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Screaming your head off only makes it worse. Seriously. If you stay calm, breath deep, know that the pain means that the baby is coming it will help you feel a little better. People who scream and clench their fists and curse and spit at their husbands are tensing themselves up and making it harder for the baby and themselves.

Not that some people don't have really rough births anyway though. My friend's wife had a freakin 36 hour labor and he said if it was 50 years ago she would have died.

I think she's 26, but I might be off by a year. I went to see her the same day and she looked horrible. She weakly told me, "Damn you and your 1 push birth.." She had all kinds of complications with her blood, fever, severe swelling, etc.

I don't know, sorry. :( All I know is that both her OB and her replacement OB were out of town due to them thinking she wasn't going to give birth on Halloween. So she was left with some doctor she didn't know at all and this is probably why the idiot let her go so long and still have a natural birth. Even my doctor said that was very surprising and that normally they just C-Section before it gets that hard on the mother.

What's a doula?

That all depends on who's in the room with it.

Professional labor assistant. Basically her job is to "mother the mother." They're there to keep the mother calm and help her with natural pain-management techniques (if that's what she desires) and basically just try to help the mother have the most positive birth experience she can have. They can also provide a great deal of assistance to the father/birth partner, by acting as a relief when he needs a break and guiding him on the best way to assist the mother.

I've done doula training as a prerequisite for the midwifery school I want to attend, but I'm not sure I'll ever work as one aside from the requisite number of births I will have to attend in that role for my midwife certification--I don't really have the personality for it.

DSD--how did you end up with a doula? Did you hire one, or was it a service offered by the hospital? What kind of (if any) childbirth education classes did you take?

For myself, I'm imagining I will be like you and go inside myself to cope with labor. At least, that's what I've done in other situations under physical duress. Back when Mr. Ambrya and I did a lot more S&M play, I'd usually actually visualize my breath going in and out during flogging scenes.

She sounds as if she might bring me golabki and, therefore, I approve of her.

Edited, Feb 14th 2007 1:35pm by Jophiel

You'd be amazed at the number of fathers who come to a point at which they find themselves at a loss as to what to do. There's a number of ways the doula/father/mother dynamic can work. The father can be the primary assistant and the doula acts as backup/support, or if the father doesn't feel he can really provide the mother with what she needs effectively, the doula can be primary and the father secondary. Or they can trade off, enabling the father to get a nap or some food during a long labor (because he's not going to be any good to the mother if he's too exhausted to function.)

It does actually help.

Journal of the American Assn of Family Physicians




They've also been endorsed by studies done by the World Health Organization and the American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians.



Edited, Feb 14th 2007 1:40pm by Ambrya

All people out to earn a paycheck.

I read on a Dixie Riddle cup once that it was all a scam and that was good enough for me

Plus the word "doula" sounds Slavic. I don't doubt that their ranks are composed of shifty gypsy-women looking to snatch away the placenta during the confusion of childbirth and sell it to potion-grinders.