Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. We pay our respects
Speaker 2: to elders past, present and emerging, and feel privileged to
Speaker 2: continue the sharing of birth stories and knowledge that has
Speaker 2: been a fundamental part of Indigenous culture. Hi. I'm Cassenya
Speaker 2: Lukisch and this is diary of a birth. I had
Speaker 2: both my kids in hospital with an epidural, and I'm
Speaker 2: very happy with my choice. What I don't like is
Speaker 2: the discourse that's often involved in a mother's right to
Speaker 2: choose how she gives birth. You want an elective cesarean
Speaker 2: amazing love that. You want an unmedicated birth, that's absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: Today's mom has done just that, giving birth the way
Speaker 2: she wanted to. What I wasn't expecting is her laughing
Speaker 2: her baby out.
Speaker 1: I just felt this like overwhelming relief kind of just
Speaker 1: rush over me, and I guess that sort of translated
Speaker 1: as laughter.
Speaker 2: I loved her calm approach to birth and was so
Speaker 2: inspired it almost almost made me want to try an
Speaker 2: unmedicated birth. So let's meet today's mum.
Speaker 1: Hi, am Minni, and this is the diary of my
Speaker 1: birth with Charlie.
Speaker 2: Charlie is your second and you had your first baby
Speaker 2: in the UK.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I had my first daughter over in London
Speaker 1: while we're living there.
Speaker 3: For five years.
Speaker 1: I had a really positive, unmedicated birth with her in
Speaker 1: a birth center in a hospital there with her when
Speaker 1: I was in early labor. I had a really smooth
Speaker 1: early labor and I labored really well at home. When
Speaker 1: I got to the hospital, I was eight and a
Speaker 1: half centimeters dilated. But the transition to the hospital I
Speaker 1: had a crazy taxi driver who was praying madly but stressful.
Speaker 1: Arriving at the hospital was really stressful and it just
Speaker 1: sort of stalled my labor. My husband and I sort
Speaker 1: of joked that we could have had the baby at
Speaker 1: home with my first baby. Going into my second berth,
Speaker 1: I really didn't want that same experience of stalling and
Speaker 1: kind of being.
Speaker 3: Quite stressed going into.
Speaker 1: That really key part of labor. So I started thinking about, well,
Speaker 1: what birth environment would look good for me and how
Speaker 1: could I stop that from happening? What would look like
Speaker 1: in environment where that wouldn't happen, And the more I
Speaker 1: kind of thought about it, the environment that made sense
Speaker 1: for me was home. So I started looking into how
Speaker 1: I would have a home birth for my second.
Speaker 2: Daughter falling pregnant with Charlie. Is that something that came
Speaker 2: up immediately when you fell pregnant.
Speaker 1: It took a lot of convincing with my husband. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of sort of concerns and it was
Speaker 1: quite worried about it. I had actually been born at
Speaker 1: home myself, and I'd seen my brother and sister being
Speaker 1: born at home over in the UK quite a lot
Speaker 1: of my friends that actually had homebirths because they're supported
Speaker 1: by the government over there, so they're much more common,
Speaker 1: so it didn't seem so bizarre and crazy to me.
Speaker 1: So for me, I kind of approached it as a
Speaker 1: bit of a research project. I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time online looking at home birth association websites, looking at
Speaker 1: different midwives in my area. There didn't really seem to
Speaker 1: be that many midwives, to be honest, who were independent
Speaker 1: midwives who do homebirths. So I approached a few of
Speaker 1: them straight away. I didn't really gel with some of them,
Speaker 1: and then I found one who seemed quite good over
Speaker 1: the phone when I spoke to her, I went and
Speaker 1: visited her in person armed with like a list of
Speaker 1: a million questions from things like, you know, what are
Speaker 1: your qualifications, how many births have you supported? What happens
Speaker 1: if something goes wrong? All of the questions bombarded her
Speaker 1: with those. The midwife I found was hugely experienced. She
Speaker 1: had been a nurse, she had been a midwife in
Speaker 1: the hospital system, and she'd also been an independent midwife
Speaker 1: supported lots of mums for many, many, many years. So
Speaker 1: there's sort of that rational part of it, but there's
Speaker 1: also the emotional part of it. You know, this is
Speaker 1: birth is such an intimate thing to go through and
Speaker 1: you want to just one hundred percent trust this person
Speaker 1: who you choose at the end of the day. And
Speaker 1: I made sure she met my husband too, because he
Speaker 1: had to feel comfortable because obviously birth support partners are
Speaker 1: so key during a birth, but especially a home birth.
