home birth – RootedInAbundance

Preparing For A Home Birth

March 30, 2020April 29, 2022Natural Motherhood, Uncategorized18 Comments

Home birth is a beautiful and grounding birth option that allows you to experience birth your own way from the comfort of your home.

Home birth may be an option for you if:
•You are having a healthy, low-risk pregnancy
•You want to avoid an episiotomy, cesarean section, epidural and other similar interventions
•You want to share the experience with family and friends
•You want to be free to move around, change positions, take a shower, and eat or drink freely during labor
•You want to enjoy the comforts of your home and familiar surroundings
https://americanpregnancy.org/labor-and-birth/home-birth

Benefits of Home Birth:

“Benefits of planned home birth include lower rates of maternal morbidity, such as postpartum hemorrhage, and perineal lacerations, and lower rates of interventions such as episiotomy, instrumental vaginal birth, and cesarean birth.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4399594/

“An average uncomplicated vaginal birth costs about 60% less in a home than in a hospital.”
https://americanpregnancy.org/labor-and-birth/home-birth/

Birth Supplies:

Although you don’t need much more than your body to give birth, it’s helpful to have plenty of supplies to create a comforting and relaxing environment that can address any issues should they arise.

The birth supplies you’ll need will depend on whether you’re having a midwife or an unassisted birth. If you’re getting a midwife, you’ll want to ask what they will supply, otherwise you’ll need to get most items yourself.

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Helpful Gear:

Birth Pool

If using a birth pool and planning a water birth, there are a few additional items you may want or need.

Lead-free potable water hose
Sink water hose adapter
Fish net (in case any accidents happen in the pool)

Birth Ball Set

The Basics:

Extra sheets, towels, and rags
Thermometer
Underpads
Plastic sheet or shower curtain liner

Setting The Environment:

Affirmation Cards

Dim lighting options
Essential oils

Comfort & Pain Management:

Birth gown for mom
Organic Herbal Heating Pad
Ice Pack
Healthy Snacks
- Homemade fruit popsicles
- Peanut butter
- Vegetable Broth or Soup
- Any quick & easy healthy snacks you love!

Unassisted Birth Medical Gear:

•Home Birth On Your Own Terms: A How To Guide For Birthing Unassisted

•Hanging Weight Scale

•Blood Pressure Cuff and Stethoscope

•Umbilical Cord Clamp

•Kleenprint Footprint

For Baby:

Newborn diapers
Receiving blankets
Birthday cake (for family to celebrate!)

Want more support! Join the slow & natural motherhood course!

The Best Resources For Planning Your Ideal Birth

December 27, 2019Natural Motherhood, Uncategorized22 Comments

My Favorite Resources To Visualize A Positive Birth

Having the birth experience you want requires planning, education, and understanding. It’s important to know all the whys behind different approaches to birth and navigate what will be best for you and your baby. If you approach birth without knowledge, your birth experience will be whatever your medical professional would like it to be rather than your own preferred experience because unless you give direction, others will take the lead. There are endless resources to understanding and learning all about birth. In order to align with the birth you want, it’s important to dive into that experience. Here are a few of my favorite resources to help learn more about birth and decipher your own ideal birth.

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The Birth Hour Podcast

“The Birth Hour Podcast” is one of my favorite and one of the most accessible resources. I listen on Spotify, but it’s available on a myriad of platforms. It’s important to be aware though that it shares ALL types of stories, including the more negative or more medical focused experiences, but it’s a great place to start in figuring out what you may or may not want. This resource is all about the birth stories and not so much the educational side of things or hearing research behind birth although it does come up occasionally. It’s a great place to start when forming ideas about your ideal birth because you’ll begin forming a vocabulary around birth and hear about all the different things that can come up and the approaches to birth. I think it may be ideal to lay off this resource or be more selective with episodes once you do have a set birth plan to make sure you’re not filling yourself with fear or giving yourself different visions of birth than you would like.

