Just like we have
a microbiome in our gastrointestinal tract, in our gut, we
have a microbiome in the vagina as well. We live
(23:04):
with bacteria. They live in our bodies. Most of them
have very important roles, some of them don't. But GBS
or group B strep, is a bacterium that in about
one in four women is present. It doesn't usually cause
any symptoms. It doesn't usually cause any but if it
is present around the time that someone who is going
(23:25):
to go into labor, there is a chance that that
bacterium can get into the bloodstream. Or into the lungs
or even around the brain membranes of a newborn baby
and cause a condition known as early onset group BE strip,
which can cause septicemia, pneumonia, or meningitis in a newborn baby. Now,
(23:47):
the chance of that happening is pretty small, but if
it does happen, it can be really serious for the blob.
There's also a later onset type of group BE strip
infection in babies that can occur as well, But the
thing that we worry about is early onset group BE strip.
If group B strip is present in the woman's birth
canal or around the anus and rectum around the time
(24:10):
that she's going to go into labor, so we do
screen for it routinely. Well. We offer screening to pregnant
people when they come along. We suggest that somewhere between
about thirty five and thirty seven weeks they have a
very simple little swab done just of the lower vaginal tract.
Doesn't require a speculum like a smear. It just requires
a little swab just at the opening and then a
(24:31):
little bit down the peraneal skin towards the anus, and
then that's sent away and tells us if group B
strip is present, and then if it is present, when
that person comes in in labor, they get some intravenous antibiotics.
And also if they rupture their membranes prior to the
onset of labor, we often get their labor going rather
than waiting. Now, there's a number of people who don't
(24:54):
believe in taking antibotics in labor, and so they either say, look,
I don't want to have Group B strep screening done.
I understand the risks, but I also appreciate that the
risk of severe disease is fairly low. And you know,
prior to the screening program, plenty of people would have
had group B strep and would have had no complications
at all. And then there are some people who say,
(25:16):
even if I do have group B STRIP present, I
still don't want to have antibodics in life. I'll consider
it if there are other risk factors, like I develop
a fever or there's some other problem, but I don't
want routinely to be given antibiotics in labor. And part
of our work as l professionals is to respect people's choices,
so we can counsel them and say, look, this is
(25:37):
the reason we do it. We'd recommend it, but at
the end of the day, if people decide they don't
want to have treatment for it or don't want to
have prophylaxis for it, then we go along with that.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And if you want a water birth, what are some
of the things you need to know going into it.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Definitely increasing in popularity and there are certainly more and
more birthing units that are offering water births, essentially for
low risk patients. So if someone has really high blood
pressure or unstable diabetes, or a really small, skinny little
baby that's not growing well and would require monitoring in
labor sort of fairly continuous monitoring in labor, or has
(26:17):
other risk factors that sort of mean that their birth
will wouldn't be classed as a low intervention or a
low risk birth, then water birth may not be something
they can choose. But for a lot of women whose
pregnancy is uncomplicated and who labor well, a water birth
can be a really wonderful thing for women. So lovely
form of pain or left to be in a hot
(26:38):
bath or a nice warm bath if you think you know,
if you've got back pain or sore muscles after a workout,
or something like that you know, relaxing in a nice
bath is really pleasant. As well as that it's quite relaxing,
and it's often quite a low stress birth because the
midwives of the birth attendants tend to be very hands off,
(26:59):
so they're not up in your grills sort of examining
you all the time or not that that necessarily happens
for people who don't have a water birth, but it
is very much a low touch approach. We don't want
to overstimulate the baby because we don't want the baby
to be born into the water and gasp and inhale
a lot of the water, so we want things to
be nice and relaxed and calm the babies born. And
(27:22):
there is also this sort of belief that the baby's
in liquid because it's in the amniotic fluid and then
comes out into liquid, and that it's sort of a
less frightening or confronting passage into the world. So for
all those reasons, the fact that it's often a very
low risk approach for women who are deemed low risk,
(27:44):
no touch, so it's very calm and relaxing, but also
the warm water is very calm and relaxing, and as
well as that we take seriously protecting the skin around
the vagina and the perineum, the perannal skin, so that
people don't develop severe tears. And in order to protect
that tissue, we do a lot of warm compresses on
(28:05):
women who are laboring. The bath or the warm water
of the bath provides its own natural warm compress, so
it's supposed to be an effective way of protecting the
perannal skin so that women can birth naturally and without
you know, a lot of intervention, but also we've been
very protective towards their pissues, which is important.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Diary of a Birth was hosted by me Cassenula Kitch,
with expert input from doctor Bronwin Divine. If you have
a birth story, we'd love to hear from you. Details
are in the show notes. This episode was produced by
Tina Matalov and myself Cassenulo Kitch, with audio production by
Leah Porges
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our respects
to elders past, present and emerging, and feel privileged to
continue the sharing of birth stories and knowledge that has
been a fundamental part of Indigenous culture. Hi. I'm Cassenya
(00:45):
Lukisch and this is diary of a birth. I had
both my kids in hospital with an epidural, and I'm
very happy with my choice. What I don't like is
the discourse that's often involved in a mother's right to
choose how she gives birth. You want an elective cesarean
amazing love that. You want an unmedicated birth, that's absolutely incredible.
