Urge to Push too soon

[shelley4]

i have a question.... with my last babe, i got the urge to push way too soon... like starting around 4 cm dialated... getting to be almost unbearable by 6 cm's. i think this is because the baby's head was sitting at +2 at the beginning of labour, and kept getting lower and lower as i dialated more.

the midwives had me breathing thru the contractions, to give my cervix time to dialate more and not tear, but it was extremely difficult to do. i tried all sorts of different positions and some homeopathy, but in the end, my cervix was completely dialated on one side, and at about 8cm's on the other side. i was starting to push involuntarily, and this was causing my cervix to swell a bit, so the midwife ended up holding that part of my cervix out of the way while i pushed, and then the head came down past it (she did ask my permission ahead of time, i was fine with it, and it really didn't hurt).

anyways, i don't plan on having any more kids, so this is sort of hypothetical, just in case i have a wonderful surprise baby one day.... what could i have done differently? i'm mostly just curious. i'm 100% satisfied with her birth (It was a home water birth ).... only 2 hours 10 mins in total... but i was "not pushing" for about 1 hour of that time.. an eternity in labour land!

[sapphire_chan]

Maybe put your chest on the floor and your butt in the air so that the baby could maybe slide back off your cervix? I've been told that helps with positioning issues by giving the baby more space to turn.

[tireesix]

Yeah, head down butt in the air.

I have read that the urge to push too soon can be normal and just as long as you don't push to hard, it can be helpful for dilating the cervix.

[gcgirl]

Originally Posted by tireesix

Yeah, head down butt in the air.

I have read that the urge to push too soon can be normal and just as long as you don't push to hard, it can be helpful for dilating the cervix.

Yeah, this position apparently helped me somewhat, but @#%&* did it hurt.