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Fear of unintentional UC

835 views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  HappyMommy2 
#1 ·
I had a fantastic homebirth last time. But it was fast. Midwife 1 arrived 1:57pm. Second mw arrived 2:20am. Baby born 2:21am. Had quite a lot of bleeding after. Passed out, but they got me.

I am TERRIFIED that I will be home alone and give birth...and bleed.

Can anyone help calm my fears?
 
#2 ·
there are layers to this.

first, there are natural, home remedies to help stop bleeding, and many UCers either eat a bit of the placenta and/or have various herbal tinctures to help.

second, it is important to work through fears. one of the primary fears around bleeding comes out of the myth that you can bleed out in five minutes. this is only true if you have a iatrogenic cut (medical intervention) that would lead to this. For many women who are bleeding to much, the home remedies can slow the bleeding, they have enough time to get help if it only slows it.

so, for example, you can look to your own birth to see how this might have played out. You had your baby at 2:21, at what time did the midwives determine that you needed medical intervention (their help) to stop bleeding? was it within 5 minutes? was it within half an hour? more? This can give you a sense of the time that you might have between birth and getting help, assuming the bleeding were to repeat itself. SO, if the midwives said--30 minutes after birth--ok, you are bleeding too much, lets give you X. then you know that you have about 30 minutes after birth to get to a hospital for help, or for your midwife to arrive to help, and so on.

next, i would strive to figure out what the cause of the bleeding was in the first birth. was it due to midwife intervention (eg, cord traction such that it pulled the placenta out too soon, leading to a hemorrhage)? or, was it something else? is that something preventable? if so, how? or, is it treatable on your own (as above, eating the placenta, taking herbal tinctures)? if so, can you prepare for that?

Also, have you studied what an "appropriate" amount of bleeding looks like, so that you can determine for yoruself whether you are bleeding normally or bleeding too much? if you study this, you can monitor it for yourself as well, and that can take a lot of fear out of hte equation.

And this is all just hte knowledge side. THere is a whole intuitive side of trusting yourself to be able to handle it, or get help when you need it, or potentially to not have the same problem twice (every birth is different). So, there's what whole area of personal questioning too, but i find most people do well starting with the rational side of things.
 
#3 ·
You don't mention how long you waited to call-in the midwives the first time. Can you call earlier, like when you feel the first contraction?

I'm not sure if it applies to you, but my mw said lots of women wait too long because they don't want to "bother" the midwife.

Definitely share your fears with your midwife so she can run when you call and talk you through the fears now.
 
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