TTMA Labor Stuff (grad question)

[yoshijo]

So I'm trying to mentally prepare that in 5-10 weeks (no complications) I'll be going through this thing called labor. I'm going with the flow for the most part but have some questions. I'm going to probably xp to facebook because I don't know how many grads are here.

1) For non inductions- how long after contractions started did you leave for the hospital?

2) What did you do to get through contractions- walk around, use breathing or relaxation techniques, certain positions (cat cow, squats?), heating pad (if that's even allowed?), if you had an epidural during what point?

3) Did you have "coached labor" where the doctor told you when to push or did you labor down and follow your body?

4) After baby was born did you do delayed cord clamping, cord blood banking, delay eye ointment, refuse pacifier? Did baby stay with you or in the nursery sometimes? I don't have many opinions on this so curious what everyone did.

Feel free to add any questions you all have too!

[Deleted]

::following::

cali, you might want to cross post this on pregnancy too, there's some posters who've recently given birth.

[cali]

@easilyunamused, I think that tag was meant for yoshijo but I'm also following.

[Deleted]

Jun 13, 2017 11:30:55 GMT -6 cali said:

@easilyunamused, I think that tag was meant for yoshijo but I'm also following.

Oh yeah. Lol whoops! Pregnancy brain😆

Sorry yoshijo!

[mrsrodgers]

yoshijo, you've seen this already on FB, but wanted to put it here too since not everyone is there.

My water broke and I was having no contractions. We left for the hospital about an hour after my water broke because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I figured worst case, they would send me back home but they ended up admitting me.

I ended up being induced so I wasn't able to walk around much but I don't know that I would have wanted to even if I could have. I sat on the yoga ball and after I got my epidural, the peanut ball (both provided by the hospital).

When it came time to push, the nurse started out by telling me when a contraction was coming so I knew what it would feel like. After a couple times of her telling me, I was able to feel when it was time and would tell her.

I ended up with a csection but didn't go in with any plans to do delayed cord clamping. If the hospital would have recommended it, I would have probably done it. We did the eye ointment as they recommended, along with the other standard shots at birth. Our hospital delayed the first bath for 24-48 hours so we did that as well. C ended up in the special care unit so he was out of my room for the first two nights and they did give him a pacifier while he was there. He never took to it though and we didn't really use it after that (even though we tried numerous times).

Regardless of what you plan, know that things may not turn out as expected and try to keep an open mind when plans have to change. I generally turned to the nurses and doctors for advice knowing they were the experts. I had an overall good experience (other than ending up with an unexpected csection) and I think it's because I didn't go in with a strict birthplan or any expectations of how labor/delivery would go.

[ketchup]

Thanks for asking this, yoshijo. Because the PAIF blog linked discussions to board threads, and said threads lead back to TCF, I am trying to figure out a way to replace the content with new stuff. If you don't mind, I'll link this thread once it gets answers.

[ketchup]

I saw on FB, but the "thread" was already a bazillion answers long. I'll answer here instead.

1) For non inductions- how long after contractions started did you leave for the hospital?
N/A. I was induced. But you should follow the 5-1-1 rule: contractions are 5 minutes apart, last for 1 minute, and have been that way for 1 hour. Or, if your water breaks.

2) What did you do to get through contractions- walk around, use breathing or relaxation techniques, certain positions (cat cow, squats?), heating pad (if that's even allowed?), if you had an epidural during what point?
I did a lot of swearing. Don't know if that helped, per se. I wasn't allowed to move about, because I was hooked up to pitocin and all the monitors. TBH, I slept through most of it because my contractions weren't productive (not dilating me at first). Once they removed the foley bulb (that mother effer hurts, yo) and broke my water, I only experienced contractions for a short period of time before TT's HB started dropping, and I was taken to the OR. I didn't have an epidural, so I can't speak to that.

3) Did you have "coached labor" where the doctor told you when to push or did you labor down and follow your body?
Also N/A.

4) After baby was born did you do delayed cord clamping, cord blood banking, delay eye ointment, refuse pacifier? Did baby stay with you or in the nursery sometimes? I don't have many opinions on this so curious what everyone did.
Sigh. Yet another thing I didn't get a say in. My birth plan included delayed cord clamping, delayed medical eval until she nursed, etc., but none of that was possible since she needed to be resuscitated after she was born, and I was under. My hospital doesn't have a nursery option, so once we were in our PP room, she was room-in the entire time. Pacifier wasn't offered, and we didn't ask for one.

As for cord blood banking, I think it's a waste of money unless you have a family member with a known condition that said cord blood could be used for. You'll get a lot of flyers in the mail about it, but definitely make sure to do your googling research if you're on the fence. It's not cheap, and reality is that the likelihood that your child will benefit from banking his/her cord blood is ridiculously low (like less than 1%). Here's a good article to read that lays out the facts: LINKY.

[yoshijo]

Jun 13, 2017 11:41:34 GMT -6 @easilyunamused said:

Jun 13, 2017 11:30:55 GMT -6 cali said:

@easilyunamused, I think that tag was meant for yoshijo but I'm also following.

Oh yeah. Lol whoops! Pregnancy brain😆

Sorry yoshijo!

Haha I was confused but realized what you meant

[yoshijo]

ketchup good point about the cord banking. I wasn't going to but feel guilty of I don't. We'll see

Sorry the thread prob won't get too many responses cus the facebook one got a ton. Unless we ask people to post here too so you can use it to link. Thanks mrsrodgers

[yoshijo]

Jun 13, 2017 9:23:04 GMT -6 @easilyunamused said:

::following::

cali, you might want to cross post this on pregnancy too, there's some posters who've recently given birth.