Empowered Birth Project

Instagram Account

EmpoweredBirthProject.com

The Empowered Birth Project was one of the first birth resources I was exposed to outside of my formal education and I was immediately obsessed. I had never seen birth framed as a beautiful and empowering experience before and that’s what the Instagram page is all about. This page shares real stories along with photos and videos, and emphasizes birth education and awareness.

Ok so this one is probably a no brainer, but I think Pinterest a great resource for planning a birth because you can find stories, research, and inspiration for any birth you may desire. I have a Natural Birth Inspiration board you can check out here. It provides a myriad of resources from research to things like affirmations for birth.

Books

Books can be an amazing resource as they go into depth about topics allowing you to gain more understanding and possibly even more skills to prepare you for the birth you want. This is a quick list of a few of my favorites, but I will probably write a separate article shortly to go into more depth about all of my favorite birth books.

Natural Childbirth The Bradley Way

Ina May’s Guide To Childbirth

The Doula’s Guide To Your Empowering Birth: A Complete Labor and Childbirth Companion For Parents To Be

Mindful Birthing: Training The Mind, Body, and Heart for Childbirth and Beyond

In Your Community

Some of the most important resources you will use are those in your community. I personally suggest using a midwife group or hiring a doula (or both). They’re a great resource for natural and empowered birth options. You can also check into local Le Lethe League meetups which is a great moms’ support group for breastfeeding. I also suggest looking into local birth classes, pregnancy support groups, baby-wearers clubs, prenatal yoga, chiropractic, and acupuncture. All are amazing resources to ensure your body and mind are healthy and prepared for natural and/or an empowered birth. You’ll also find the transition to motherhood much easier if you already have a like minded mama tribe through different prenatal groups.

You can also reference My Natural Home Birth Plan for more information and ideas!

Learn how to prepare your body for labor naturally here!

Natural Birth Plan Template!

Book for big siblings expecting pregnancy — Check out the book here!

The REAL Reasons Moms Skip The Epidural

October 2, 2019Birth, mom life, Natural Motherhood10 Comments

As a mama who wanted an unmedicated birth herself, I was curious why other moms took a similar path, whether a home birth or hospital birth. I surveyed the moms of Green Mama Life and here are the REAL answers!

Not Enough Time

Fast labor, also known as precipitous labor, is defined as labor that lasts two or three hours. Many women noted they had planned to have an epidural, but were unable to due to quick labor. When quick labor occurs, women may jump into the end phase of labor quickly or arrive at the hospital too close to delivery to receive an epidural.

Hospital Understaffed

The hospital being understaffed was definitely my least favorite answer. The epidural is a choice so I find it upsetting, as I’m sure many women do, that hospital staffing is a factor in women’s birth choices. Although women noted they were usually happy with the overall experience of not receiving an epidural, I do believe we need to do better to support women in birth.

Owning The Power of The Female Body

Some women mentioned their desire to really just see what their body was capable of. A few women who skipped the drugs found they felt more empowered after experiencing natural childbirth as they really saw how amazing and capable their bodies are.

What to know about epidurals and women's experiences

Wanted The Experience

Along with owning the power of the female body, women noted they wanted the whole experience. Women were curious about what birth felt like without numbing and wanted full control over their pushing and movement.

Previous Experience

Some women mentioned their previous experiences made them want to skip the epidural. A few women noted bad experiences with the epidural leaving them with no desire to do it again while others noted experiencing an epidural with one birth and not with the second and preferred the birth and postpartum recovery experience without the epidural.

Fear of Epidural

Many women, including myself, noted our fear of the epidural. Their fears ranged from a literal fear of needles, fear of it leading to a c-section, to fear of it harming the baby. All of these fears are valid. As mentioned in the “Previous Experience” section bad experiences with epidurals do happen.

Common symptoms from an epidural include itching, nausea and vomiting, fever, soreness, and a drop in blood pressure, while more uncommon, yet still prevalent, symptoms include difficulty breathing, severe headache, infection, seizure, and nerve damage.
Healthline

Did you skip or plan to skip the epidural? What was your reason? Have you had an experience with an epidural?

You may also be interested in Natural Home Birth Plan

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