The baby has a very specific path getting out. We know that the first thing that he would do is turn his head down, but it’s interesting that the babies know when it’s time to turn their head down so they could be floating all over in every direction in the womb for the majority of their time there. But as they get closer to birth, and not, I don’t use the word due date as they get ready to be born, they will bring their head to down.
So if this is your uterus, the head will come downwards. And it is so designed with the bladder on the right, that most babies will try and fit in on the left of the mother facing the right from which a turn this way and coming out becomes easier. In old times, we did activities throughout the day that facilitated this lie of the baby facing either to the mothers, right or slightly to the right and back. This lay in technical language is called left occipital anterior – left of the mother. occiput is the bone behind the baby to the mother’s anterior, which is the front. So somewhere here. In the old times when we did work at home, they were on small benches or pattries, we would keep our legs open.
We will do our work leaning forward, and that would help the baby rotate his spine towards the front of the mother. With our new lifestyle, our bucket seats and comfortable couches, we are spending more and more time leaning back and that spine of the baby, which was pushed forward by the position of the mother bending forward is now being bent backward, which means these babies are quite likely to go into the pelvis with their back rotating or their spine rotating to the mother’s back and the face to the front, which would make it a slightly longer, well quite a bit longer, slower and more tedious birth.
Dr Vijaya Krishnan talks about the philosophy and model of care of midwifery.
Dr Vijaya Krishnan explains how midwives can support the mother and her partner in labor and birth.
Dr Vijaya Krishnan talks about a birth centre and what can a couple expect from it.