Birth

A recent study is creating controversy over the conclusions drawn from the data, explaining a possible effect of caesarean sections. By becoming increasingly caesarean sections since the 50s, many babies have been saved who, if the caesarean section did not exist, would have died in childbirth, and could even have ended the mother's life.

The newborn is a very fragile and sensitive being, who has just gone through a very stressful situation and has completely changed the environment in which he has lived until then. Therefore, after a normal delivery, great attention must be paid while trying not to separate it from the mother. If the newborn has been full-term and not premature, these are the care the baby receives as soon as he is born, or so it should be according to the recommendations of the Newborn Essential Care Working Group of the World Health Organization.

The fashion of the Mannequin Challenge (Mannequin Challenge or Mannequin Challenge in Spanish) has reached unsuspected sites. The viral phenomenon of the immovable protagonists has invaded sporting events, schools and even the White House. You have to have the courage to start a Mannequin Challenge in full labor, but there are people for everything.

According to the logic, if a graph were made with the number of births of each day of the year, what would come out is that, more or less, every day there is a similar number. Certain trends would be seen in terms of months (nine months after Iniesta scored the goal of the Champions semifinal against Chelsea there was a 50% increase in the number of deliveries in Barcelona), but very few differences within the same month, for example.

The Brazilian photographer Gustavo Gomes is the look behind the lens of these intimate photographs. But his role is not just a mere spectator, because the birth is that of his partner, Priscilla Bochi, giving birth to his daughter Violeta at home. He has been documenting his wife's day-to-day life, both during and before pregnancy, because it seemed most natural to do so also in one of the most important moments of his life: that of becoming parents.

Two weeks ago, we have left summer time behind to welcome the winter time, conceived, supposedly, to get more productive hours of light and save energy, although many believe it is a mistake. All countries that adhere to the change put it into practice at this time of the year, in Spain the last weekend of October occurred, while in the United States the weekend of November 5 to 6.

One of the best ways to know what it is like to give birth, and to overcome the fears of childbirth, is to see women giving birth. We live in a great time in this regard because women (and men too) can watch hundreds of normal births on streaming video platforms. The last video I have seen is this one that I bring you today, absolutely incredible for three reasons: the mother decided to have it without medical assistance, the baby weighed about 4,300 Kg and it took a while to start crying, in a few minutes that I They looked like hours.

The placenta is the organ that communicates closely with the mother and the fetus during pregnancy. But it is an ephemeral organ, that is, temporary. As soon as the baby is born, the placenta should be expelled by the organism, since its reason for being was to serve the baby to nourish it, oxygenate it, protect it ... and now it has no function.

Epidural analgesia is the administration of an anesthetic in the epidural space of women to control the pain of contractions at the time of delivery. Although its use is widespread and accepted, and does not seem to increase the risk of caesarean section, delivery without epidurals may be the safest option by decreasing the chances of instrumentalized delivery.

For a while now I am reading a great book about childbirth entitled 'Birth Guide', by midwife Ina May Gaskin (I will talk about it when I finish it, because I think it is very worthwhile), in which labor is explained from a normal vision, without considering it as a pathology as it has been done in many hospitals, and explaining how women can (and should) be protagonists of the process if they believe in their possibilities and are accompanied by people who also believe in them.

Water birth is a widespread modality in recent years. It has proven beneficial to cope better with labor contractions and promote dilation when it has already begun, but its benefit is not demonstrated at the time of expulsion of the baby. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has released on Monday some recommendations regarding this way of giving birth.

The scar of a C-section is not a simple sign on the skin, it means much more than that. It is the mark that has left the birth of a child and that sometimes generates very deep feelings in women who have given birth in that way. The most common is to see a horizontal scar, a thin line almost imperceptible at the height of the pubis, but a mother wanted to share a photo of the vertical scar left by the caesarean section that allowed her baby to be born.

A few weeks ago I published a post refuting the words of a gynecologist who criticized the option of giving birth at home defending her role as a traditional hospital professional; the one we all know, the one in which the woman arrives to give birth and the professionals take care of everything. Weeks later I published another post that confirmed that many women suffer in the hospitals a delectable treatment that makes childbirth, which should be one of the most precious moments of their lives, end up being a bad memory, and that many have many doubts and fears in case of a new pregnancy.

The benefits of practicing skin to skin with the newborn are undeniable. Placing the baby on the mother's breast as soon as she is born in direct contact with her skin helps her, among other things, to regulate the temperature, to calm down after the stress of childbirth and facilitates the first take, contributing to start breastfeeding with good foot

In twin pregnancies, prematurity is one of the most frequent risks. If the chances of having a baby's delivery before term is almost six percent, in premature births the odds increase proportionally to the number of babies. With two babies, the risk rises to almost 50 percent.

Cesarean delivery is an intervention that is performed when after weighing the risks and benefits it is estimated that it is best carried out for the sake of the baby and / or the mother. It is not exempt from possible complications, and one of them is that during the operation the baby suffers a cut with the surgical material.

It is a spectacular and very rare event that a baby is born inside the intact amniotic bag, without breaking, as if it were still inside the mother's womb. It is what is called veiled childbirth and children who come to the world in this way are known as enmantillados, with mantle, veil or toquilla.

WHO says that according to the studies and the type of childbirth care that women should receive, the caesarean section should be 10%, at most 15%. This means that only one in ten women should leave the hospital explaining that they have had a C-section, while the remaining nine should say they have had a vaginal delivery.

With streaming video it is possible to see hundreds of videos of births at a click. Among all of them, there are some who go viral because of some differentiating fact, that something concrete that makes people decide to share them and in a few hours or days thousands of people have seen them. This is what happened with this video, which was recorded and shared by the midwife, while the mother did everything: even take her baby and take it to her breast.

As I have said on other occasions, the three deliveries of my three children were very different. The first was by caesarean section after seeing that the baby suffered bradycardia with each contraction, the second was vaginal, premature, after several days with contractions, and the third was vaginal and lasted only two hours.