Who should be more comfortable in childbirth: the professionals or the mother?

Some time ago the photographer Natalia Roca published the photo on the right (which you can see in full below), which is one of those photos that generate controversy because of how uncomfortable the professionals who care for the mother are.

In contrast, I wanted to put an image of a "traditional" delivery (in between because it is actually a much more modern and less traditional birth than the other) in which professionals are standing, in a more comfortable position. A question is derived from both images: Who should be more comfortable in childbirth: the professionals or the mother?

Natalia Roca's picture

If you look, the woman who is giving birth is sitting. Sitting on the legs of your partner, dropping your body down, in flexion, to hold on to it and take advantage of gravity.

It is not a position that many women would choose perhaps if during pregnancy someone told them to give birth like this, but it is a position that, already giving birth, many would choose if they had freedom of movement.

But the most curious thing about the image is not the position of the mother, but the position of the midwives, sitting on the floor, turned, looking up, ... is that it is even difficult to explain it.

In this photo it is clear that the mother has not taken into account the comfort of those who attend her, basically because they have not taken her into account either: "Get as you want, we adapt"Surely they told him.

When the mother should lie down for the sake of the professionals' back

We already explained it a few months ago when we showed you a birth table advertised in a magazine 50 years ago: it was lying down then, and even now it is given birth in this way, depending on where you are going to give birth, depending on the way of assisting you, as the comfort of the mother or the comfort of the professionals is considered more important.

And who should be more comfortable in a birth?

Well, of course, it depends on who responds. It is very possible that most women say that the one in labor, it is very possible that many professionals say that they (more likely if we talk about gynecologists or midwives of the old school) and it is also possible that many say: the professional , which must be in the best conditions to attend the delivery safely.

However, if the delivery is normal, if there are no complications, which is what happens in most births, Ideally, it is the woman who chooses at all times how to wear. In fact, many of the deliveries that are going well and end up needing some intervention start in that position of "lie here, honey, and lift your legs."

And no, this giving birth as every woman wants is not an eccentricity or a "modernity" fruit of the desire to innovate and attract attention. More than 30 years ago, in the Declaration of Fortaleza of 1985, the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization concluded that it is not advisable to routinely place the pregnant woman in lithotomy position (lying down) and that each woman should freely decide what position to take during childbirth.

That is, the most logical thing for a delivery to go well is for the woman to put herself in every moment in the position that the body asks for, and that the professionals who attend her are close, or at her side, as the woman needs more or less support, adapting in each change of position to continue assisting women.

I know, many professionals will not agree with this statement (a gynecologist recently told me so: "I do not agree with this way of giving birth"), but that does not mean that it is the best way to give birth, precisely because the phrase he told me shouldn't have been that, but "I don't agree with this way of attending a birth, so uncomfortable for me".

Video: Hypnobabies Mom Camille at 8 cm & Comfortable (March 2024).