Speaker 2: What was your pregnancy like, So you had a six
Speaker 2: year old at home and were you ill? Did you
Speaker 2: have any complications?
Speaker 1: Obviously being pregnant second time around, having you know, six
Speaker 1: isn't so little, but they're still quite dependent on you.
Speaker 1: You know, it's much more tiring second time around, when
Speaker 1: you're already caring for someone as well as yourself and
Speaker 1: growing a baby.
Speaker 3: But Poppy was just she couldn't.
Speaker 1: Have been more excited. She was just absolutely over the
Speaker 1: room that she was getting a brother or sister, and
Speaker 1: probably five hundred times more excited that it was a
Speaker 1: girl as well, so she's.
Speaker 3: Getting a sister.
Speaker 1: The plan was for her to be there during my
Speaker 1: birth as well, and my mum and my husband, and
Speaker 1: she was just so excited that she could be part
Speaker 1: of that. So that was a really lovely thing for her.
Speaker 2: So tell me about going into labor.
Speaker 1: My water's broke at about thirty nine weeks pregnant. I
Speaker 1: was lying in bed one morning, sort of sat up
Speaker 1: and just felt a bit of a gush of water,
Speaker 1: not a huge, kind of dramatic gush like the movies,
Speaker 1: like you'd see when people's waters breaking in a film,
Speaker 1: but I just sort of felt like i'd wet myself.
Speaker 1: And I was actually really excited because I kind of
Speaker 1: thought that it was my water's breaking and that that
Speaker 1: would mean that my baby was going to be here soon.
Speaker 1: So I was really excited. Got up, went to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: put the beautiful disposable granny undies on that you get
Speaker 1: when you're pregnant and called my midwife and she came
Speaker 1: over a little bit later, and midwives just have an
Speaker 1: amazing sense about these things, and she was like, Yep,
Speaker 1: it's definitely your waters that have broken. I was really excited,
Speaker 1: and my mom came around, and my daughter was there, Poppy,
Speaker 1: and we were sort of dancing to the birth soundtrack
Speaker 1: that I'd made during my pregnancy, just to get those
Speaker 1: kind of oxytocin kind of vibes happening that are really
Speaker 1: good for helping labor sort of get along.
Speaker 3: The only thing was.
Speaker 1: That I probably was a little bit too excited and
Speaker 1: probably have chilled out a little bit more, probably tired
Speaker 1: myself out a little bit, given how long my birth.
Speaker 1: Kind of the days ended up being for my birth.
Speaker 2: So you were having sort of irregular contractions.
Speaker 1: Quite light contractions on and off for a couple of days,
Speaker 1: so it sort of seemed to be a bit of
Speaker 1: a pattern. In the morning, I'd wake up and contractions
Speaker 1: would be there, and I'd be all excited and seat
Speaker 1: of just doing really gentle kind of movements as felt
Speaker 1: kind of right around the house. Poppy was there with
Speaker 1: the straw drink with electrolytes, and it giving it to me.
Speaker 1: She was such a massive help, and my mom was there.
Speaker 1: The contractions would start each morning, but they'd sort of
Speaker 1: peter out each evening. That sort of happened for a
Speaker 1: couple of days. Once your waters have broken. There is
Speaker 1: a risk infection after a sort of a number of
Speaker 1: days if labor hasn't progressed and you don't sort of
Speaker 1: go into labor. So I had been having iv antibiotics
Speaker 1: because I tested positive for grip B strap, so that
Speaker 1: was sort of a bit of comfort. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: had a discussion with my midwife and there's this great
Speaker 1: tool that I used called the brain tool. So the
Speaker 1: different acronyms of the B stands for benefits and it's risks.
