August 2015

Thanks Stella. I've heard about hypnotherapy. will def give it a try, my gynie told us that we need to get past our fears cause adrenaline give the opposite of the feel good hormone (can't remember the name of that one..) So her suggestion was to get over any fears that we may have and just go with the flow. Your tips help a lot - thanks. I have some mental prep to do.

ctelly, i did a hypnobirthing course and would highly reccomend it.
check out Beautifully born
www.beautifullyborn.co.za/our-practitioners.html

it basically teach you some relaxation and breathing techniques. and i have practised from about 5 months pregnant.

i would say the biggest thing is just to go with your body and do not fight it. the more you stress and the more you panic then your body tenses up and it is more painfull.
i did alot of slow and deep breathing that helps with the relaxation and to focus.
the other big thing is to keep your mind focussed on your baby and not on the pain. see in your mind with every single contraction that your baby is a bit closer to being born.

and then, do not read the horror birth stories, do not watch videos, as the media blows it a bit out of proportion.

i was in labour for 22 hours and only the last hour was very intense for me. the actual pushing the baby out was extremely fast and that was not painfull for me. G was out with 3 pushes and even though i teared, i did not feel it happen. of my whole labour and birth experience, receiving the stitches afterwards was the most painful.

warm water really help alot. the moments where i lost a bit of focess i just stood in the shower and let the warm water flow over my back. a warm bath might be even better.

i basically spent the most of my labour on my knees over a gym ball with a hot waterbottle on my lower back and hubby massaging my lower back during contractions.

o and contractions are over quick. it is not a constant. it is not painful at all in between contractions. the further you "progress" the closer they get together, but in between you will feel fin and then just relax and keep on breathing deeply.
the hospital way of breathing (fast and shallow) will not help at all. the slower and deeper you breathe, the easier it will be.

i think the best tip i have for you to prepare yourself is to physically practise to focus on your baby's journey through the birth canal and not to thing of the pain. the thing you will focus on during your labour will be the thing that will be most intense, so if you focus on pain, then you will only feel pain and you will be more stressed with every contraction.
if you focus on your baby's journey, and face every contraction as a step closer to birth the pain will be on the background and you will not be stressed about it.
talk to yourself and your baby about the birth from now on and start trusting in your body to do the work. if you say it out loud, you will hear it as well and it will become your conviction - your body is perfectly designed to birth your baby.

sorry for the long post, but please ask more questions regarding this if i have left something out or you want some more detail

Thank you for clearing that up. I thought it meant that you will be delivering in a room full of other ladies also giving birth lol, man I'm soooo clueless

Good morning Stella, do you have any tips regarding natural birth? how did you manage the pain and did you follow specific breathing patterns? We saw a video of a women giving birth last week.. I'm still freaked out and know that lies ahead.. trying to mentally prepare..

Well said Dearhel.

talking to her and imagining it in your head will already do wonders.

and do not worry about a big baby. G was 3.7kg born 2 weeks early - naturally and med free. and it was an amazing experience for me.
and for the baby, everyone says bigger babies are easier - i would not know, because i never had a small baby so cannot compare

so far it looks like little Franswa will be smaller than his brother. he is estimated to be about 3,5kg at 40 weeks. which is still a nice big baby.

the only difference will be that you will go through the clothes sizes faster than with a smaller baby, because big babies also tend to gain weight faster

Morning Ladies!

Thanx for the article wide-eyed and the advice Stella

I'll print that out and keep it for a couple of weeks. My next appointment is also at 33 weeks, and if she hasn't turned by then I'll have to look at maybe trying something. For now I'll just talk to her, maybe she'll listen

Dr's already said she's should be a nice big baby, which is scary enough after having 2 small ones, and it being so many years in between, that I don't even want to think about a breech birth... nope nope nope!

Not going to worry. I'm sure she'll have turned nicely by next appointment.

Good morning ladies,

interesting article Wide-eyes.
Dearhel, i think you should only start to try do something after 34 weeks.
my gynie said they can still turn easily till about 36 weeks.
mine is also breach at the moment, but i will only try something if he is still breach at my next appointment that is 33 weeks

hope you all have a lovely day