These labour and birth tips come from each birth I attend, which confirms my knowledge and teaches me how individual it is. There are common themes and familiar behaviours and each labour and birth is unique.
With my latest birth, I worked with the family to help them prepare for labour again, after having a caesarean with their first baby. Working with them in pregnancy, throughout labour and birth and during the first few hours with their new baby, confirmed a few things.
My labour and birth tips include:
- communication is everything – for expectations, preparations and to feel safe and protected. By asking questions you are not only included in care but you have a more clear understanding options and what is happening. Talk to your midwife, she wants to support you.
- teamwork makes a huge difference – labour can work well and labouring women are less frightened and overwhelmed when they are supported, soothed and guided by birth partners and midwives.
- instinct is powerful and it needs to be heard – it helps to guide movement, nesting, when to go into hospital and where you feel safe and comfortable.
- interventions and medical help can sometimes be needed – and this can come without warning or it can be something you hadn’t wanted when planning for labour but it becomes necessary for you or for your baby.
- birth plans and agreements matter – for communication, to encourage discussion, so you can ask questions and encourage care that is focused on you and your needs. Maternity units are driven by policies and if you want options and care outside of these policies, this needs to be agreed in advance of labour. This was a VBAC and using the pool and having intermittent monitoring needed to be agreed in advance.
- you need food and drink – for energy and to feel well, so make sure these are available
- labour will have its own pace – and you may need to adapt your strategies and mindset to manage your energy, to work with your contractions and to feel safe and supported.
- calm support makes a huge difference – from birth support to midwives and the doctors who may be involved in your labour or to check your baby, firm but calm words are reassuring even when there may be some concerns.
- there will be challenges – labour and birth can come with unexpected challenges where contractions or exhaustion may be harder than you anticipated, or the pace of labour is not what you expected. That’s why good support also makes a difference so you have information, options and reassurance.
- women are phenomenal – what we do to make and birth our babies always amazes me. Pregnancies can be challenging and all births make demands of us that we need to prepare for, work with and make sense of.
For more labour and birth tips you can work with me and you can also sign up for my newsletter for updates and ongoing information.
Over the last 20 years, I have worked with thousands of expectant and new parents and I have attended many births over the last 14 years – I love my work, I understand the needs of parents, I understand the challenges and I understand the maternity system and how to navigate within it.
I’m here to answer your questions, so you can prepare and plan and settle into life with your baby. Let me know how I can help.
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Copyright: Janine Smith
antenatal & postnatal specialist 
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