Birth Methods: Which One Is Right For You?
Birth Methods: Which One Is Right For You?
Choosing the right birth method for you and your baby can be a daunting task. There are so many different options, it can be easy to get lost in the medical jargon and confused by the countless delivery practices. So we’re here to demystify the birth methods available today. You can choose the method that’s best for you. Along the way, the preparation practices you can try, and the pain management techniques available.
There Are Only Two Basic Birth Methods
When you peel back the layers of mystery surrounding labor and delivery, you’ll see that there are only two basic birth methods: vaginal delivery (normal delivery) and cesarean section. Everything else is just a variation on these two methods. As you’ll see with vaginal delivery, you can change where you give birth and what tools and procedures are involved, but it is still a vaginal delivery. When it comes to cesarean section, your doctor will help determine if that is the right delivery method for you.
Cesarean Section
A cesarean section, or c-section for short, is a surgical procedure performed when vaginal delivery is not possible. Sometimes, a cesarean section is planned beforehand. Sometimes, the doctor may switch to a cesarean section during a vaginal delivery if problems arise. The process is pretty straightforward. First, the mother is anesthetized. Then, an incision is made through the abdomen and the uterus to reveal the baby. Delivery occurs through the incision. The entire process can take anywhere from one to two hours and will require an extended hospital stay—between two and four days—after the baby is born.
Because a cesarean section is an invasive surgical procedure, delivery will occur in a hospital. Additionally, the pain management techniques associated with a vaginal delivery are largely moot because the mother will be placed under anesthesia.
As choices go, a cesarean section is pretty straight forward as you’ll be in a hospital under anesthesia. A vaginal delivery, on the other hand, can be a much more tailored experience. You can choose where you want to give birth and how you want to manage pain along with a whole host of other variables. Let’s explore some of those options now.
Natural Vaginal Delivery
Natural vaginal delivery is when your baby is born through the birth canal. This is the most common way to give birth because it is the body’s natural method. In fact, roughly sixty-eight percent of women give birth vaginally every year. Vaginal delivery reduces the risk that your infant will develop respiratory problems, asthma, food allergies, and lactose intolerance. That’s not to say that this birth method isn’t without risk. The baby can undergo physical trauma while passing through the birth canal. This can lead to bruising, swelling, and, in rare cases, broken bones. Complications during labor can also lead to additional problems if not properly handled.
As mentioned, natural vaginal delivery is a very common birth method. Sometimes, though, the mother needs a bit of assistance. This is where the first variation of this birth method occurs.
Assisted Vaginal Delivery
Types of delivery - Fathima hospital
Assisted vaginal deliveries are still vaginal deliveries so this isn’t a completely new birth method. Rather, as the name implies, it depends on the type of assistance you receive from your doctor during labor. Those types of assistance are discussed below.
Induced Labor
A doctor will induce labor for a wide variety of reasons. Main amongst these reasons are a past-due pregnancy, ruptured membranes, a smaller-than-average infant, or high blood pressure in the mother.
Episiotomy
An episiotomy is a surgical incision made in the skin between the vagina and the anus. It allows the baby’s head to pass more easily through the birth canal and helps prevent the skin from tearing.
Amniotomy
An amniotomy is the purposeful rupture of the amniotic sac. This rupturing is done for multiple reasons: to induce labor, to assess the baby’s health, or to check for the baby’s first stool.
Forceps Extraction
In a forceps delivery, an instrument shaped like salad tongs is used to grasp the baby’s head to guide it through the birth canal.
Vacuum Extraction
During a vacuum extraction, a soft cup attached to a vacuum pump is applied to the baby’s head to help guide it through the birth canal.
Painless Delivery - Epidural
Preparation Practices & Pain Management
There are many preparation practices available these days. The variety means you can tailor your birthing experience to your own particular needs. All of the practices prepare you to deal with the stress and pain of labor.
Epidural
An epidural is the most common type of pain management used during labor. It’s administered by an anesthetist and is only available in a hospital. The epidural is a regional anesthetic that numbs your belly, uterus, and cervix and greatly reduces the pain associated with delivery. An epidural will not affect your baby but it increases the chance that your blood pressure may drop. This drop in pressure can decrease the flow of oxygen to your baby. Talk to your doctor about the pros and cons of having an epidural.
