My husband and I have decided to..

[faerymagick34]

do the unassisted childbirth choice, for many reasons. I am also new and came across this forum while doing a search for help, and stuff I need to know to make this happen. Unfortunately there are not that many books that i can find about Unassisted Home births. the one book I really want to read is out of print. 

Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself, I am 34, and have 3 children already, and have been married for 15 years. I had all three of my previous children in the hospital, which is why i am deciding to do this. I have bad and good experiences in the hospital setting. My last child I almost got in trouble with my doctor when i refused to get induced when i was a week late! When I did eventually give birth to her I had her in 3 hours and 20 minutes, and this time I didn't tear or need to be cut.

This time however I am not to keen about having doctors or midwives assist me at all. I don't like having people come in and telling when to push and not to push and so on. Plus I am doing a water birth as most woman say how relaxing it is.

I do have some questions I was wondering if anyone has a list of things you need on hand during the birthing process, including cutting the umbellical cord, and where to get the clamps and so on. Is there a checklist of items to have on hand? If so where can i find them.

Otherwise I feel I am doing the right thing, and of course my husband and I have discussed complications, and if something serious happens he will be the one to call 9/11. Any advice or help would be great. i am 8 weeks along btw!!

faerymagick34

[zoebird]

check out laura shanley's site: unassistedchildbirth.com. :)

[JessimaTheisen]

Hello, Faery! Glad you are here! Have you already been to Laura Shanley's unassisted birth website? She has a lot of good resources on there and the UC stories are very encouraging. She also has a book which you could buy on Amazon.com. Another book to read is "Spiritual Midwifery" by Ina May Gaskin, which has birth stories in the front and practical birthing information in the back. This forum, however, is the single most useful resource I have found so far. I have spent hours on end going through the hundreds of archived threads and I have learned SO MUCH and really feel pretty well prepared at this point. You have plenty of time and you will find that nearly all of your questions will be answered by perusing this forum... at least mine have been.

The question about supplies is a question often asked. Just go to the search bar near the top of the page and type in "UC supply list" and a ton of threads will come up for you to look through. This one has a really long list on it which I used as a model for my own: http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1131233/birth-supply-list. It seems like a lot of mothers gather much more than they end up needing, but I say it is better to have too much than too little. My own list not only includes things I will need for the actual birth, but also for the postpartum period, since I will certainly not feel like gathering things up after the birth.

A few good tips I have gotten so far are:

1) Get some large flannel-backed plastic table cloths to protect carpet/bedding instead of the typically recommended shower curtains or tarps. They are more comfortable and they will not slide around underneath you.

2) Use dark towels, if you can get your hands on a few, instead of chux pads since they are more comfortable and don't seem all hospital-like. A load of laundry will just have to be run afterwards, no biggie.

3) You do not REALLY need a cord clamp, as you can just use a sterilized (boiled) length of strong string (braided hemp or embroidery floss, shoelace, etc) to tie off the cord if you need to. If you wait until the cord has stopped pulsating and turns white, you don't even need to clamp before you cut. It is good to have something on hand, though, in case of some weird emergency where you might need to cut the cord before it is ready to be cut.

4) This is a weird one, and I don't think you will find it on any of the supply lists, but it is good to have nori (sushi seaweed) around in case of a tear. Apparently, you can put nori on a tear (as long as it's not too serious) and it's kind of like getting stitches.

5) You will definitely want to have some sort of quality hydration instead of just plain water. There are a lot of "laboraide" recipes around and coconut water is also great for electrolytes. You could also make "labor pops" out of red raspberry and nettle infusion which would be cooling while you are in the warm water and nourishing.

Good luck and happy reading!

[Devaskyla]

faerymagick34 what book were you wanting to get? Someone may be able to help you.

As for supplies with dsd2, he came 4 days before we were getting the money I planned to use for supplies. We had nothing really. We just used what we had on hand, used the oldest sheets & towels we had for under me, boiled a shoelace and scissors for the cord and grabbed a metal bowl from the kitchen for the placenta. Wrapped the baby up in a towel when he was born until dh could get some diapers the next day. It really showed me how little is needed.

I did actually get more supplies in earlier with the next one, though. We did a waterbirth with ds3, so we had a fishy pool and put blankets & a shower curtain under it. I had some shepard's purse in case of excessive bleeding, which I did end up using. i had capsules to encapsulate the placenta. And we actually had some diapers. lol Still used the metal bowl for the placenta. Oh, and I had few other odds & ends relating to water birth like a little fish net and a floating thermometer.

This time around, I'll probably get herbs and capsules again. Not sure about a water birth; we've moved and have a crappy hot water heater now. Other than that...not sure what I'm going to get. Probably not much.

[faerymagick34]

Wow thanks Jessima,

i didn't know about the seaweed, and the cord, which was one of my concerns. All I know is at the hospital they used to cut and clamp immediately, all of the youtube videos I have seen of the homebirth ones, they leave the cord on. That's really great information to know. I know we will need extra towels, and lucky for us we don't have carpet anywhere in the house it's all hardwood floors Still extra towels would be great. I will definitely look around a nd see what I can find. Thanks for the info!