(01:10):
Today's mom has done just that, giving birth the way
she wanted to. What I wasn't expecting is her laughing
her baby out.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I just felt this like overwhelming relief kind of just
rush over me, and I guess that sort of translated
as laughter.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I loved her calm approach to birth and was so
inspired it almost almost made me want to try an
unmedicated birth. So let's meet today's mum.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Hi, am Minni, and this is the diary of my
birth with Charlie.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Charlie is your second and you had your first baby
in the UK.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, So I had my first daughter over in London
while we're living there.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
For five years.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I had a really positive, unmedicated birth with her in
a birth center in a hospital there with her when
I was in early labor. I had a really smooth
early labor and I labored really well at home. When
I got to the hospital, I was eight and a
half centimeters dilated. But the transition to the hospital I
had a crazy taxi driver who was praying madly but stressful.
(02:21):
Arriving at the hospital was really stressful and it just
sort of stalled my labor. My husband and I sort
of joked that we could have had the baby at
home with my first baby. Going into my second berth,
I really didn't want that same experience of stalling and
kind of being.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Quite stressed going into.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
That really key part of labor. So I started thinking about, well,
what birth environment would look good for me and how
could I stop that from happening? What would look like
in environment where that wouldn't happen, And the more I
kind of thought about it, the environment that made sense
for me was home. So I started looking into how
I would have a home birth for my second.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Daughter falling pregnant with Charlie. Is that something that came
up immediately when you fell pregnant.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
It took a lot of convincing with my husband. He
had a lot of sort of concerns and it was
quite worried about it. I had actually been born at
home myself, and I'd seen my brother and sister being
born at home over in the UK quite a lot
of my friends that actually had homebirths because they're supported
by the government over there, so they're much more common,
(03:27):
so it didn't seem so bizarre and crazy to me.
So for me, I kind of approached it as a
bit of a research project. I spent a lot of
time online looking at home birth association websites, looking at
different midwives in my area. There didn't really seem to
be that many midwives, to be honest, who were independent
midwives who do homebirths. So I approached a few of
(03:50):
them straight away. I didn't really gel with some of them,
and then I found one who seemed quite good over
the phone when I spoke to her, I went and
visited her in person armed with like a list of
a million questions from things like, you know, what are
your qualifications, how many births have you supported? What happens
if something goes wrong? All of the questions bombarded her
(04:13):
with those. The midwife I found was hugely experienced. She
had been a nurse, she had been a midwife in
the hospital system, and she'd also been an independent midwife
supported lots of mums for many, many, many years. So
there's sort of that rational part of it, but there's
also the emotional part of it. You know, this is
birth is such an intimate thing to go through and
(04:35):
you want to just one hundred percent trust this person
who you choose at the end of the day. And
I made sure she met my husband too, because he
had to feel comfortable because obviously birth support partners are
so key during a birth, but especially a home birth.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
What was your pregnancy like, So you had a six
year old at home and were you ill? Did you
have any complications?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Obviously being pregnant second time around, having you know, six
isn't so little, but they're still quite dependent on you.