Fathima hospital, backed by specialists from multiple disciplines, specialises in handling high risk pregnancies. It is important to note that women, who are diagnosed with high-risk issues, mostly go on to have a normal pregnancy and a healthy delivery.
Fathima hospital offers pain relief programs that are globally applied to ease pain during labour. There are a number of options to ensure painless delivery, many of which pregnant women here are not aware of.
Fetal medicine focuses on the care of pregnant women where there is a need to monitor the health and wellbeing of the unborn child (fetus). This includes monitoring the rate of the baby’s growth, as well as diagnosing and managing fetal disorders and abnormalities using both invasive and non-invasive methods.
Our specialized fertility experts are highly experienced, and their technology and strict processes ensure high success rates. IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) is a type of assisted reproductive technology which involves a series of procedures to treat fertility and assist with the conception of child.
Fathima Hospital has customized Antenatal programmes designed to make you feel safe, good and happy, these programmes educate you on the process of childbirth and the different stages of labour - in all, encouraging natural birthing as much as possible.
Postnatal exercises are important for you. They help you regain the strength of your abdominal muscles and help prevent lower back injury and other complications like abdominal organs from "drooping forward" due to lack of support. They also help you regain a flat stomach.
Our OB/GYN surgeons offer a variety of traditional and minimally invasive surgical procedures: Tubal ligation, removal of ovarian cysts, fibroids, growths from the cervix, Removal of the uterus (hysterectomy), ovaries, Hysteroscopy etc.
Fetal medicine, which is an extension of the branch of Ultrasonography, treats the fetus as a patient in utero for any problems it might have. It comprises of Fetal scanning, Procedures such as Amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, and cord blood sampling, Screening tests and interpretation of the results.
When it comes to your little one’s health, you need to be extra sure. Hence, you want to know all the whys and when of vaccinations to be administered to your child from the time of birth. Keeping that in mind, we hand you over a vaccination schedule for your baby with all the mandatory and optional vaccines prescribed from the time of birth.
Pregnancy Care
Each pregnancy is unique and you have the right to be involved in all decisions affecting you and your baby. A good relationship with your maternity care provider can make a big difference in planning your pregnancy care. At Fathima hospital, Department of Obstetrics includes a team of expert gynaecologists, foetal medicine Specialist, physiotherapists, and trained and experienced nursing staff. Our hospital is equipped with advanced neonatal care team supported by state-of-the-art NICU infrastructure to ensure that complex and high-risk pregnancies can be managed including extremely premature birthings.
Pregnancy Trimesters
At Fathima Hospital, we provide comprehensive consultations, lab testing, ultrasound scan to provide the best possible care during your 1st Trimister to 3rd Trimister. A typical pregnancy lasts 40 weeks from the first day of your last menstrual period (LMP) to the birth of the baby. It is divided into three stages, called trimesters: first trimester, second trimester, and third trimester. The fetus undergoes many changes throughout maturation. A woman will experience many changes during the pregnancy like morning sickness, or nausea and vomiting due to pregnancy, at 6–8 weeks. A pregnant woman might also feel very tired and notice that she is more emotional than usual due to hormonal changes.
Types of Delivery
Few things in life are more exciting than the birth of a new baby. This has been the case throughout human history, but childbirth options for new mothers have advanced to make the experience more safe. Fathima hospital offers comfortable maternity suites that convert into state of the art delivery rooms. An easy birth and a perfectly executed birth plan is ideal. But we know that even the most carefully planned birth can take twists and turns. In those cases, it's important to be prepared for alternative delivery methods.
Pregnancy Scans
A range of tests is available if you are pregnant. These tests can confirm your pregnancy and also monitor your baby’s development in the womb. Regular check-ups with your gynecologist, fetal medicine specislists are an important part of pregnancy care, including information and advice about what tests you and your baby will need. Checking the general health of the mother and baby, the different kinds of tests available to pregnant women include: tests to confirm pregnancy, maternal health screening, routine screening tests (these tell you how likely it is that your baby has a certain health condition), diagnostic tests – for pregnancies at increased risk (these tell you more accurately if your baby has a certain health condition).