I posted there too to get even more experiences

[Deleted]

Jun 14, 2017 10:29:44 GMT -6 yoshijo said:

Jun 13, 2017 9:23:04 GMT -6 @easilyunamused said:

::following::

cali, you might want to cross post this on pregnancy too, there's some posters who've recently given birth.

I posted there too to get even more experiences

Thanks! I'm not in any of the FB groups, so I miss out on a lot!

[nutmeg]

XP from FB

1. I probably waited a couple of hours after contractions really started. I called and went in when they hit consistently 5 minutes apart.

2. I watched TV and tried to sleep overnight. Most of my contractions weren't too painful until after they broke my water. Then things really got going, I was hooked up to an IV and leaking all the fluid so I basically just stayed in bed, not helpful.

3. I had a nurse who basically told me to shut up, I was yelling loudly, and She coached me through it kind of.
My labor progressed very quickly and I wasn't able to get any drugs. From my experience you will know when it's time to push. Nate and I were alone in the room when I felt an incredible urge to poop/push. There was no way I was going to not push, too bad if Nate ended up catching her. The nurse finally came in and pushed the big red emergency button because the baby was on her way out and no one was going to stop her. She was born less than an hour after they broke my water.

4. This is a completely unique situation *TW ahead*
Molly had the cord wrapped around her neck when she was born. She wasn't crying and needed oxygen right away. We didn't delay anything, but Nate was able to cut the cord before they took her for O2. She never used a pacifier and stayed with us the entire time.

Also, my only birth plan was to get all the drugs as soon as I could and do what they told me to do. It didn't work out that way. Don't be surprised if even the simplest birth plan goes out the window.

[DrHooch]

1) For non inductions- how long after contractions started did you leave for the hospital? My water broke before I started feeling contractions. Since he was breach and they were going to do a cs we left within an hour. Our scheduled cs was the following week so we hadn't packed anything yet, and it was 4 in the morning so my husband wanted to shower first, and the nurse at the hospital said it was ok.

2) What did you do to get through contractions- walk around, use breathing or relaxation techniques, certain positions (cat cow, squats?), heating pad (if that's even allowed?), if you had an epidural during what point? N/A My contractions were barely noticeable when they took me back and did the epidural.

3) Did you have "coached labor" where the doctor told you when to push or did you labor down and follow your body? N/A

4) After baby was born did you do delayed cord clamping, cord blood banking, delay eye ointment, refuse pacifier? Did baby stay with you or in the nursery sometimes? I don't have many opinions on this so curious what everyone did. We did not do delayed cord clamping (I don't think it was an option for a cs anyway). We also didn't do cord blood banking because, like ketchup said it's very unusual for it to be actually useful. We did everything on schedule (ointment, vaccinations, etc). I don't remember if we used a pacifier. Baby stayed with us, but sometimes I think it would have been better to get a good night of rest, especially recovering from the c/s, but I felt guilty/nervous sending him away.

[cythe]

Hi, I'm lurking the shit out of this thread (And the one on pregnancy) so I just want to say thanks to everyone who XPs from FB to here. Thanks guys!

[mickey24]

***Lurking from SAIF if it is not okay to post let me know and I'll delete.***

1) For non inductions- how long after contractions started did you leave for the hospital?

My water broke before my contractions began, so I called the OB who said to take a shower and leave home about an hour later. I should say it was a twin pregnancy, I was GBS positive, and the hospital was an hour away.

2) What did you do to get through contractions- walk around, use breathing or relaxation techniques, certain positions (cat cow, squats?), heating pad (if that's even allowed?), if you had an epidural during what point?

My contractions did not start right after my water broke. I think I had two strong contractions in a two hour span from the time my water broke. My OB gave me a couple hours from the time I was admitted for labor to start on its own. It didn't, so she encouraged labor with a low dose of pitocin. I didn't move around much due the constant leaking of fluid and I got the epidural pretty early on. Personally, I'm glad I didn't tough it out like I had planned and listened to my husband because the pitocin contractions were painful and I would have been stuck waiting because I caught the anesthesiologist between csections. I squeezed my husband's hand and tried to keep myself distracted when contracting.

3) Did you have "coached labor" where the doctor told you when to push or did you labor down and follow your body?

Yes, the nurse and doctor told me when to push and counted. However, I ended up having a csection when it was clear baby A'shead was too big and he was sunny side up.

4) After baby was born did you do delayed cord clamping, cord blood banking, delay eye ointment, refuse pacifier? Did baby stay with you or in the nursery sometimes? I don't have many opinions on this so curious what everyone did.

We did not do delayed cord clamping as I don't even know of that was an option with a csection or with having twins. We did not do cord banking either due to cost and probability of needing it. We did vaccinations and all of that type of stuff when it was recommended. The hospital I deliver at does not provide or offer pacifiers to non-NICU babies. If you plan to offer the pacifier right away or want to have the option you may want to bring your own or find out your hospitals policy. Where I delivered gives the first bath 12 hours after birth, but asked permission first.The hospital does not have a nursery so they roomed in with us the entire time. However, my OB did tell us we could ask the nurse to take the babies for a few hours in the evening so we could rest. We never asked the nurses to do this.



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