Birthing By Heart

Often touted as something to be feared, perineal tears are a common, and sometimes unavoidable hazard of giving birth. However, tears do heal, and they are something you can actively minimise.
The routine use of episiotomy, is unncessary, especially when it is performed in the name of protecting the perineum. A natural tear, will go through [...]

Pregnancy induced hypertension is often cited as a reason to induce labour,  in medicalised birth. It can be argued that the occurence of a gentle rise in maternal blood pressure, is a naturally occurring and necessary function of the body in order to birth.
However, maintaining a healthy blood pressure, and a healthy pregnancy are a [...]

Grantley Dick Read, is regarded by many as the father of “modern natural childbirth” meaning that he instigated the movement away from the rigid obstetric model of childbirth in place at the time (early 1900s)
Dick-Read believed that women were capable of naturally birthing their babies, and that the interventions of the “modern” obstetrical system were [...]

Birth without Trauma, Dr Frederik Leboyer’s book, outlines his principles for a gentle birth.  He believed that babies born into calm surroundings were more content.
Some of the principles involve birthing the baby into a room of hushed voices, dimmed lights, and a warm bath. Placing the baby on the mother’s chest, allowing the cord to [...]

The third stage in labour, is where you birth the placenta or afterbirth. It has become routine practise in hospitals to “actively” manage the third stage of labour by administering synthetic oxytocin. (Syntometrine, or similar). The reasoning for this is to speed up the third stage, and get the birth “over and done with”. However, [...]