Gentle Birth Baby

Gentle Birth Baby by Sarah Buckley
as summarized by Teresa Howard

Gentle Birth babies are effected for a lifetime.
www.sarahjbuckley.com

Mammalian births- we are all basically the same. (I thought it humorous that she said this in her speech. It immediately made me think about Ina May Gaskin saying if you wanted to watch real birth on t.v., you should watch the Animal Planet!)


Safety, ease and pleasure = species for survival basis. So birth should be relatively safe, easy and pleasurable in order for any species to make it!

Anxiety and fright = prolonged labor
A woman needs to feel Safe, Private and Unobserved = this is what she calls the Recipe for ease of Birth

If this is the situation, then we should release the Ecstatic Hormones. This cocktail = oxytocin + beta endorphin (natural pain killer) + epinephrine (adrenalin) + non epinephrine: these release catecholamines --these rise at transition and it stimulates labor and the fetal ejection reflex + prolactin (the love hormone for moms!)

What disturbs Mother Natures plan for birth? Pitocin, epidurals, opiates and cesareans.

In 2005
21-40 percent of women were induced
50 percent tried to get labor going or their caregiver did
99 percent had pitocin after birth

Receptors in a woman's uterus will shut down if over stimulated by pitocin.

The altered state of a woman in labor is for it to be normal when "she goes out to the stars to collect the soul of the baby" (... this is what Pam England refers to as laborland.)

When an epidural is given, the pelvic floor muscles are relaxed and it numbs the lower vagina.

When mothers spent less time with their babies while in the hospital their moms felt their babies were less adaptable and more intense.

Bupivacaine, a drug used in most epidurals have a half Life 8 hours in the baby after the baby is born.

Dim lights, no numbers (dilation or time constraints), covering the clock, encourages instinctive behavior in the mom during labor.

The three things a woman in labor needs to focus on are: BREATH, making SOUND if she desires and MOVEMENT.

I heard Sarah speak at the Gentle Birth Congress in Portland a few years ago- these are my notes from that speech. She is coming to Atlanta to the ICAN conference this year. She is fabulous!