#chilbirth

[vikramsingh997]

Postpartum Depression is the Extreme Form of Depression

Postpartum Depression is the extreme form of depression which is related to pregnancy and childbirth. According to Studies that approximately 1 in 7 mothers suffer from postpartum depression after Child Birth. Here you can read about postpartum depression its causes, symptoms, and prevention for the healthy and better life.

[gameart-production]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vekelutfMI)

[dearbubblog-blog]

This amazing footage shows a baby born 'en caul' still inside the amniotic sac. It is a rare occurrence and happens in less than one in 80,000 births. 😮 Amazing! @Regrann from @gisele.correa_ #baby #birth #born #chilbirth #rare #amazing #babygirl #babyboy #video #babies #motherhood #encaul #amnioticsac #birthexperience #dearbubblog #pregnancy #birthnews #pregnent #moms #mums #wow

[officialbellefit]

“Wearing the corset was probably the best decision I made for my body. I never thought I would be able to fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes again. After my c-section, my abdomen was so sore and wearing the corset made it possible for me to move around without feeling uncomfortable.” Brooke

Brooke wore a Bellefit Corset

[theorynotebook]

There is evidence that some butches in the 1950s, marginalized from more mainstream work because of their masculinity, engaged in sex work and sometimes became pregnant; they would leave their cities and return chidless after the birth (Kennedy & Davis, 1993). More than this context-specific moment of butch pregnancy, what Epstein means when she says that butch motherhood is "a possibility that already exists" (2002: 43) is that the incongruence of a masculine pregnant body is more true in mainstream notions of gender than in lesbian subcultural practices.

Maura Ryan, "The Gender of Pregnancy: Masculine Lesbians Talk about Reproduction." Journal of Lesbian Studies. 2013.

[alexandhaley]

Many years ago, the thought of childbirth scared the bajeebies out of me.  How would I ever do that? How does one survive this experience? I used to look at pregnant women and feel sympathy for what they were going to have to endure to meet their baby. I was never the baby crazy girl (ever, really) but assumed I would probably have children someday so knew that this experience was inevitable for me.  I wondered... what would it feel like in the last couple of weeks and days before the baby was expected to come? Fear? Anxiety? Stress? Do evolutionary instincts kick in at the end and pregnant bodies just adapt and not feel any of these emotions?

While I don't consider myself a control-freak, I do think that maintaining a strong sense of control in certain areas of my life thwart off stress, negativity and help with my inability to juggle it all.  I tend to find my sense of control in knowledge.  The more I know, the more powerful I can be.  For several years now, I have been reading and learning as much as possible about what actually happens (and needs to happen) in pregnancy and childbirth and learning more about the anatomy of the female body during childbirth along with all of the hormones involved. And I'm amazed by it all, empowered even.  I have found trust, strength and calmness knowing and understanding what my body is doing and needs to do.  

While I don't fear childbirth anymore, I do have moments of nervousness- just as I did before a regatta (rowing is the most grueling physical and mental challenge I have endured to date).  What's it going to be like? What part of my body will try to give up first? How will my mind react to this?  During sports, I trained my body to do something really painful and tiring for a certain amount of time.  The thing about childbirth is that there are no set windows of time.  There are estimated windows of time for the stages of labor, but there's no hard stop, you just keep going until it's over.  There's also no set start time.  This could catch me off guard at any moment and I'll need to be ready to endure the experience- however long (or intensely short) it may be. 

I trust in my mind and most importantly my body to succeed at this- I have to allow my mind to relinquish control to my body.  My body is designed to do this, my mind just needs to allow it to happen. I will have support and comfortable, familiar things around me to help cope with the pain, keep my attitude in check and keep me focused.  And I will have support there to protect me.  I know Alex would never let anything bad happen to me, so with him by my side, I'll do just about anything. 

I look forward to (oh, the anticipation!) the experience of childbirth.  No matter how this happens, I imagine giving birth to my child being one of the greatest accomplishments of my life and I can't wait to know what that looks and feels like. 

[dover]

I came across this short article about perineal massage in on my reader this morning and thought I would pass it along.

Perineal massage isn't something that is widely discussed, but I think it can be very beneficial, and I wish more women knew about it. I read about it one of my books on pregnancy and childbirth during my first pregnancy, and about a month before my due date starting doing daily massages with Vitamin E oil, and I'm fairly certain it is the reason why I didn't have any tearing--not even a little bit--when Eleanor was born.  

[sociophilia]

We mothers are newborn with no one to care for us. We need our mothers and our mother's mothers. Men won't do just now. We have frightened them with our bodies and our transformation. They become hunters and gatherers for a while, hoping we'll change back to the women we were before. We can't bear to be separate from the babies. A part of our body has been wrenched from us with a significant amount of pain. One thing I know about pain is that it's there to make you think. But we are modern women and the world says, Up on your feet, girls! We jump and then sit in our cars in front of the day care center and let our shoulders heave as we drive away from the sight of our hearts, as someone once said, walking around outside our bodies. At the end of the day we return like lovers from the sea. We cover their bodies with kises and try to rejoin flesh to flesh. Our boundaries are shot. We are in love and in mourning all at the same time, and we are not ourselves, we tell one another. The men know and feel betrayed. They hadn't expected this loss, hadn't agreed to it. No matter how much we love them, the babies come first. That fact remains unspoken and flares in the heated night. We hire a baby-sitter so that we can fight.

Patricia Weaver Francisco, Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery