Comments on: How one mom “Walked, moved around, and changed positions” to a successful hospital VBAC!

By: erinmidwife

erinmidwife — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:50:01 +0000

AWESOME! Nurses make ALL the difference to laboring women! Horray for everyone involved!

By: Kelly

Kelly — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:37:36 +0000

This is such a beautiful story. I’m glad you shared. I too had a truly wonderful L&D nurse who believed in me and in my husband’s ability to support me and gave us all the help she could within the hospital policies to help us achieve a wonderful natural birth! Thank you for the job you do. Be encouraged that there are so many moms out there who are blessed to have you help them. Kelly

By: Anna

Anna — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:58:32 +0000

I have been reading your blog off and on since I found it when I was 3 months pregnant with my daughter (8 months old now). I want to say I love your blog! I also was curious to find out how you feel about directed pushing vs. spontaneous pushing, and about waiting for the magic 10cm. When I had my daughter, I was doing alright coping with the contractions until I started feeling the urge to push. I told the nurse, and she called the OB, who did a cervical check and told me not to push yet because I was only 8cm. I have to say the time from when he told me not to push until the time he finally told me I could push was the worst part of my labor by far! I felt like I was fighting against my own body to hold in something that needed to come out. It made every contraction into a horrible struggle to not push, and despite my best efforts, I know my body was pushing anyway! I also lost my concentration on relaxing and breathing because I was trying so hard not to push, and I started hyperventilating. I know that transition is naturally harder than earlier labor, but I feel like trying to fight against what my body was telling me to do made it 100 times worse. Then when I did get the green light to push, the OB tried to get me to push on his count of ten while holding my breathe, and I completely ignored him. I pushed my baby out with short small pushes while groaning through every contraction. The OB and nurse kept telling me to hold my breath and stop groaning, but I only half registered what they said, and just did what felt right to me. I did pause when he told me to right before crowning so that I wouldn’t tear, but other than that I ignored everything they tried to tell me about pushing.
Since then I have read some articles by various midwives that say it’s not actually always a bad thing to begin gentle pushing before 10 centimeters, and it makes me wonder if my birth experience could have been more calm and peaceful if I had kept my mouth shut and just done what my body was telling me to do.
Anyway, sorry for rambling! I was just wondering what your thoughts are on that from a medical perspective.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:45:14 +0000

This is a wonderful (and wonderfully written) story.

But, I would have believed it if you said it was all a made up fantasy. Its sad how rare it seems that this kind of kindness and attentiveness is in the L&D nursing community.

You are a true inspiration and a blessing to all birthing moms you encounter. Please continue to bring this humanity into the hospital birthing experience.

I will be sure to read your blog from start to finish. Hopefully you will continue to write and share your thoughts and experiences.

Thank you.

By: nancy smith

nancy smith — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:52:37 +0000

your hospital and your labouring moms are privileged to have you for a nurse. I have been a maternity nurse for 35 years and now practice as a lactation consultant. Over the span of my career I have seen us move further and further away from respecting womens bodies and their ability to birth their babies.

Everyone talks about “evidence based practice”, then proceeds to ignore the research!

Midwifery care is on the upswing here which gives women options for successful natural births and VBACS. I assist our local midwives at home deliveries, which is amazing. But it saddens me that women can’t have the option of this kind of birth in hospital – or at least it is rare.

Your birth story account is beautiful. It brought back memories of being present at my daughters VBAC miwife assisted birth of my grandson. Witnessing the miracle of birth over and over during our careers really is awesome!

nancy smith
BC Canada

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:11:53 +0000

I just wanted to thank you for posting this story. I keep reading this as I prepare for my VBAC and it is very inspiring.

By: JudyC

JudyC — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:06:34 +0000

Lovely story but sad in a way.
Admittedly I work in Australia and am a midwife so it is very different to what I have read of birth in the US. We don’t have labour nurses. All normal births in public hospitals are done by midwives who do all the labour care as well. The number of hospitals that do true continuity of carer is smaller and I am fortunate to be in one of those.
To me it was a very interventionist birth though totally different to what I believe is the norm.
I get the opportunity to know my women through antenatal care where we discuss what the want, to be their birth support and midwife in labour, to empower women to self educate and decline treatment and to be able to support their decisions as long as it is well documented.
I don’t believe there was a necessity to do so many vaginal exams, it breaks the rhythm too much.
Sounds like the previous CS was because of Failure to Be Patient or Care Provider Distress.
Smart mum to look for better care and amazing that she was able to get a nurse and midwife to support her properly.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:20:57 +0000

What a wonderful story! I love reading these blogs of nurses who are pro natural birth. We’ve moved since the totally natural birth of my daughter and have found our new city seems to be very against a natural birth (signing waivers that you do not practice Bradley method, etc)

Being in charge of my birth was the most amazing experience and it saddens me that not every woman is given that opportunity.

By: NursingBirth

NursingBirth — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:09:37 +0000

Knitted in the Womb, that is an awesome story!! Thanks for sharing!! I’ve heard one or two OBs and nurses say “ARE YOU PUSHING? STOP PUSHING!!” but not because the patient wasnt fully, but because they weren’t “ready”. Hahaha!

By: Christy

Christy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:08:40 +0000

I have been reading this blog off and on after a very traumatic birth of my fourth child, who died 3 days later. Knitted in the Womb’s story gives me chills becuase I went from trusting my OB entirely, never doubting, for 3 prior pregnancies/deliveries and then the 4th delivery was a clusterf__k. I now know better than to trust a doctor just because he has a phd behind his name. But it cost me a child. I have heard so many stories about the things doctors do. The fact that birth is a major major procedure where so many things can go wrong for both teh baby and the mother seems like it gets overlooked by people who are supposed to know what they are doing….but don’t. I can never listen to another birth story and wonder how close the mother or baby were to dying. Because these aren’t routine procedures. Every pregnancy and EVERY birth is different. And the fact that there are idiots out there running the show and call themselves doctors is haunting.