Speaker 1: What if you did nothing, what would happen? So use
Speaker 1: that tool with her. And I hadn't had any vaginal
Speaker 1: examinations my entire pregnancy with her, but at that point
Speaker 1: she said to me, would you like me to do
Speaker 1: an examination just to see how far dilated you are
Speaker 1: and we can kind of use that in the decision
Speaker 1: making process. I agreed to that. She looked at me
Speaker 1: and I could tell straight away it wasn't good. I
Speaker 1: think she said something like I'm so sorry, You're two
Speaker 1: centimeters dilated, and my heart just sankus slowly devastated. I
Speaker 1: kind of knew that that was the case because it
Speaker 1: was so stop start coming up.
Speaker 2: How many used celebrities avoiding the perhaps as inspiration for labor.
Speaker 1: And at that point she said, you know, it's up
Speaker 1: to you the whole pregnancy. I felt so supported and
Speaker 1: like I was able to make decisions at the whole
Speaker 1: point along the way, which was fantastic. She said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want, you know, we can keep trying and
Speaker 1: seat of seeing what happens, or I have a partnership
Speaker 1: with an obstitucian at a private hospital an hour away
Speaker 1: from my house was quite away. We could see if
Speaker 1: they'll take you in there as a private patient, and
Speaker 1: she said, they've got birth pools there, so you know,
Speaker 1: we could still do that and we could have an
Speaker 1: induction to help move things along. So I spent quite
Speaker 1: a bit of time talking about it with her, with
Speaker 1: my husband and my mom as well, and I decided
Speaker 1: that that's what I was going to do. I was
Speaker 1: so determined and to have like as less interventions as
Speaker 1: possible in my birth, and I just really didn't want
Speaker 1: to have a cesarean. That was my at that point,
Speaker 1: my main goal.
Speaker 2: So the one hour drive to the hospital, you're obviously
Speaker 2: feeling a little bit disappointed because it's not the birth
Speaker 2: that you had planned, but you know, after two days
Speaker 2: in labor and a broken waters, you kind of had
Speaker 2: decided that that's probably what was safest and best for you.
Speaker 1: I think probably the hardest thing was because my mum
Speaker 1: and my daughter Poppy had wanted to be part of
Speaker 1: the birth. Poppy ran up to me as I was
Speaker 1: getting into the car to go, and she was just
Speaker 1: crying and she was so sad, and you know, she's sick,
Speaker 1: and she didn't really understand what was happening. So there
Speaker 1: was all that emotion as well of the disappointment and
Speaker 1: her tears, and yeah, I just as much as possible,
Speaker 1: just really on that drive, I just closed my eyes,
Speaker 1: I didn't talk to my husband, I put my headphones in,
Speaker 1: I listened to just really relaxing music, and I had
Speaker 1: my sunglasses on, so, you know, trying to sort of
Speaker 1: stay in my labor zone as much as possible and
Speaker 1: just really tried to like focus on my breathing. I
Speaker 1: was still having really mild contractions at that point. So
Speaker 1: for me with both my births, breathing has been the
Speaker 1: key that's got me through all the contractions and anything
Speaker 1: else that's going on.
Speaker 2: You're a better woman than me.
Speaker 1: Me.
Speaker 2: Breathing never really helped me much.
Speaker 1: Oh look, it's different for everyone, but yeah, it was
Speaker 1: really really important in my births. So I arrived at
Speaker 1: the hospital and one of the things that I had
Speaker 1: read about and I'd tried to do, so I really
Speaker 1: didn't want that kind of interruption to my birth again
Speaker 1: like happened the first time. So I read about this
Speaker 1: brilliant thing which I tried to do, which was to
Speaker 1: dress like a celebrity, avoiding the preparatzi, to just really
Speaker 1: try and stain your zone. So I had my sunglasses on,
Speaker 1: I had my sort of like clothes pulled up over
Speaker 1: my head, and headphones in so no one could talk
Speaker 1: to me, and all of that kind of thing, which
Speaker 1: I think really helped. So I arrived at the hospital.
