Welcome to Childbirth articles
For the majority of women, childbirth is a happy and incident-fee event – a special time when they bring new life into the world. For others, birth is a painful and stressful experience. Whatever your expectations or experiences, it definitely helps to be not only prepared for the miracle of childbirth, but also for the newborn baby. Make sure you are prepared both mentally and physically for this life-changing event.
Some things you might already know, but a lot will be new. Did you know childbirth is divided into 3 distinct stages? Let Huggies share with you all the facts and information about childbirth. Educating yourself, preparing yourself and understanding your options are all key factors to having a healthy and problem-free childbirth.
Labour birth
Labour can seem like a very intimidating and scary time for women of all ages, but with the right frame of mind you can make empowering decisions regarding your labour experience. Make sure you know, for example, how to recognise which stage of labour you’re in so you can make sure you get to the hospital in time.
Understand some of the best ways to deal with the pain. Find out some of the potential birth complications. Huggies can help you prepare and answer questions you have about labour.
Giving birth
It’s been 9 months, your due date is approaching; the hospital is on standby; the car has petrol in the tank. Now what? Time in labour differs from person to person, but normally results in the delivery of a beautiful baby, and then your life changes forever.
Huggies will prepare and guide you through the birth process, from what to take in your ‘hospital birth bag‘ to what to expect when your contractions start, and even information on natural birth compared to a C-section.
Postnatal
Many parents believe that after the birth the hard work is done. Not so – the fun is about to begin. Some mums have limited or no knowledge on how to provide postnatal care for a newborn baby or how to care for themselves physically and emotionally after childbirth. Huggies can help guide you through the process of providing postnatal care for you and your newborn.
Postnatal depression is an affliction that affects millions of women worldwide and should not be underestimated. Huggies has articles and information to help you understand more about postnatal depression and ways to seek support and treatment.
Premature babies
A baby is deemed premature if it is born before the 37th week of pregnancy. Caring for a premature baby can be difficult and time-consuming, mainly due to its low weight and the potential for other health issues. In addition, many premature babies require an extended stay in hospital.
Huggies has articles, advice and information to help you understand more about prematurity, the reasons for it and how to deal with it, so you can provide the best care possible for your premature baby.
Childbirth stories
Every labour and birth is different and no matter how well prepared you are for the birth of your baby things can take an unexpected turn and you end up having a completely different birth experience than you hoped for.
Read these real life birth stories from other mums and find out just how different it can be for each woman, and in fact for each birth.
- Great birth, but after
- An unexpected home birth
- Premature birth stories
- We should have known she’d be a handful
- Easy first timer – Mother’s Day baby
- A week’s worth of stress
- Listen to your instincts! Not doctors
- I had my youngest baby at home on the bed – Quickly!
- My Home Birth
- Christening the new car
Caesarean
Babies delivered by caesarean section, are not born vaginally but lifted out of the uterus through a surgical procedure. The surgery is usually performed when a vaginal birth would put the mother’s or the baby’s health at risk (although there’s some controversy about the way that risk is assessed).These days, the operation is considered extremely safe, with a very low mortality rate.
Natural-birth
A home birth is a natural birth that is planned to happen at home, as opposed to at a hospital. Like all natural births, a home delivery means no medication and no foetal heart monitor or any other medical machines. Although there are a few doctors that do home births, usually it’s a qualified midwife of your choosing that helps you plan the delivery, attends to you during labour, and then takes care of both you and your baby for several hours afterwards.
Multiple births
Although a wonderful concept, the reality is that multiple births do carry an increased risk of complications for both mothers and their babies. So as a rule, from the time that a multiple pregnancy is confirmed, planning starts for making the births as safe and ideal as possible.
We’ll take you through how to have twins, twin pregnancy symptoms, week by week twin pregnancy development, how to breastfeed twins, and loads more.
