Preventing Hemorrhoids during Labor/Birth

[*EarthMama*]

Hey Mamas!

I need your help with this...

I got painful hemorrhoids pushing my son out (10/07) and am worried about getting them again during labor and birth. While they majorly shrunk and mostly went away a few come back still on occasion (on a much smaller and less painful scale). This pregnancy I have definitely noticed their "growing" presence more and am truly TERRIFIED of getting them the way I did with my first labor/ birth!! (It was EXTREMELY painful... my bottom hurt for weeks longer than anything else). Soo, I know the obvious which is just try to let my body push and don't force anything but are there any other suggestions? I just REALLY don't want my fear to inhibit me during labor and even more don't want those awful things to show up again the way they did before. Is there a way to heal and prevent hemorrhoids before birth? Any secret magic tricks for before/ after? HELP PLEASE!

[tammylsmith]

Just tossing out a suggestion... and probably an obvious one, but you could try a different position to alleviate some pressure. I am not medially trained at all, but anything that would help you bear down with less force, i.e. working with your body to relax the sphincter muscles, would help I think. Birthing in warm water, or leaning in a different way (I know for me, leaning forward against my bed, and relaxing my upper body as much as I could made the pushing phase a little easier on my physically)

[Harmony08]

I feel ya!!!! I pushed for four hours with my son born 10/08. I'm not pregnant but I have exactly your fears. This part sucks. It just really does. I really don't know what to do I am just comiserating. But I'll throw out an idea or two that I have found. I know they make some kind of suport belt thing to take the pressure off while pregnant so they don't get worse. I have also found Julie Tupler's book Lose Your Mummy Tummy in my attempt to fix my diastasis. She also has a book called Maternal Fitness which I have not read but supposedly she teaches you how to push. Since in LYMT she tells you how to have a bowel movement to minimize hemmorhoids I would assume that the MF pushing techniques would be good for preventing/minimizing hemmorhoids. I plan to read it before the next one. I am so sorry you are dealing with this. I hope it works out for you. I will be watching this thread to see if anybody has any magic.