Speaker 1: I had my own birth suite with a birth poll
Speaker 1: in there. I was really fortunate that they had one
Speaker 1: available at the time. My midwife was there another support
Speaker 1: midwife as well, like a backup midwife, because you need
Speaker 1: the two there for a home birth, so she came
Speaker 1: in as well and they put the drip into me.
Speaker 1: I basically just sat there, just really closed my eyes.
Speaker 1: I didn't talk to anybody, listening to the hypnobirthing tracks
Speaker 1: on my headphones, and just sort of really gently moved
Speaker 1: around to my birth ball. I never got on the
Speaker 1: bed in the room apart from afterwards to breastfeed my
Speaker 1: daughter after the birth. So when things kind of ramped
Speaker 1: up with their synthetic oxytocin drip, I sort of leant
Speaker 1: on the bed, just sort of gently sort of moved
Speaker 1: around the room, leant on a wall, cuddled into my husband,
Speaker 1: just like rocking my hips, moving because that really helped
Speaker 1: me with birth before, so I tried to do that
Speaker 1: again this time, and I really last time with my
Speaker 1: first birth, had gone into it like a labor land,
Speaker 1: like I just felt like I was on another planet
Speaker 1: quite high, didn't really feel like I was actually in
Speaker 1: the room. But with Charlie's birth, not having that natural
Speaker 1: hormones going through me in the natural pain relief, I
Speaker 1: felt really in the room and very aware of what
Speaker 1: was going on, and when the contractions really started ramping up,
Speaker 1: I think They kind of felt like it being hit
Speaker 1: by lightning, is how I describe it. They were so
Speaker 1: intense and just bam bam bam, one after the other.
Speaker 2: And were you in the pool at this point? You
Speaker 2: were in the bath.
Speaker 1: I only got into the pool right towards the end,
Speaker 1: so my midwife she could sort of see I was
Speaker 1: sort of going through transition a bit like shaky, and
Speaker 1: she was like, okay, that's right before pushing stage. So
Speaker 1: she encouraged me to go the toilet and then hop
Speaker 1: into the birth pool for that final kind of stage
Speaker 1: of labor.
Speaker 2: The big hook for me when you sent in your
Speaker 2: story was that you laughed your baby out. The obviously
Speaker 2: are the happy hormones that you get during labor, but
Speaker 2: it is generally considered to be an extremely difficult time.
Speaker 2: So laughing during that time, yeah, Can you tell us
Speaker 2: a little bit about your mindset and where that sort
Speaker 2: of overwhelming laughter came from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so it does sound quite crazy.