Pregnancy Complications
Complications can arise in pregnancies for many reasons. Sometimes a woman’s existing health conditions contribute to problems. Other times, new conditions arise because of hormonal and body changes that occur during pregnancy. They can involve the mother’s health, the baby’s health, or both. Some women have health problems that arise during pregnancy, and other women have health problems before they become pregnant that could lead to complications. It is very important for women to receive health care before and during pregnancy to decrease the risk of pregnancy complications. If you are receiving treatment for a health problem, your health care provider might want to change the way your health problem is managed.
High Risk Pregnancy
A high-risk pregnancy is one that threatens the health or life of the mother or her fetus. It often requires specialized care from specially trained providers. Some pregnancies become high risk as they progress, while some women are at increased risk for complications even before they get pregnant for a variety of reasons. Early and regular prenatal care helps many women have healthy pregnancies and deliveries without complications. A high-risk pregnancy may be one that involves chronic health problems, such as diabetes or high blood pressure; infections; complications from a previous pregnancy; or other issues that might arise during pregnancy. Treatment for high-risk pregnancy depends on the risk factors and overall health of the mother and fetus.
Vaccination
Ideally, women of child bearing age should be immunized before becoming pregnant to protect their babies against various diseases. Pregnancy should not deter a woman from receiving vaccines that are safe and will protect both her health and that of her unborn child. Extreme care has to be taken to avoid those vaccines that harm the unborn baby. Pregnant women who aren’t up-to-date on their immunizations may be susceptible to diseases that can harm them or their unborn child. If you’re pregnant, talk to your doctor about which vaccines you may need and whether you should get them now or wait until after your child is born.
Bad Obstetric History
Pregnancy loss is a frustrating and challenging problem for couples and clinicians alike. Miscarriage is often associated with guilt, embarrassment and depressive states. This is particularly true when the patient presents with subsequent pregnancy with added concerns of primary or secondary infertility, irregular menses, absent or irregular ovulation, a known history of uterine fibroids, a family history of miscarriage, advancing age, medical history and a prior history of pregnancy complications. It certainly warrants a detailed consultation and reassurance with a practitioner committed to pregnancy loss evaluation.
Ectopic / Tubal Pregnancy
Pregnancy begins with a fertilized egg. Normally, the fertilized egg attaches to the lining of the uterus. An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the main cavity of the uterus. An ectopic pregnancy most often occurs in a fallopian tube, which carries eggs from the ovaries to the uterus. This type of ectopic pregnancy is called a tubal pregnancy. Sometimes, an ectopic pregnancy occurs in other areas of the body, such as the ovary, abdominal cavity or the lower part of the uterus (cervix), which connects to the vagina. An ectopic pregnancy can't proceed normally. The fertilized egg can't survive, and the growing tissue may cause life-threatening bleeding, if left untreated.
Multiple Pregnancy
A multiple pregnancy occurs when one egg (ovum) splits before implanting or when separate eggs are each fertilized by a different sperm. Identical twins or triplets occur with the fertilization of a single egg that later divides into two or three identical embryos. Identical twins or triplets have the same genetic identity, are always the same sex, and look almost exactly the same. Fraternal multiples develop from separate eggs that are each fertilized by a different sperm. Fraternal twins might or might not be of the same sex and might not necessarily resemble each other any more than two siblings from the same parents might.
Pregnancy Care
Your pregnancy is one of the most exciting times of your life. At Fathima hospital, we will help you enjoy the journey with the support of our expert team, in modern private surroundings.
Families have trusted us for generations at this special time, and we have an enviable international reputation for private maternity care.
Our expertise enables us to safely look after you and your baby, whether it is your first child, your third child, you are expecting twins, or if you or your little one has additional health needs. Whatever your situation, we have the right team to support you. Our packages have been devised with you in mind, to give you the time and attention you need to make the birth of your child as special as possible.
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Fathima hopsital - Maternity care facilities Process Chart
The best practices to ensure the that a mother gets utmost care during pregnancy and labor. Here is a list of our resources enabling to help you prepare for everything, from conception to delivery and beyond. Fathima hospital is fully equipped to comply with the maternity care Process chart.
Treatments and Procedures
The Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology has the capability and facilities to deal with a diverse range of cases and complexities in partnership with specialty services such as Foetal Medicine, Anaesthesia, Critical care, high risk, painless labour, Gynaecological surgeries for fibroid, prolapsed, endometriosis, ovarian cysts, Laparoscopic and hysteroscopic surgeries
