Lucinda Rae - Bramble Birth

21/09/2024

Another beautiful straightforward 1st birth yesterday 🎉🥳🙌🏻

26/07/2024

05/01/2024

My tips for physiological birth

A labour ward is not the optimal environment for healthy women planning a physiological birth. Labour wards are led by obstetricians who are experts in disease in pregnancy and complications in birth. Seriously consider birth centres and home birth.
Look after your body and mind in pregnancy with good food, exercise, mindfulness, good rest/sleep and reducing stress.
Learn about birth physiology and how the labour environment influences oxytocin and stress hormones. Hypnobirthing courses are particularly good at this.
Keep well nourished and hydrated in early labour.
If you are planning a hospital birth, wait until you are having strong, regular contractions before going in. Learn about coping mechanisms to use at home.
Epidurals can completely remove sensations and allow for much needed sleep. Know that epidurals come with associated interventions including continuous fetal heart rate monitoring, a catheter in your bladder, the need for drugs if contractions slow (synthetic oxytocin), and instrumental birth such as forceps. You will also likely have a longer stay in hospital after birth.

To read/explore

Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Sarah Buckley
In Your Own Time by Sara Wickham
The Positive Birth Company
Kathryn Graves Hypnobirthing

29/12/2023

Were you good at resting after you have a baby? I know I wasn’t but then, even as a midwife, I had spend all my time planning for and thinking about the birth and no time planning for the postnatal period. This is a mistake!

The postnatal period can be tough and looking after yourself in the form of good food and rest can go out the window if you get swept along with hospital midwife visits, family and friends, and just the assumption that the goal is to get back to ‘normal’ asap. But let me reassure you that around the world this is NOT the norm,
and rest and retreat are considered essential.

So if you need permission from someone, let it be me. Go back to bed!