Speaker 1: Actually, I hadn't really thought about the fact that I'd
Speaker 1: laughed my baby out until I was at a picnic
Speaker 1: sort of a couple of weeks after my birth with
Speaker 1: all the mums of the independent midwife that I used,
Speaker 1: and she introduced me to the other mums and said,
Speaker 1: this is the mum who laughed her baby out, and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my god, yeah I did, but yeah,
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about it until that point when she
Speaker 1: described it like that. So how it happened was I
Speaker 1: got into that birth pool, the warm water. I was
Speaker 1: just game changing. It was such a relief and felt
Speaker 1: so wonderful. So when I was in the birthpool, I
Speaker 1: felt my daughter dropped down kind of into my pelverse
Speaker 1: at that point where you kind of felt like you
Speaker 1: need to get the toilet, and you know that that's
Speaker 1: kind of things are happening. It's pushing stage. I was
Speaker 1: so determined this time around. I tore it a little
Speaker 1: bit in my first birth. I was really determined that
Speaker 1: that didn't happen again this time. I'd res w's like
Speaker 1: mad to make sure I kind of understood all the
Speaker 1: things I could do, And so one of them was
Speaker 1: sort of pushing when you felt the urge to do it,
Speaker 1: not doing that kind of movie purple like gritting your teeth,
Speaker 1: kind of pushing and moving around kind of as you
Speaker 1: felt like in more kind of upright positions. So I
Speaker 1: kind of moved into the pool sort of like sitting
Speaker 1: squatting kind of thing. And while I was doing all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, my midwife, when Charlie was in my belly,
Speaker 1: poppy name to my bump, Charlie. It was never meant
Speaker 1: to be her birth name, but it kind of just
Speaker 1: was what we used at that time, and actual obviously
Speaker 1: ended up being her real name. So my midwife was
Speaker 1: there and she's like, as I was pushing, and she
Speaker 1: said to me, Charlie's coming. You know you're going to
Speaker 1: meet Charlie soon. And I just felt this like overwhelming
Speaker 1: relief kind of just rush over me. And I guess
Speaker 1: that sort of translated is laughter. It just was so
Speaker 1: happy that like I didn't have a cesarean, that my
Speaker 1: baby was actually coming, like, you know, because I've been
Speaker 1: in the stop start labors for like two days and
Speaker 1: I think I was so tired and just the contractions
Speaker 1: with being induced was so intense, and yeah, I think
Speaker 1: just this wave of just like really frushed over me,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I just burst out laughing. And while I
Speaker 1: was pushing, it was all it was all.
Speaker 3: A bit crazy.
Speaker 1: One of the things I'd read about to help not
Speaker 1: tearing was reaching down between your legs instead of just
Speaker 1: like really gently guiding your baby out so they didn't
Speaker 1: rush out. So yeah, I reached down and made sure
Speaker 1: she didn't rush out, and yeah, with each push, I
Speaker 1: was sort of laughing, and yeah, just obviously it was
Speaker 1: really really hard work. Won't downplay that at all, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I just felt so happy, so relieved, and yeah, just
Speaker 1: so excited to finally like I could feel her in
Speaker 1: my hands, that she was here and she was coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and your husband caught the baby.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was such such a wonderful thing. He was
Speaker 1: so thrilled to be able to do that. He leant
Speaker 1: down into the water and really gently pulled her up
Speaker 1: and pulled her onto my chest.
Speaker 2: And you have this really beautiful tone. You're clearly a
Speaker 2: really calm, beautiful person. All the people that I've met
Speaker 2: that have had like home births or unmedicated birth there
Speaker 2: is this certain energy to them. And as someone who's
Speaker 2: very highly strong, that is so beautiful to me. You know,
Speaker 2: to be able to step outside of yourself and just
Speaker 2: almost relinquished control and allow your body to do what
Speaker 2: it needs to do is really take my hat off
Speaker 2: to it. Not that there's anything wrong with other births.
Speaker 2: I just I think it's a really it's an energy thing,
Speaker 2: it's a mindset thing, and when people are able to
Speaker 2: relinquish control like that, I find it quite inspiring.
Speaker 3: Oh thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so bub comes out, she's on your chest. I've
Speaker 2: always wondered when they come out in the water, if
Speaker 2: there's obviously they're still breathing through their umbilical cord, but
Speaker 2: do they come out with their eyes open? Are they like,
Speaker 2: what does that look like?