You know, it's much more tiring second time around, when
you're already caring for someone as well as yourself and
growing a baby.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
But Poppy was just she couldn't.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Have been more excited. She was just absolutely over the
room that she was getting a brother or sister, and
probably five hundred times more excited that it was a
girl as well, so she's.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Getting a sister.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
The plan was for her to be there during my
birth as well, and my mum and my husband, and
she was just so excited that she could be part
of that. So that was a really lovely thing for her.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
So tell me about going into labor.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
My water's broke at about thirty nine weeks pregnant. I
was lying in bed one morning, sort of sat up
and just felt a bit of a gush of water,
not a huge, kind of dramatic gush like the movies,
like you'd see when people's waters breaking in a film,
but I just sort of felt like i'd wet myself.
And I was actually really excited because I kind of
(05:55):
thought that it was my water's breaking and that that
would mean that my baby was going to be here soon.
So I was really excited. Got up, went to the bathroom,
put the beautiful disposable granny undies on that you get
when you're pregnant and called my midwife and she came
over a little bit later, and midwives just have an
amazing sense about these things, and she was like, Yep,
(06:15):
it's definitely your waters that have broken. I was really excited,
and my mom came around, and my daughter was there, Poppy,
and we were sort of dancing to the birth soundtrack
that I'd made during my pregnancy, just to get those
kind of oxytocin kind of vibes happening that are really
good for helping labor sort of get along.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
The only thing was.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That I probably was a little bit too excited and
probably have chilled out a little bit more, probably tired
myself out a little bit, given how long my birth.
Kind of the days ended up being for my birth.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So you were having sort of irregular contractions.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Quite light contractions on and off for a couple of days,
so it sort of seemed to be a bit of
a pattern. In the morning, I'd wake up and contractions
would be there, and I'd be all excited and seat
of just doing really gentle kind of movements as felt
kind of right around the house. Poppy was there with
the straw drink with electrolytes, and it giving it to me.
She was such a massive help, and my mom was there.
(07:11):
The contractions would start each morning, but they'd sort of
peter out each evening. That sort of happened for a
couple of days. Once your waters have broken. There is
a risk infection after a sort of a number of
days if labor hasn't progressed and you don't sort of
go into labor. So I had been having iv antibiotics
because I tested positive for grip B strap, so that
(07:32):
was sort of a bit of comfort. But yeah, I
had a discussion with my midwife and there's this great
tool that I used called the brain tool. So the
different acronyms of the B stands for benefits and it's risks.
What if you did nothing, what would happen? So use
that tool with her. And I hadn't had any vaginal
(07:52):
examinations my entire pregnancy with her, but at that point
she said to me, would you like me to do
an examination just to see how far dilated you are
and we can kind of use that in the decision
making process. I agreed to that. She looked at me
and I could tell straight away it wasn't good. I
think she said something like I'm so sorry, You're two
(08:14):
centimeters dilated, and my heart just sankus slowly devastated. I
kind of knew that that was the case because it
was so stop start coming up.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
How many used celebrities avoiding the perhaps as inspiration for labor.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
And at that point she said, you know, it's up
to you the whole pregnancy. I felt so supported and
like I was able to make decisions at the whole
point along the way, which was fantastic. She said, you know,
if you want, you know, we can keep trying and
seat of seeing what happens, or I have a partnership
with an obstitucian at a private hospital an hour away
(08:56):
from my house was quite away. We could see if
they'll take you in there as a private patient, and
she said, they've got birth pools there, so you know,
we could still do that and we could have an
