Dr Grantly Dick Read wrote about the fear of birth and how this rising anxiety towards the end of a pregnancy may inhibit a woman’s ability to go into labour and give birth spontaneously. He called it the fear-pain-tension cycle. His premise was that fear leads to pain and tension in the body, which can …
This is the story of a humbling birth with history. Caroline had hoped for a homebirth for her first baby boy and instead of fulfilling her dreams, gave birth by a needed caesarian section. Caroline, a personal trainer by profession, had fallen on her sacrum and coccyx in her twenties, not once but several times …
“’Bear down now, this baby needs to be born soon’ The perineum was bulging slightly now and beginning to stretch, as the baby’s head descended in the birth canal onto the pelvic floor. The midwife leaned over the mother, her short bob cut hair fell to the side of her face. She listened to the …
There is no need to rush to cut the umbilical cord after birth. The baby is born. The mother gives birth to the placenta soon thereafter. The cord is left intact. This picture was taken 24 hours after birth. The placenta is placed in a container covered with Himalayan salt. The cord goes white after …
Second Hand Gran is a new eco fashion and ethical project I have started on Instagram – @2ndhandgran – a page dedicated to recycling and reducing waste by encouraging creativity and reuse of clothing. Clothing is something that we are all consumers of. Second Hand Gran works two ways. Firstly I am an earth loving …
Instinct during birth has all but been driven underground in modern obstetric hospitals. Women who want to squat, crawl, kneel, hang, lean against the wall/bed, stand, sit on the toilet bowl (because a birthstool is unavailable) are prevented from doing so. It does not suit the medical attendants aka doctors and midwives for women to …
On one occasion, I accompanied the doctors and medical students, a group of about 15 medics, on their rounds, in a maternity hospital. We came to the bedside of a woman lying on her back on a hospital bed, attached with leads to a cardiotocograph (CTG) machine, which was measuring the unborn baby’s heartbeat.