Speaker 1: So they don't breathe when they're into the water. They
Speaker 1: take their first kind of breath when they come out
Speaker 1: out of the water. My husband sort of pulled her
Speaker 1: and we put her on my chest and I sort
Speaker 1: of sat back. And it's quite common when babies are
Speaker 1: born in the water that they take a few sort
Speaker 1: of seconds to sort of start breathing. So she did
Speaker 1: need a little bit of oxygen help, which is pretty common,
Speaker 1: and I knew you to expect that, so I wasn't
Speaker 1: too alarmed. So she s took a a little minute,
Speaker 1: a few seconds, which felt when you're a mum and
Speaker 1: you just had a baby, it feels like a long
Speaker 1: time until they start having that first breath. But she
Speaker 1: took a little minute to do that and then let
Speaker 1: out a big cry, and you kind of like everything's good,
Speaker 1: and yeah, then we really carefully got up out of
Speaker 1: the birth pool and moved across into the hospital bed.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that was the first time I'd actually used
Speaker 1: the bed when during my whole labor. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: sat back and I bought a really nice little blanket
Speaker 1: from home, so it felt all familiar and nice, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I had the first kind of breastfeed, and then we
Speaker 1: were back home that night. So the whole labor was
Speaker 1: fast and furious. It was one hour from start to finish,
Speaker 1: and so we went in a sort of lunchtime, and
Speaker 1: then we left, I think just before dinner time. But
Speaker 1: we were ready to go about like an hour after
Speaker 1: she was born, which just took a while to track
Speaker 1: down a doctor who'd sign us out because obviously they're
Speaker 1: really busy.
Speaker 2: So Poppy was obviously waiting for you at home. What
Speaker 2: was her reaction when she finally met Charlie.
Speaker 1: Actually, she had quite a funny reaction because you know,
Speaker 1: obviously we'd told her we knew we were having another girl,
Speaker 1: and so she was really excited to have a sister.
Speaker 3: And her first reaction.
Speaker 1: Charlie was born with a lot of hair, so black hair,
Speaker 1: and she looked quite like a bit older than she
Speaker 1: was because of that. In her six year old mind,
Speaker 1: her first reaction was, it's a boy. You said, we're
Speaker 1: having a girl. She was a little bit disappointed. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't know if she expected her to come out
Speaker 1: with long platts or something.
Speaker 2: If you could do it again, would you change anything
Speaker 2: about the way would you change any of those decisions.
Speaker 1: I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, telling someone that story, you might sort of think,
Speaker 1: well that maybe it doesn't sound so great. But for
Speaker 1: me it was such a positive birth. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: one of the best moments of my life, like giving
Speaker 1: birth to my girls. I wouldn't change it at all.
Speaker 1: I think that for me, the reason it was a
Speaker 1: really positive birth, despite I call it my plan B birth,
Speaker 1: for me, it was really positive and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: all the research around it kind of rings true for me,
Speaker 1: and that is that a positive birth isn't how you
Speaker 1: birth or where you birth, It's about how you feel
Speaker 1: about your birth. So for me, I felt so supported
Speaker 1: by my amazing independent midwife throughout the whole process and
Speaker 1: my husband and my mom and my daughter. In those
Speaker 1: early labor stages, I felt so informed going into it
Speaker 1: about all my different options I had, and I felt
Speaker 1: like I made the.
Speaker 3: Decision to be induced.
Speaker 1: It didn't happen to me, and I really weighed up
Speaker 1: all those pros and cons. I felt like just on
Speaker 1: top of the world after my birth, I was. It
Speaker 1: was just an amazing experience. So for me, that was
Speaker 1: such a positive thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got a cousin who talks about how she
Speaker 2: actually really loves giving birth because she's like, it's like
Speaker 2: a high, And I've never heard anyone describe it like
Speaker 2: that until you, because you were like, it's almost like addictive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's such a high.
Speaker 1: I think when I had my first birth, that was
Speaker 1: definitely more of a high. For a longer amount of time,
Speaker 1: Like I went into that labor land, it was like
Speaker 1: being on another planet this time around, because it was
Speaker 1: a synthetic, obviously induced birth, synthetic hormone going through me.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel it through the birth, but during that
Speaker 1: pushing stage and I was just feeling so relieved and
Speaker 1: so happy. I felt it then, and then I think
Speaker 1: it was with Charlie's birth. It was after the birth,
Speaker 1: I just felt such a high, so in love with
Speaker 1: my baby, so proud of myself for not having the
Speaker 1: cesarean that I didn't want, and yeah, just so full
Speaker 1: of all the love hormones. And I said to a
Speaker 1: lot of people, I kind of felt like like a
Speaker 1: goop covered superwoman, Like I walked out of that hospital
Speaker 1: carrying her my baby in the little bassinet thing for
Speaker 1: my husband and come pick us up. I kind of
Speaker 1: felt like, you know, people should be like popping champagne
Speaker 1: and comedy and fireworks, like I just had a baby.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the whole point of his podcast is
Speaker 2: to celebrate the way that women give birth, Like it
Speaker 2: is incredible, like the fact that we grow these tiny
Speaker 2: little humans from a speck to arms, legs, brains, like kidneys, lungs.