induction to help move things along. So I spent quite
a bit of time talking about it with her, with
my husband and my mom as well, and I decided
(09:17):
that that's what I was going to do. I was
so determined and to have like as less interventions as
possible in my birth, and I just really didn't want
to have a cesarean. That was my at that point,
my main goal.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
So the one hour drive to the hospital, you're obviously
feeling a little bit disappointed because it's not the birth
that you had planned, but you know, after two days
in labor and a broken waters, you kind of had
decided that that's probably what was safest and best for you.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I think probably the hardest thing was because my mum
and my daughter Poppy had wanted to be part of
the birth. Poppy ran up to me as I was
getting into the car to go, and she was just
crying and she was so sad, and you know, she's sick,
and she didn't really understand what was happening. So there
was all that emotion as well of the disappointment and
her tears, and yeah, I just as much as possible,
(10:07):
just really on that drive, I just closed my eyes,
I didn't talk to my husband, I put my headphones in,
I listened to just really relaxing music, and I had
my sunglasses on, so, you know, trying to sort of
stay in my labor zone as much as possible and
just really tried to like focus on my breathing. I
was still having really mild contractions at that point. So
for me with both my births, breathing has been the
(10:30):
key that's got me through all the contractions and anything
else that's going on.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You're a better woman than me.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Me.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Breathing never really helped me much.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Oh look, it's different for everyone, but yeah, it was
really really important in my births. So I arrived at
the hospital and one of the things that I had
read about and I'd tried to do, so I really
didn't want that kind of interruption to my birth again
like happened the first time. So I read about this
brilliant thing which I tried to do, which was to
dress like a celebrity, avoiding the preparatzi, to just really
(11:00):
try and stain your zone. So I had my sunglasses on,
I had my sort of like clothes pulled up over
my head, and headphones in so no one could talk
to me, and all of that kind of thing, which
I think really helped. So I arrived at the hospital.
I had my own birth suite with a birth poll
in there. I was really fortunate that they had one
available at the time. My midwife was there another support
(11:24):
midwife as well, like a backup midwife, because you need
the two there for a home birth, so she came
in as well and they put the drip into me.
I basically just sat there, just really closed my eyes.
I didn't talk to anybody, listening to the hypnobirthing tracks
on my headphones, and just sort of really gently moved
around to my birth ball. I never got on the
(11:46):
bed in the room apart from afterwards to breastfeed my
daughter after the birth. So when things kind of ramped
up with their synthetic oxytocin drip, I sort of leant
on the bed, just sort of gently sort of moved
around the room, leant on a wall, cuddled into my husband,
just like rocking my hips, moving because that really helped
(12:07):
me with birth before, so I tried to do that
again this time, and I really last time with my
first birth, had gone into it like a labor land,
like I just felt like I was on another planet
quite high, didn't really feel like I was actually in
the room. But with Charlie's birth, not having that natural
hormones going through me in the natural pain relief, I
felt really in the room and very aware of what
(12:29):
was going on, and when the contractions really started ramping up,
I think They kind of felt like it being hit
by lightning, is how I describe it. They were so
intense and just bam bam bam, one after the other.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
And were you in the pool at this point? You
were in the bath.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I only got into the pool right towards the end,
so my midwife she could sort of see I was
sort of going through transition a bit like shaky, and
she was like, okay, that's right before pushing stage. So
she encouraged me to go the toilet and then hop
into the birth pool for that final kind of stage
of labor.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
The big hook for me when you sent in your
story was that you laughed your baby out. The obviously
are the happy hormones that you get during labor, but
it is generally considered to be an extremely difficult time.
