Authors
Sara Connor – Site owner and main author
In the last 100 years pregnancy and the birth of your new baby has gone from a natural normal role for a woman to an illness that needs to be treated. Since when is conceiving, carrying and birthing a baby and illness? I refuse to accept:
Should birth be treated as a natural process or a potential medical emergency?
Childbirth is a natural and normal event in a woman’s life. Unfortunately so many women have come to believe that child birth is a medical emergency that requires continuous medical intervention. For most healthy moms it doesn’t. However, during childbirth it is important to be monitored by qualified professional health care providers.
Yes, there are complications that occur that require medical treatment for the safety of the baby and the mother. If you do happen to experience such a complication, by all means get medical care! Most all of the child birth complications can be minimized by careful observation of your health care provider during your labor. A good healthcare provider will spot the warning signs early enough that they can be prevented or dealt with quickly to prevent a minor problem from turning into a major crises.
Horrible stretch marks are inevitable
Some of my friends have had horrible stretch marks during their pregnancy where their entire belly was covered with them. Can stretch marks be prevented?
The best way to prevent stretch marks is to carefully choose the foods you eat. Choosing to eat nutritious foods, reducing the fatty foods, eating good carbohydrates paired with a healthy protein will allow you to feed your growing baby and slowly gain weight.
Maintaining an exercise program will help prevent adding to your fat stores and tone your muscles.
Even when eating well, some stretch marks may appear, it depends on your skin type, age and well the genes you where blessed with from your parents.
Labor is unbearably painful and you MUST take pain medicine
American women, if all that they have seen birth stories on the Learning Channel and the like have come to believe that labor and birth is a time of being completely out of control, yelling, screaming and wrenching pain. Labor and delivery is a dangerous time and that the doctor must swoop in and quickly save the mother and baby.
There are many complications that could occur during labor and delivery, such as cord prolapse, shoulder dystocia, retained placenta, placenta previa. These are very serious life threatening conditions that require prompt medical attention.
Many of labor and delivery complications can be minimized with good nutrition during the pregnancy and obtaining pre-natal care during the pregnancy. Most women give birth to healthy babies without any complications.
Childbirth is a painful, exhilarating and sexual time in a woman’s life. There are many choices available to a pregnant mom in managing labor pain. From natural unmediated childbirth to using pain medications. Each choice has ramifications on the labor and on the baby. Pain medications adversely affect the baby while it is in the uterus typically requiring additional medical intervention after birth. Many moms who choose to have a natural birth described the labor pain as intense but manageable especially when their husband was at their side. The most beautiful and incredible experience is the feeling of the baby leaving her body during the birth. Most moms who choose to use pain medications do not feel the baby exiting their body.
My body will never be the same again
To some degree this is true, but not in the weight department, unless of course you want to keep the extra weight. Some changes that pregnancy brings are good such as additional breast tissue.
By eating well during your pregnancy you will slowly gain the weight you need to and keep the bump in front. It will be much easier for you take off the little pregnancy weight and fit back into your pre-baby clothes.
Episiotomy speeds up labor
It might eliminate one or two pushes. If mom has been pushing for an hour does eliminating one or two pushes really speed up labor that much?
No! For years doctors believed that every first time mom needed to have an episiotomy to control the tear in the perineum. Fortunately the episiotomy rates are declining in the United States. Talk to your doctor and all of the doctors in the ob/gyn practice to find out what their episiotomy beliefs are.
Here is a little known fact: the doctor that you are seeing for your prenatal visits most likely will not be the doctor attending your birth. What!?! Yes, that is right; ob/gyn doctors have an on call rotation so that they have time off. It all depends on when you go into labor who ever is on call will be the doctor attending your birth.
Episiotomy cut is more likely to tear during the birth. It is not uncommon for a first degree cut to blow out to a second or third degree laceration. Some episiotomies blow out to a fourth degree laceration where the vagina and anus are one big hole!
Little known episiotomy fact: the scare tissue will take from six to eighteen months to heal. Expect the sexual intercourse will be painful during this time. Some women have said that the pain from the episiotomy scare tissue was so bad that they did not want to have sexual intimacy for months.
All this to speed up labor by a couple of pushes.
Eating for two – I can eat whatever I want to
Too many women believe that they can eat pretty much whatever they want as long as they take their prenatal vitamin.
No! Why is it that professional breeders of racing horses carefully monitor and select the quantity and types of feed that they give their pregnant mares? But, when it comes to pregnant women all that they are told is to watch what you eat, take your prenatal vitamin and don’t gain more than 25 to 35 pounds. A pregnant woman needs to be very mindful of what she eats because she is providing the nutrition for her and her growing baby.
Did you know that an egg and a two glasses of skim milk a day provides over 80% of the vitamins and minerals needed by a pregnant mother? Now, you still need to eat plenty of protein and good carbohydrates to provide the building blocks and fuel for the growing baby. Unfortunately, there aren’t very many doctors that tell the expecting moms this.
It is important that you continue to take your prenatal vitamin throughout your pregnancy and while breastfeeding your baby.
In a recently published study it was discovered a correlation between what the mom eats during pregnancy and the potential illness that the child will be prone for later on in life. For example, gestational diabetes is not just a problem for an expecting mom it could also lead your unborn child to develop diabetes later on in life!
An expecting mother, especially if already has one or more children, is very busy and it is hard to figure out what are healthy snacks and meals for her to eat.