My Expert Midwife
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Pain Relief for Labour & Birth
Read more →Regardless of whether you go into labour naturally or are undergoing an induction of your labour you will still have some level of anxiety and with that anxiety comes the fear-pain cycle; the more anxious you become the more pain you appear to feel. If you can manage your levels of anxiety then you should be able to cope with your labour pain more effectively. This is not possible for everyone as people feel different levels of pain and anxiety levels, for that reason there are many forms of pain control available to use. The most amazing thing about labour...
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The Shrinking Cervix & Problems With Labour
Read more →For those of you who haven't attended antenatal classes or Hypnobirthing classes, here's the shortened version. Stress and fear in labour cause you to produce adrenalin (the fight or flight response), adrenalin causes smooth muscle to contract, your uterus is smooth muscle, your cervix is part of your uterus and also smooth muscle. When you're in labour oxytocin (the love hormone) makes the top of your uterus contract, because there's hardly any receptor sites for oxytocin at the bottom of your uterus and cervix it allows your cervix to stretch to allow your baby to be born. Now...when you feel...
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Your First Midwife Appointment
Read more →So, you’ve just checked your pregnancy test and it’s positive!!! What next?At some point you need to make an appointment with a midwife who will organise all your scans, blood tests and hospital appointments. The midwife will also inform you of all the important things regarding your pregnancy along with choices for you and your baby’s care.If you’ve decided to book for private midwifery care you can locate your nearest private, or ‘Independent Midwife’ through a google search or by searching the Independent Midwives UK register.If you’ve decided to book with NHS care then you need to contact your local...
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Top 5 Pregnancy & Postnatal Apps
Read more →There’s not much that can’t be accessed, or achieved, on a mobile phone nowadays. Smart phones are a staple of most people’s everyday lives in the UK, and there’s lots of really useful content that can be accessed on them. There are a number of apps that we recommend that can give women a whole host of useful information about their pregnancy at the click of a button. We've put together five of our favourites for this blog post; it’d be great to know of any others that you’ve found useful.SqueezyThis is an NHS physio app, designed to help you keep...
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My Baby's Back to Back, What Can I Do?
Read more →So you've just visited your midwife and she (or he) has told you that your baby is back to back. What do you do now? Well, you can try hands and knees position and avoid slouching during pregnancy, although current evidence would suggest that this makes little difference to the position that your baby will be in as your labour begins. Current evidence would also dispute the notion that the cause of your baby's back to back position is related to what you have and have not done (see above). Some 15 - 30% of babies will start labour in...
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How Long Does Birth Take & Should I Try to Speed it Up?
Read more →Lesley is our MEM midwife and here she gives us her thoughts on labour and birth and questions why we want to speed up the process. I've always been intrigued by our need to speed up labour; clary sage, reflexology, waking etc etc...the list seems endless! I've always practised in a much more primitive way. Whenever I'm faced with a dilemma around the process of birth I ask myself 'what would a woman have done 200,000 years ago' and 'what is nature's plan'?. Both questions have served me well. Take for example the issue of poo in labour: midwives and...