So laughing during that time, yeah, Can you tell us
a little bit about your mindset and where that sort
(13:24):
of overwhelming laughter came from.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, yeah, so it does sound quite crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Actually, I hadn't really thought about the fact that I'd
laughed my baby out until I was at a picnic
sort of a couple of weeks after my birth with
all the mums of the independent midwife that I used,
and she introduced me to the other mums and said,
this is the mum who laughed her baby out, and
I thought, oh my god, yeah I did, but yeah,
hadn't really thought about it until that point when she
described it like that. So how it happened was I
(13:53):
got into that birth pool, the warm water. I was
just game changing. It was such a relief and felt
so wonderful. So when I was in the birthpool, I
felt my daughter dropped down kind of into my pelverse
at that point where you kind of felt like you
need to get the toilet, and you know that that's
kind of things are happening. It's pushing stage. I was
so determined this time around. I tore it a little
(14:15):
bit in my first birth. I was really determined that
that didn't happen again this time. I'd res w's like
mad to make sure I kind of understood all the
things I could do, And so one of them was
sort of pushing when you felt the urge to do it,
not doing that kind of movie purple like gritting your teeth,
kind of pushing and moving around kind of as you
felt like in more kind of upright positions. So I
(14:36):
kind of moved into the pool sort of like sitting
squatting kind of thing. And while I was doing all
of this stuff, my midwife, when Charlie was in my belly,
poppy name to my bump, Charlie. It was never meant
to be her birth name, but it kind of just
was what we used at that time, and actual obviously
ended up being her real name. So my midwife was
there and she's like, as I was pushing, and she
(14:58):
said to me, Charlie's coming. You know you're going to
meet Charlie soon. And I just felt this like overwhelming
relief kind of just rush over me. And I guess
that sort of translated is laughter. It just was so
happy that like I didn't have a cesarean, that my
baby was actually coming, like, you know, because I've been
(15:20):
in the stop start labors for like two days and
I think I was so tired and just the contractions
with being induced was so intense, and yeah, I think
just this wave of just like really frushed over me,
and yeah, I just burst out laughing. And while I
was pushing, it was all it was all.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
A bit crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
One of the things I'd read about to help not
tearing was reaching down between your legs instead of just
like really gently guiding your baby out so they didn't
rush out. So yeah, I reached down and made sure
she didn't rush out, and yeah, with each push, I
was sort of laughing, and yeah, just obviously it was
really really hard work. Won't downplay that at all, but yeah,
I just felt so happy, so relieved, and yeah, just
(16:03):
so excited to finally like I could feel her in
my hands, that she was here and she was coming.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, and your husband caught the baby.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He did.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, it was such such a wonderful thing. He was
so thrilled to be able to do that. He leant
down into the water and really gently pulled her up
and pulled her onto my chest.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And you have this really beautiful tone. You're clearly a
really calm, beautiful person. All the people that I've met
that have had like home births or unmedicated birth there
is this certain energy to them. And as someone who's
very highly strong, that is so beautiful to me. You know,
(16:41):
to be able to step outside of yourself and just
almost relinquished control and allow your body to do what
it needs to do is really take my hat off
to it. Not that there's anything wrong with other births.
I just I think it's a really it's an energy thing,
it's a mindset thing, and when people are able to
relinquish control like that, I find it quite inspiring.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, so bub comes out, she's on your chest. I've
always wondered when they come out in the water, if
there's obviously they're still breathing through their umbilical cord, but
do they come out with their eyes open? Are they like,
what does that look like?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
So they don't breathe when they're into the water. They
take their first kind of breath when they come out
out of the water. My husband sort of pulled her
and we put her on my chest and I sort
of sat back. And it's quite common when babies are
born in the water that they take a few sort
of seconds to sort of start breathing. So she did
need a little bit of oxygen help, which is pretty common,
and I knew you to expect that, so I wasn't
too alarmed. So she s took a a little minute,
(17:42):
a few seconds, which felt when you're a mum and
you just had a baby, it feels like a long
time until they start having that first breath. But she
took a little minute to do that and then let
out a big cry, and you kind of like everything's good,
and yeah, then we really carefully got up out of
the birth pool and moved across into the hospital bed.
And yeah, that was the first time I'd actually used
(18:02):
the bed when during my whole labor. But yeah, I
sat back and I bought a really nice little blanket
from home, so it felt all familiar and nice, and yeah,
I had the first kind of breastfeed, and then we
were back home that night. So the whole labor was
fast and furious. It was one hour from start to finish,
(18:23):
and so we went in a sort of lunchtime, and
then we left, I think just before dinner time. But
we were ready to go about like an hour after
she was born, which just took a while to track
down a doctor who'd sign us out because obviously they're
really busy.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So Poppy was obviously waiting for you at home. What
was her reaction when she finally met Charlie.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Actually, she had quite a funny reaction because you know,
obviously we'd told her we knew we were having another girl,
and so she was really excited to have a sister.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
And her first reaction.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Charlie was born with a lot of hair, so black hair,
and she looked quite like a bit older than she
was because of that. In her six year old mind,
her first reaction was, it's a boy. You said, we're
having a girl. She was a little bit disappointed. Actually,
I don't know if she expected her to come out
with long platts or something.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
If you could do it again, would you change anything
about the way would you change any of those decisions.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I think,
you know, telling someone that story, you might sort of think,
well that maybe it doesn't sound so great. But for
me it was such a positive birth. Yeah, it was
one of the best moments of my life, like giving
birth to my girls. I wouldn't change it at all.
