Tags: abdomen, contractions, hemorrhaging, navel, Placenta, vagina
If it looks as if the baby will be born at home without medical assistance, you should telephone the hospital or the midwife if you haven’t done so already. If you haven’t got a telephone, on no account should you leave the mother alone.
However anxious and overwhelmed you are, you must stay calm and reassure her – she needs to feel confident and relaxed. Encourage her to take up any positions in which she feels most comfortable and to eat and drink if she feels like it. Speak quietly and keep any onlookers at bay.
Between contractions
Turn up the heating in the room if at all possible. Wash your hands thoroughly in soap and water, and then fetch several clean bath towels and place them conveniently to hand. Fold one and put it on the bed or floor so that you have something soft on which the baby can be laid.
Then fill several bowls with hand-warm water, and collect as many clean hand towels, face flannels or tea-towels as you have; immerse these in the water and use as wipes for mother and baby during and after delivery.
The birth
Your partner will know when the baby is coming because she will feel a stinging or burning sensation as the baby stretches her vagina. After washing your hands thoroughly again, look to see if you can see the top of the baby’s head in the vaginal outlet. Remind your partner to pant or blow, so that her vagina and perineum have time to thin and stretch, which may enable her to avoid tearing.
The baby’s head will probably be born in one contraction and the rest of his body in the contraction afterwards. When the head is born, wipe each of the baby’s eyes from inside to outside with separate pieces of moist linen, and then feel round his neck to see if the cord is present. If it is, crook your little finger underneath it and pull it very gently over the head, or lift it so that the body can be born through the loop.
Do not cut the cord because it may go into a spasm and deprive your baby of oxygen. If the membranes (called the caul) are still present over the baby’s face, you must gently tear this off so that the baby can breathe.
Delivery of the Placenta
If the placenta is delivered before an attendant arrives:
Never pull on the cord or cut the cord.
After the placenta comes out, massage the mother’s abdomen firmly, with a deep circular motion, gently pushing downwards 5-7cm (2-3in) below the navel. This is important to make sure the uterus contracts and stays hard after the birth without hemorrhaging.
Its normal for a couple of cups of blood to be delivered when the placenta comes out.
Getting the mother to nurse her baby immediately will help contract the uterus and minimize blood loss.
AFTER THE BIRTH
Be careful to hold the baby firmly as he is born, because he will be slippery with blood, mucus and a waxy substance called vernix caseosa. Once he is born, he will probably give a couple of gasps, a cry, and then start to cry properly If he doesn’t cry immediately, place him across your partner’s thigh or abdomen, with his head lower than his feet, and then gently rub his back. This helps any mucus drain away and usually causes a change in blood pressure, which will bring about his first breath. Talk to him lovingly.
