Posts Tagged ‘
labor and delivery ’
Thursday, June 28th, 2012
A study published this week in the journal BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology has found that women who fear childbirth may actually have to endure labors that are, on average, an hour and a half longer than women who are not fearful. From CNN.com:
Study author Dr. Samantha Salvesen Adams initially thought her team would find the prolonged labor could be explained by other factors – women who feared birth the most were first time mothers, who are known to have longer labors anyway, or obstetric interventions like epidurals. But when those factors were taken into consideration, the difference in time between the fearless and the fearful was still 47 minutes.
“Mental stress is associated with physiological arousal and release of stress hormones,” Adams wrote in an e-mail. “During labour, high levels of stress hormones may weaken uterine [contractions].”
In other words, the adrenaline released when a body is stressed stops the oxytocin hormone production that makes a woman’s uterus contract, slowing labor. It’s a natural, biological response to fear, [Dr. Stuart] Fischbein said.
Image: Pregnant woman with clock, via Shutterstock.
Monday, June 25th, 2012
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting that nurse midwives are more popular among pregnant women than ever before, with 8.1 percent of all the births in 2009 being attended by a midwife. Thirty-nine states have seen an increase in the number of midwife-attended births, according to the study, which was published in the journal Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health (JMWH).
“The growing number of midwife-attended vaginal births in the United States may be a reflection of the increasing recognition of midwives’ expertise in the management of labor in vaginal births. As many mothers express their concern with the high cesarean rate in the United States, it is likely the demand for midwives will continue to rise,” said the JMWH report’s author, Eugene Declercq, PhD, Assistant Dean for DrPH Education at the Boston University School of Public Health. “While still far below the rates of midwife-attended births in other industrialized countries, this is nonetheless good news for those mothers who want the choice of a midwife as their prenatal care provider and birth attendant.”
Image: Midwife with pregnant woman, via Shutterstock.
Thursday, June 21st, 2012
Professional photography has found a new niche…in the delivery room. The New York Times reports that the trend reflects changing perception of labor and delivery as an event to be remembered, celebrated, and shared long after the blessed event:
The photographers and their clients have grown accustomed to puzzled looks and probing questions (Pictures of what, exactly?). But their rationale is simple: If you are going to document a child’s every bite of mushed banana as if it were a historical event, does it not make sense that his or her entrance into the world be photographed by a professional?
“I want to see that moment when I’m in labor,” said Rhisie Hentges of Long Beach, Calif., who paid $1,895 to have Briana Kalajian, a co-owner of Shoots and Giggles Photography, document the birth of her first child. “That moment when both my husband and I look to see what the sex is? That’s something that I want to see happen.” (As it happened, she had a Caesarean section last week, and the photographer was not allowed in the operating room, although she got many artful shots of the before and after.)
Another growing trend is for photographers to incorporate sonogram images of fetuses into photographs of pregnant women, using Photoshop or other photographic software. From the New York Daily News:
Shelly Kuhn, a family portrait photographer from Tonawanda, N.Y., has Photoshopped clients’ sonogram images onto their maternity shoots several times, and sees it as an artistic portrayal of pregnancy.
“Clients have asked me for it. Women love seeing what their children look like on their belly, they find it intriguing,” Kuhn told The Daily. “I would love to do more of these. But there is a debate over whether it’s morbid and disgusting or beautiful.”
Image: Pregnant woman in the hospital, via Shutterstock.
Monday, March 12th, 2012
Cynthia Sigler of Vista, California, welcomed a big new arrival late last week, when her son Jayden was born by Cesarean section weighing 13 pounds 14 ounces, The Associated Press reports. Sigler told the news agency that her first thought when learning her baby’s weight was, “How’d he fit?” From the AP:
Dr. Jerald White, who delivered the baby at Tri-City Medical Center, said Jayden was the biggest of the 20,000 newborns he has helped usher into the world since he started in 1961.
The doctor said delivering a very large baby via cesarean section is more challenging, but “it wasn’t so difficult that it created a problem for anybody.”
Sigler said her own family didn’t believe her at first — she convinced her cousin it wasn’t a joke only after showing a photo of the scale readout.
Jayden’s birth weight is almost twice that of his sister, Jailyn, now 2½. She was 7 pounds, 2 ounces at birth.
Sigler said she’ll have to exchange all the baby clothes she bought for larger sizes.
Image: Pregnant woman, via Shutterstock.
Friday, March 9th, 2012
A Polish woman whose pregnancy was in grave danger of severely premature delivery spent 75 days in labor–during most of which she was nearly upside-down–in order to save her babies.
Joanna Krzysztonek was carrying triplets, but one of the fetuses was born prematurely and died. In order to stop labor and allow the remaining two fetuses to grow, Krzysztonek remained in the unusual, uncomfortable position at the hospital for more than two more months.
Reuters reports that Krzysztonek gave birth February 15 to a girl, Iga, and a boy, Ignacy, at a gestational age of 32 weeks. The twins remain in incubators at the hospital, but they are expected to return home soon.
Krzysztonek reportedly had balance problems after emerging from her bed, but is now able to visit and hold her babies daily.
Image: Small baby’s hand, via Shutterstock.