I think that for me, the reason it was a
really positive birth, despite I call it my plan B birth,
(19:43):
for me, it was really positive and I think, you know,
all the research around it kind of rings true for me,
and that is that a positive birth isn't how you
birth or where you birth, It's about how you feel
about your birth. So for me, I felt so supported
by my amazing independent midwife throughout the whole process and
my husband and my mom and my daughter. In those
(20:05):
early labor stages, I felt so informed going into it
about all my different options I had, and I felt
like I made the.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Decision to be induced.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
It didn't happen to me, and I really weighed up
all those pros and cons. I felt like just on
top of the world after my birth, I was. It
was just an amazing experience. So for me, that was
such a positive thing.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, I've got a cousin who talks about how she
actually really loves giving birth because she's like, it's like
a high, And I've never heard anyone describe it like
that until you, because you were like, it's almost like addictive.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, it's such a high.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I think when I had my first birth, that was
definitely more of a high. For a longer amount of time,
Like I went into that labor land, it was like
being on another planet this time around, because it was
a synthetic, obviously induced birth, synthetic hormone going through me.
I didn't feel it through the birth, but during that
pushing stage and I was just feeling so relieved and
(21:03):
so happy. I felt it then, and then I think
it was with Charlie's birth. It was after the birth,
I just felt such a high, so in love with
my baby, so proud of myself for not having the
cesarean that I didn't want, and yeah, just so full
of all the love hormones. And I said to a
lot of people, I kind of felt like like a
goop covered superwoman, Like I walked out of that hospital
(21:26):
carrying her my baby in the little bassinet thing for
my husband and come pick us up. I kind of
felt like, you know, people should be like popping champagne
and comedy and fireworks, like I just had a baby.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I mean, that's the whole point of his podcast is
to celebrate the way that women give birth, Like it
is incredible, like the fact that we grow these tiny
little humans from a speck to arms, legs, brains, like kidneys, lungs.
Like whenever I was having a bad day or yelling
at my husband, I'd go, you know, I grew a
(21:58):
brain today, so leave me alone. So it's incredible, So
you should be proud of yourself.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I think that's like it's so important for people to
know that it kind of doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, like how we are, your birth.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
You can still have a positive birth even if it's
not kind of your plan.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Abor Here at Diary of a Birth, we want to
ensure you have all the information, and today we have
obstitution and gynecologist, doctor Bronwyn Devine to answer our burning
medical questions. So what is group B strep and why
(22:39):
do we test for it in the last trimester?
Speaker 4 (22:41):
So group B strep is a bacterium that colonizes the
genital tract and the gastrointestinal tract of about one in
four women. And because it's a colonizer, it doesn't usually
cause a problem while it's there. Just like we have
a microbiome in our gastrointestinal tract, in our gut, we
have a microbiome in the vagina as well. We live
(23:04):
with bacteria. They live in our bodies. Most of them
have very important roles, some of them don't. But GBS
or group B strep, is a bacterium that in about
one in four women is present. It doesn't usually cause
any symptoms. It doesn't usually cause any but if it
is present around the time that someone who is going
(23:25):
to go into labor, there is a chance that that
bacterium can get into the bloodstream. Or into the lungs
or even around the brain membranes of a newborn baby
and cause a condition known as early onset group BE strip,
which can cause septicemia, pneumonia, or meningitis in a newborn baby. Now,
(23:47):
the chance of that happening is pretty small, but if
it does happen, it can be really serious for the blob.