Speaker 2: Like whenever I was having a bad day or yelling
Speaker 2: at my husband, I'd go, you know, I grew a
Speaker 2: brain today, so leave me alone. So it's incredible, So
Speaker 2: you should be proud of yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's like it's so important for people to
Speaker 1: know that it kind of doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like how we are, your birth.
Speaker 1: You can still have a positive birth even if it's
Speaker 1: not kind of your plan.
Speaker 2: Abor Here at Diary of a Birth, we want to
Speaker 2: ensure you have all the information, and today we have
Speaker 2: obstitution and gynecologist, doctor Bronwyn Devine to answer our burning
Speaker 2: medical questions. So what is group B strep and why
Speaker 2: do we test for it in the last trimester?
Speaker 4: So group B strep is a bacterium that colonizes the
Speaker 4: genital tract and the gastrointestinal tract of about one in
Speaker 4: four women. And because it's a colonizer, it doesn't usually
Speaker 4: cause a problem while it's there. Just like we have
Speaker 4: a microbiome in our gastrointestinal tract, in our gut, we
Speaker 4: have a microbiome in the vagina as well. We live
Speaker 4: with bacteria. They live in our bodies. Most of them
Speaker 4: have very important roles, some of them don't. But GBS
Speaker 4: or group B strep, is a bacterium that in about
Speaker 4: one in four women is present. It doesn't usually cause
Speaker 4: any symptoms. It doesn't usually cause any but if it
Speaker 4: is present around the time that someone who is going
Speaker 4: to go into labor, there is a chance that that
Speaker 4: bacterium can get into the bloodstream. Or into the lungs
Speaker 4: or even around the brain membranes of a newborn baby
Speaker 4: and cause a condition known as early onset group BE strip,
Speaker 4: which can cause septicemia, pneumonia, or meningitis in a newborn baby. Now,
Speaker 4: the chance of that happening is pretty small, but if
Speaker 4: it does happen, it can be really serious for the blob.
Speaker 4: There's also a later onset type of group BE strip
Speaker 4: infection in babies that can occur as well, But the
Speaker 4: thing that we worry about is early onset group BE strip.
Speaker 4: If group B strip is present in the woman's birth
Speaker 4: canal or around the anus and rectum around the time
Speaker 4: that she's going to go into labor, so we do
Speaker 4: screen for it routinely. Well. We offer screening to pregnant
Speaker 4: people when they come along. We suggest that somewhere between
Speaker 4: about thirty five and thirty seven weeks they have a
Speaker 4: very simple little swab done just of the lower vaginal tract.
Speaker 4: Doesn't require a speculum like a smear. It just requires
Speaker 4: a little swab just at the opening and then a
Speaker 4: little bit down the peraneal skin towards the anus, and
Speaker 4: then that's sent away and tells us if group B
Speaker 4: strip is present, and then if it is present, when
Speaker 4: that person comes in in labor, they get some intravenous antibiotics.
Speaker 4: And also if they rupture their membranes prior to the
Speaker 4: onset of labor, we often get their labor going rather
Speaker 4: than waiting. Now, there's a number of people who don't
Speaker 4: believe in taking antibotics in labor, and so they either say, look,
Speaker 4: I don't want to have Group B strep screening done.
