Woman centered Labour care

As a pregnant mother you must appreciate that pregnancy is not a disease ,so the care that we give you should also not be like a disease .We are not really treating you for a problem but we are monitoring you to see that you dont develop a problem or even if you do we try to decrease the severity of the compilcation.Another remarkable feature of labour care is that it may last for hours together and plan of care may change over minutes and seconds whereas the treatment of most diseases is usually not so variable over such a short period of time .Therefore do not approach labour with too much planning and calculation Labour is best left the way it is ---natural.So many people ask me ---so Doctor when will it Happen? No doctor can predict a natural event.We can only tellyou that the chances of natural labour happening are maximum from 2 weeks before your due date to one week after your due date.
You must also realise that the beginning of labour is usually a slow and gradual process and some changes are happening in your body for weeks before the actual start of labour.Therefore there is nothing to panic when labour starts.You may get regular crampy abdominal pain the frequency of which will go on increasing and the interval will go on decreasing.You may also have excessive vaginal discharge  and watery discharge .On reaching the hospital the doctor will do a gentle pervaginal examination to confirm whether  you are in labour .Even after you are in established labour you may take 6 to 8 hours to deliver.This is the first stage of labour when it is very important to relax,walk around,have hot/cold baths,listen to music and to have a good labour support partner  

woman centered pregnancy and labour care

Another very misunderstood aspect of pregnancy care is miscarriages which happen early in pregnancy usually before 10 weeks. Most or almost all of theses miscarriages are usually not preventable whatever you eat or dont eat,exercise or don't exercise.Often expectant mothers tell me that all her family members have asked her to take complete bed rest in the first three months to prevent miscarriages.The poor mother is literally terrorised to believing that she should not climb stairs,she should not walk,she should not sit on the floor and so on and so forth.Common sense tells us that if these activities really led to miscarriages then the women labourers would never have children. The fact is that most early miscarriages most of the time happen because of genetic mutations when the sperm and ovum(egg) fuse to form a zygote and these are not dependent on any external factor.So the mothers need not blame themselves for such a mishap.The good news is that the chance of these genetic accidents happening again is very less.So even after two such miscarriages the chance of successful pregnancy happening is around 70--80%.