There's also a later onset type of group BE strip
infection in babies that can occur as well, But the
thing that we worry about is early onset group BE strip.
If group B strip is present in the woman's birth
canal or around the anus and rectum around the time
(24:10):
that she's going to go into labor, so we do
screen for it routinely. Well. We offer screening to pregnant
people when they come along. We suggest that somewhere between
about thirty five and thirty seven weeks they have a
very simple little swab done just of the lower vaginal tract.
Doesn't require a speculum like a smear. It just requires
a little swab just at the opening and then a
(24:31):
little bit down the peraneal skin towards the anus, and
then that's sent away and tells us if group B
strip is present, and then if it is present, when
that person comes in in labor, they get some intravenous antibiotics.
And also if they rupture their membranes prior to the
onset of labor, we often get their labor going rather
than waiting. Now, there's a number of people who don't
(24:54):
believe in taking antibotics in labor, and so they either say, look,
I don't want to have Group B strep screening done.
I understand the risks, but I also appreciate that the
risk of severe disease is fairly low. And you know,
prior to the screening program, plenty of people would have
had group B strep and would have had no complications
at all. And then there are some people who say,
(25:16):
even if I do have group B STRIP present, I
still don't want to have antibodics in life. I'll consider
it if there are other risk factors, like I develop
a fever or there's some other problem, but I don't
want routinely to be given antibiotics in labor. And part
of our work as l professionals is to respect people's choices,
so we can counsel them and say, look, this is
(25:37):
the reason we do it. We'd recommend it, but at
the end of the day, if people decide they don't
want to have treatment for it or don't want to
have prophylaxis for it, then we go along with that.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And if you want a water birth, what are some
of the things you need to know going into it.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Definitely increasing in popularity and there are certainly more and
more birthing units that are offering water births, essentially for
low risk patients. So if someone has really high blood
pressure or unstable diabetes, or a really small, skinny little
baby that's not growing well and would require monitoring in
labor sort of fairly continuous monitoring in labor, or has
(26:17):
other risk factors that sort of mean that their birth
will wouldn't be classed as a low intervention or a
low risk birth, then water birth may not be something
they can choose. But for a lot of women whose
pregnancy is uncomplicated and who labor well, a water birth
can be a really wonderful thing for women. So lovely
form of pain or left to be in a hot
(26:38):
bath or a nice warm bath if you think you know,
if you've got back pain or sore muscles after a workout,
or something like that you know, relaxing in a nice
bath is really pleasant. As well as that it's quite relaxing,
and it's often quite a low stress birth because the
midwives of the birth attendants tend to be very hands off,
(26:59):
so they're not up in your grills sort of examining
you all the time or not that that necessarily happens
for people who don't have a water birth, but it
is very much a low touch approach. We don't want
to overstimulate the baby because we don't want the baby
to be born into the water and gasp and inhale
a lot of the water, so we want things to
be nice and relaxed and calm the babies born. And
(27:22):
there is also this sort of belief that the baby's
in liquid because it's in the amniotic fluid and then
comes out into liquid, and that it's sort of a
less frightening or confronting passage into the world. So for
all those reasons, the fact that it's often a very
low risk approach for women who are deemed low risk,
(27:44):
no touch, so it's very calm and relaxing, but also
the warm water is very calm and relaxing, and as
well as that we take seriously protecting the skin around
the vagina and the perineum, the perannal skin, so that
people don't develop severe tears. And in order to protect
that tissue, we do a lot of warm compresses on
(28:05):
women who are laboring. The bath or the warm water
of the bath provides its own natural warm compress, so
it's supposed to be an effective way of protecting the
perannal skin so that women can birth naturally and without
you know, a lot of intervention, but also we've been
very protective towards their pissues, which is important.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Diary of a Birth was hosted by me Cassenula Kitch,
with expert input from doctor Bronwin Divine. If you have
a birth story, we'd love to hear from you. Details
are in the show notes. This episode was produced by
Tina Matalov and myself Cassenulo Kitch, with audio production by
Leah Porges
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