Maria Barker provided today’s guest post. She is a pregnancy enthusiast who loves talking about pregnancy and all the different aspects involved.  She is particularly passionate about helping people understand all the options they have throughout pregnancy and beyond.

If you’ve decided you wish for a home birth, then there are lots of ways to prepare yourself for the big day. First of all, read all you can about homes births: what is and isn’t allowed, what will happen, when to call the midwife etc. Secondly, you’ll need to find a midwife who is comfortable with and experienced in home births. Talk your birth plan through with your midwife and make sure you’re both happy with it before you’re due to give birth. Birth plans could include whether or not you want a birthing pool, what pain relief you wish for and who you want present.

Planning, Planning, Planning

If you’re having problems finding a midwife then you may also want to look into using an independent midwife who is experienced in home births. These are midwives who have chosen to work outside of the NHS. They do charge, so make sure you discuss their fee with them before hand.

To fully plan for your home birth, and you’ve probably been thinking about it during your pregnancy week by week, you’ll need to think about labour techniques. You may want to purchase a birthing ball and practice moves on it beforehand. Also plan in advance the atmosphere you’d like your child to be born into. If you want music, make sure you have the CD or playlist you want playing during the birth ready to pop on at the click of a button. You may also wish for dimmed lighting or extra blankets.

Flexibility

However dedicated you are to the idea of a home birth, it’s very important to stay flexible. You may need to transfer to a hospital if there are any complications during the labour. You’ll want this to be as stress free as possible. Pack an emergency hospital bag. This could include maternity sanitary pads, nightdress, money, drinks, snacks, and a camera. Keep this near the door during the last couple of weeks of your labour, just in case.

Before you go into labour, have a contact on hand just in case you need an extra adult present. Reasons could include someone to distract and look after your other children, someone to keep you company until your partner arrives or just an extra pair of hands. You might want to prepare the area of your home that you wish to labour in. For example, put some extra sheets down to save the carpet from getting messy. It’s advisable to have the birth in a downstairs room so that any doctors or midwives can gain easy access to you.

Pain Relief?

Unfortunately, if you’re having a home birth, the option of epidural won’t be available to you. You’ll need to decide on a choice of pain relief before the labour, but remember to be open to change. Have a back-up plan. Your midwife will be able to help you decide which pain relief is right for you. If you choose to labour without pain relief, then discuss the options available to help you cope with the pain naturally.

The third stage of labour is often sped up in hospital. There are health risks associated with the placenta taking too long to deliver so make sure you discuss your choice with your midwife. If you decide to deliver the placenta without drugs then include this in your birth plan and always be open to change in case of an emergency.

Planning a home birth is more complicated than planning a hospital birth, but you should find support from your midwife. Where you give birth is your decision and when planning a home birth don’t let other people’s opinions put you off. You should, however, stay open minded at all times and consider what is best for you and your baby, whether that is giving birth in a hospital or in the comfort of your own home.

My good friends Amanda, Regan, and Erin are currently pregnant as are many other people I know. While I’m totally consumed in toddlerdom, I have been thinking about my friends and their pregnancies. When I was pregnant, I took a Bradley class to learn how to have a natural childbirth. The course was quite rigorous (as far as childbirth classes go), so we learned lots of information about pregnancy and childbirth beyond simply how to manage your pain during labor. One of the things I distinctly remember learning (mostly because I found it hard to believe) was that the average length of a pregnancy is 41 weeks and 1 day. That means the average woman goes more than a week overdue (since a mother’s due date is at 40 weeks).

I suppose I shouldn’t find that hard to believe since I myself went 41 weeks and 2 days. However, when I tell people that I was 9 days overdue when I delivered, the vast majority of people (especially mothers) say “Wow, that’s long!” I figure that if my pregnancy was only 1 day longer than the average, I wouldn’t get such shocked reactions. Also, when I think about all of my friends who have had kids, the majority of them didn’t even make it to their due date (my friend Amanda, for example, had her first child at 37 weeks, which is a full 4 weeks less than the supposed average). Only a handful of my friends went overdue at all, and most of those mothers only went a few days past their due date. I know only one mother who went longer than I did, and she was 10 days overdue (as opposed to my 9).

