Visible means of support

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Article Summary

Your partner, your mum and your best friend can help make labour a positive experience.

One of the best ways to make labour a positive experience is to have people with you who to meet your physical and emotional needs. These might include your partner, your mother, or your best friend. 

However, you also need an independent labour-support person, to stay with you and provide expert professional support. Many societies have such people, usually women, who are trained to help women through labour. Your midwife should fulfil this role.

The Benefits of Continuous Professional Support

What Midwives Do

The Benefits of Continuous Professional Support

Throughout history, mothers-to-be have had women helping them during labour and birth. Recently studies around the world have documented what women have known for centuries: labour support benefits for both mothers and babies. Among these benefits are: 

 shorter labours
 less anxiety and tension
 less need for pain medication or anesthesia
 fewer complications
 decreased interventions such as forceps or Caesarean births
 more positive feelings about labour
 greater self-esteem and sense of control
 stronger bonding between mother and baby

What midwives do

A good midwife supports your wishes for your labour and birth. She understands the physical and emotional aspects of labour and provides you with the information you need as your labour progresses. She's nurturing and comforting, and she's well versed in techniques that can help ease the pain and discomfort of labour. For example, she might suggest a new position, offer a massage, or lead you through a special relaxation technique like patterned breathing. 

The most important part of labour support seems to be having someone who will stay with you all through labour. It does not seem to matter who this is so long as they can offer that reassuring presence. Most maternity units can offer this sort of one to one midwifery support.

Ask about support in labour when you visit your delivery unit and emphasise in your birth plan that you want to have continuous support by your midwife if at all possible.

Remember a midwife is not meant to replace your partner or friend. They are in addition to them. If you have no partner with you this sort of support particularly important, but it is also valuable for women with a family member already present.

Category Tags:

Labour And Delivery

Article Tags:

doula

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anxiety