Talk to me about self-directed pushing - Page 2

[cottonwood]

Originally Posted by liliaceae

Can you all tell me about your experiences with self-directed pushing? Did you feel an overwhelming urge to push? Did you just know when and for how long to push? Did you push during every contraction--right when it started, in the middle? How did you know when to stop pushing? Anything else??

#1 -- Midwife told me to push. My body wasn't ready to do it spontaneously, but I was fully dilated so in her mind time to push and I didn't know any better. So I didn't have an urge the entire time. She had me pushing pretty much from beginning of the contraction to the end. Took forever to push the baby out. Didn't help that I was in a reclining position.

#2 -- No dilation checks. Midwife observed from my behavior that the baby was very close to being born. I still had this idea that I had to work to push the baby out, but at least I didn't start pushing until I had that 'throwing down' feeling. I just pushed as I felt compelled to by my body -- I have no idea how that coincided with the contractions, I just wasn't paying attention. I stopped pushing when the baby was out.

#3 -- No dilation checks. Fully spontaneous labor and second stage. I really had nothing to do with it aside from moving as my body was telling me to -- one contraction, the head was out, next contraction the body was out.

#4 -- No dilation checks. I was in a lot of pain and clearly in/past transition, so I decided to try bearing down. I felt the baby move significantly downward which encouraged me to push again. I intentionally pushed with the contractions that time, when they started until they ended, two or three concentrated bearing down efforts within a contraction. Again, I simply stopped pushing when the baby was out.

[liliaceae]

OP here

Thanks ladies, for sharing your experiences. Well I had my baby about a month ago, and it turns out I didn't need to worry about directing my pushing--my body did it for me!

After 6 hours of labor, I was on my knees on the bed and I felt pressure on my perineum; 2 contractions later, my body started pushing the baby out, and I couldn't stop it. The baby came out probably 3 minutes after my body started pushing--the OB didn't even make it in time, a nurse had to catch her!

[mamabohl]

awesome! Congrats!

[swissmiss2584]

When I had the urge to push my body actually started to do a crunch. My uterus was so strong. It made me grunt and push down. It was amazing. Once I started pushing I was able to rest inbetween contractions and near the end since I push for two hours my midwife started directing me because my baby's heartbeat started slowing. I would push until she was crowing but her head wouldn't go past my perineum and when I would stop pushing her head would go back in so I needed a little direction with my pushing. I think if I had a mirror at my bottom so I could see what was going on I would have been able to push better. I just got so tired.