Nurturing Journeys

03/13/2025

"And the cord was around his neck..."

"It's a good thing I was in hospital/had a caesarean because THE CORD WAS AROUND HIS NECK"

Have you ever heard stories like that?

Let me put my dark glasses on, and steeple my fingers and ask...

What if I told you....

That the cord being around your baby's neck was EXPECTED?

Think of all the boogying around in there they do. Wouldn't it be a bit weird if it wasn't looped around them?

What if I told you...

It's pretty common. It happens in around 1/3 of births, and it's not usually a cause for concern.

What if I told you...

It's not strangling your baby. He's not breathing with his lungs yet, remember. And it's coated in Whartons jelly to protect it even if it's knotted.

What if i told you it's a GOOD thing!

Around the neck is infinitely better than around the head! It would get very squashed there as he moved down and out.

Please see the commments for a l i n k to more information about this :D



📸 Image credit .birth

10/27/2024

05/27/2024

An understanding of physiology should underpin childbirth education. We need to reclaim birth knowledge rather than reinforce and sustain misconceptions created during the medicalisation of women's bodies. Diagrams and teaching aids depicting neat, circular cervical dilation are incorrect and perpetuate misinformation.
https://midwifethinking.com/2016/06/15/the-anterior-cervical-lip-how-to-ruin-a-perfectly-good-birth/

05/09/2024

Parents need good information to help them to spot the signs of infection in babies.

I wrote about this in my book, Group B Strep Explained.

This is also a key point in the UK guidance on preventing early onset group B strep (GBS) disease (Hughes et al 2017).

That document called for all pregnant women to be provided with appropriate information about GBS.

This is both to support decision making and to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of the infection in babies.

I have just updated my blog post on this topic, and sharing a graphic which I use in my teaching.

It's a tool for discussion of the signs and symptoms that professionals may wish to discuss with parents.

And you can find out more in my book, Group B Strep Explained, at www.sarawickham.com/gbse

As with all of my resources, you are welcome to share this post, but please share the original, give credit, and link to my site rather than taking it to promote your own work.

And if you find my resources useful, please consider supporting my work by buying and recommending my books, and/or buying me a coffee. You can do that at https://ko-fi.com/drsarawickham

03/03/2024