"If a woman does not feel comfortable with the support person, it can adversely affect her labour. Women need to feel safe in order to labour. There is nothing worse than a support person’s own anxiety affecting your labour. A mother, who breaks down crying and begging for pain relief for her daughter, because she can’t stand watching them in pain, is not helpful. Likewise, a best friend who had a caesarean and keeps telling you that you are doing it the hard way is not ideal. Your support people need to be strong and help you out, not make you feel like you need to help them out. If you become frightened and feel unsupported you begin to secret adrenaline. This is known as the fight-or-flight response and it prepares your body to escape, or to fight when under threat. During labour this has a negative effect, as it inhibits the production of the most important hormone in labour – oxytocin. When this is inhibited, labour slows down, leading to interventions in birth and what we commonly call the ‘cascade of intervention,’ where one intervention leads to another." Important stuff here :) pregnancy.au/resources/topics-of-interest/labour-and-birth/the-ideal-birth-support-person.shtml
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 22:24:51 +0000
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