Speaker 4: I understand the risks, but I also appreciate that the
Speaker 4: risk of severe disease is fairly low. And you know,
Speaker 4: prior to the screening program, plenty of people would have
Speaker 4: had group B strep and would have had no complications
Speaker 4: at all. And then there are some people who say,
Speaker 4: even if I do have group B STRIP present, I
Speaker 4: still don't want to have antibodics in life. I'll consider
Speaker 4: it if there are other risk factors, like I develop
Speaker 4: a fever or there's some other problem, but I don't
Speaker 4: want routinely to be given antibiotics in labor. And part
Speaker 4: of our work as l professionals is to respect people's choices,
Speaker 4: so we can counsel them and say, look, this is
Speaker 4: the reason we do it. We'd recommend it, but at
Speaker 4: the end of the day, if people decide they don't
Speaker 4: want to have treatment for it or don't want to
Speaker 4: have prophylaxis for it, then we go along with that.
Speaker 2: And if you want a water birth, what are some
Speaker 2: of the things you need to know going into it.
Speaker 4: Definitely increasing in popularity and there are certainly more and
Speaker 4: more birthing units that are offering water births, essentially for
Speaker 4: low risk patients. So if someone has really high blood
Speaker 4: pressure or unstable diabetes, or a really small, skinny little
Speaker 4: baby that's not growing well and would require monitoring in
Speaker 4: labor sort of fairly continuous monitoring in labor, or has
Speaker 4: other risk factors that sort of mean that their birth
Speaker 4: will wouldn't be classed as a low intervention or a
Speaker 4: low risk birth, then water birth may not be something
Speaker 4: they can choose. But for a lot of women whose
Speaker 4: pregnancy is uncomplicated and who labor well, a water birth
Speaker 4: can be a really wonderful thing for women. So lovely
Speaker 4: form of pain or left to be in a hot
Speaker 4: bath or a nice warm bath if you think you know,
Speaker 4: if you've got back pain or sore muscles after a workout,
Speaker 4: or something like that you know, relaxing in a nice
Speaker 4: bath is really pleasant. As well as that it's quite relaxing,
Speaker 4: and it's often quite a low stress birth because the
Speaker 4: midwives of the birth attendants tend to be very hands off,
Speaker 4: so they're not up in your grills sort of examining
Speaker 4: you all the time or not that that necessarily happens
Speaker 4: for people who don't have a water birth, but it
Speaker 4: is very much a low touch approach. We don't want
Speaker 4: to overstimulate the baby because we don't want the baby
Speaker 4: to be born into the water and gasp and inhale
Speaker 4: a lot of the water, so we want things to
Speaker 4: be nice and relaxed and calm the babies born. And
Speaker 4: there is also this sort of belief that the baby's
Speaker 4: in liquid because it's in the amniotic fluid and then
Speaker 4: comes out into liquid, and that it's sort of a
Speaker 4: less frightening or confronting passage into the world. So for
Speaker 4: all those reasons, the fact that it's often a very
Speaker 4: low risk approach for women who are deemed low risk,
Speaker 4: no touch, so it's very calm and relaxing, but also
Speaker 4: the warm water is very calm and relaxing, and as
Speaker 4: well as that we take seriously protecting the skin around
Speaker 4: the vagina and the perineum, the perannal skin, so that
Speaker 4: people don't develop severe tears. And in order to protect
Speaker 4: that tissue, we do a lot of warm compresses on
Speaker 4: women who are laboring. The bath or the warm water
Speaker 4: of the bath provides its own natural warm compress, so
Speaker 4: it's supposed to be an effective way of protecting the
Speaker 4: perannal skin so that women can birth naturally and without
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of intervention, but also we've been
Speaker 4: very protective towards their pissues, which is important.
Speaker 2: Diary of a Birth was hosted by me Cassenula Kitch,
Speaker 2: with expert input from doctor Bronwin Divine. If you have
Speaker 2: a birth story, we'd love to hear from you. Details
Speaker 2: are in the show notes. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Tina Matalov and myself Cassenulo Kitch, with audio production by
Speaker 2: Leah Porges