Childbirth, birth, vertical birth, hands-off birth, normal birth, natural birth, physiological birth

✋🏼🅛🅔🅢🅢 🅘🅢 🅜🅞🅡🅔✋🏼
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Teaching the art of watchful waiting is one that is well forgotten in modern obstetrics.
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We do so much with our hands on a daily basis and it feels natural to help the mother and baby with our hands in moments when it’s not needed or can cause unnecessary stress/harm.
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This is where the provider must learn to teach his/her hands to wait.
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This skill is one that is not taught very vigorously.
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But one of my favorites, @obstetra_bianka_manhaes on IG, teaches her students the art of watchful waiting and leaving the mother and baby to do their work.
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When they ask her why, she simply describes to them that birth is a natural process and most births proceed perfectly when you do less “helping”. You just watch.
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Watch how she guides her student to stay hands-off. She holds her hands on top of her students hands so she can feel that she needs to back off.
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She guides her students hands down to fully allow the baby’s head to drop and allow gravity to take over while giving baby all the freedom to maneuver out. This is the part where most providers get anxious and start pulling the baby out.
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But no, she instructs her student to stay backed off and wait.
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If you notice, once the baby’s head is allowed to completely hang, baby does one more tuck forward to move his shoulders in perfect position(👈🏻babies are active participants in birth)and suddenly his body releases from his mother.
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Assisting a normal physiological birth requires the skill of knowing that “LESS IS MORE”.