Understanding Delivery! It’s Not as Bad as You Think

Childbirth is scary and often for good reasons. When you stop thinking about the worst thing that can happen and quit listening to other people’s horror stories, you will be able to relax (at least a little!

Birthing babies is not for the faint of heart. Nonetheless, women find themselves in places of delivery everyday. Children are delivered in hospitals, at home, and in any other number of places. There is a certain amount of fear attached to the delivery experience. Young inexperienced mothers are naturally the most fearful. But women who have given birth before are also timid.

The common fear women associate with delivery occurs for a number of reasons. Those reasons are as varied as the women who give birth. Perhaps the most common reason for fear in the delivery room is the lack of education to what mom should expect. It is up to the first time mother to educate herself in the area of labor and delivery. You needn’t go into the delivery room barking orders to the doctor and nurses, but a working knowledge of what will happen during delivery is essential. Dad should also have an understanding of what the mother of his child is about to experience, and how he can help. Perhaps at the time of delivery, more than any other, a husband must, in the ‘labor and delivery’ version of Loretta Lynn’s song, “stand by his woman.”

The first thing every woman must grasp in the months prior to delivery is: this is nothing you can not do. This is a fact. Women have been delivering babies for centuries; you are just one of many. Be comforted by the millions who, facing the unknown, have gone before you. The statistics are in your favor. More women and their babies survive than don’t.

Women find themselves fearful of delivery because of frightening stories they’ve endured from those who have ‘survived’. Women who give birth tend to spread the horrifying aspects of their unique labor and delivery. I don’t know why, since it is completely unhelpful. It is downright detrimental, truth be told. These women spin labor room tales in the same way fisherman regale fish stories. Not that the story tellers lie, mind you, but some who have recently given birth (and not so recently) are given to hyperbole. Very few textbook cases are recalled.

Assume, unless you have otherwise been for-warned, that your labor and delivery will be normal and textbook worthy. This means that your labor will progress normally, and that your baby will be delivered within a reasonable amount of time. You will have discomfort/pain, but your doctor can help to regulate the pain should you desire. Also,
If you have availed yourself to child birth classes before the big day, you will have been taught how to breathe, which will give you some control over the contractions. Breathing through the contractions, as you were instructed will definitely assist you in the birthing process.

Don’t focus on the horror stories of your friends. A very small percentage of women suffer a prolonged, excruciating, near death experience. Get educated. Go to the library, talk to your physician. You will come to understand that ‘knowledge is power.