Still, such anecdotal evidence alone is clearly not enough to show that the average length of pregnancy is shorter than 41 weeks. So, let’s think about it mathematically. If 41 weeks, 1 day is the average length, then that means that roughly half of mothers have shorter pregnancies than that and the other half have longer ones. Since 37 weeks is considered full term, there would have to be a mother delivering at about 45 weeks for every mother that gives birth at 37 weeks in order to keep the average at about 41 weeks. As we all know, VERY few mothers go that long. I can’t imagine any doctor (or midwife) who would let his/her patient go 5 weeks past her due date in this day and age. It seems that could put the doctor in serious jeopardy of a malpractice suit.

Also, nowadays, many mothers actually schedule c-sections or inductions a week or two before their due date. Again, for every mother giving birth at 39 weeks (which is very common), there would have to be a mother delivering at 43 weeks in order to counterbalance it and keep the average at 41. I know from experience that most doctors HIGHLY urge their patients to get an induction once they go one week past their due date (some docs won’t even let you go that long and even the very lenient docs only allow a mother to go about 2 weeks overdue). I begged my doctor not to induce me at 41.5 weeks and he all but insisted on an induction. So, I highly doubt that there are enough mothers delivering at 43 weeks to counterbalance all the 39-weekers.

And all of this doesn’t even account for preemies. Though not extremely common, preemies born at 34 or 35 weeks are also not a huge rarity. And we even hear stories about micropreemies born around 25 weeks who ultimately gain strength and survive and thrive. Just think about that—for every 25-week micropreemie, there would have to be a baby born at a whopping 57 weeks (or 2 babies born at 49 weeks or 3 babies born at 46 weeks…) to retain the 41 weeks average! Trust me, that is NOT happening anywhere!

So, while I might believe that average pregnancy length for Bradley students may be closer to 41 weeks (since students of this method are highly unlikely to schedule early c-sections, and they resist inductions even when they go past due), I do not believe that 41 weeks, 1 day is the average pregnancy length for the general population. I actually think the average would be closer to 38 or 39 weeks (accounting for early inductions, scheduled c-sections and preemies).

Whew! I feel like a just wrote a college thesis paper :-) Sometimes I miss math class!

Over the past month, it seems every time I log into facebook there’s another batch of my friends announcing their pregnancies. Congrats to all you expectant moms out there! While I haven’t been thinking much about pregnancy since my son was born, all of these new announcements have reminded me about the myth of the 10-month pregnancy. Did you ever hear a pregnant woman mention that she’s in her 10^th month of pregnancy? Every time I heard that, I figured that pregnancy must be messing with her math skills. Yes, I understand what she is calculating: an average pregnancy is roughly 40 weeks, and a month is roughly 4 weeks, so that equates to 10 months. But they are forgetting the whole “roughly” thing. Since only one month of the year is a mere 4 weeks, counting each month as only 4 weeks is leaving out a lot of days—in fact, a whole month’s worth.

Clearly, this is not the most flattering picture of me, but this is what 41 weeks pregnant looks like! (taken February 22, 2010)

In reality, a pregnancy is almost exactly 9 months. In fact, pregnancies are calculated based on a woman’s last menstrual period (which I find interesting since she was necessarily NOT pregnant at that time). So, the first two weeks of “pregnancy” are actually pre-conception. The time from conception to due date is actually slightly less than 9 months, and a few women I know have gone into labor weeks early making their pregnancies closer to 8 months (at least, from conception to delivery). Even I wasn’t pregnant for 10 months, and I was a week and a half overdue when I delivered my son!

Here’s hoping that all you currently expectant moms out there can keep your math skills sharp! Though, I suspect math may not be the problem for some. I think some women are so uncomfortable at the end of their pregnancies that they want to believe they were pregnant for longer—it may help them feel like they’ve accomplished more since they probably feel like they’ve been dealing with negative symptoms for an eternity. So, for all those moms-to-be out there, enjoy your “tenth” month!