Grantly Dick Read

In his book Childbirth Without Fear, first published in the 1940s, Dr. Grantly Dick-Read brought the principles of natural childbirth to public attention. His philosophy was to try to lessen and hopefully eliminate fear and tension, and the pain that resulted from these choices, through proper education and emotional support.

The Grantly Dick-Read method taught women how to deal with tension, but placed a strong emphasis on the fact that knowledge alleviates fear and prevents tension, which in turn controls pain.

To help do this, she developed instructional courses that included breath control and muscle relaxation exercises, information on what to expect in a normal situation, and what women can do to help themselves.

His method also taught the mother to seek support in the form of guidance, reassurance, and sympathy. Grantly Dick-Read placed great emphasis on preparing for parenthood and childbirth itself.

psychoprophylaxis

This involves training in breathing methods in preparation for labor. The techniques were pioneered in Russia and introduced to the West by Dr. Fernand Lamaze. The Lamaze method is by far the most popular in the United States and is the basis for teaching by the National Childbirth Trust in Great Britain.

It encourages women to take responsibility for themselves, to associate with their peers, friends, and counselors. She highly values ​​teamwork. The woman must prepare her body throughout the pregnancy with special exercises and she has to train her mind so that it will automatically respond to each type of contraction that she will feel in labor.

Your partner acts as a coach and emotional support. He is expected to attend her course with her mother-to-be and to cooperate with her at home in conditioning exercises, and he coaches, coaxes, and comforts her through labor and delivery.

Leboyer’s philosophy

This is based on several basic tenets and relates more to the baby than to its mother and her progress through labor. Dr. Frederick Leboyer in his book Birth Without Violence states that the newborn baby feels everything, reflecting all the emotions that surround it – anger, anxiety, impatience, etc. – and that the baby is extremely sensitive through his skin, his ears, his eyes. .

For this reason, he believes that all stimulation to the baby should be minimized with dim lights, few sounds, little manipulation and immersion in body-warm water so that the baby’s entry into the world is as little different from his life in the womb as possible. .

This teaching, in fact, is not entirely in line with the physiology of what happens at the moment of the baby’s birth. It is contact with air at a temperature other than body temperature that causes the baby to take its first breath to initiate the crucial early function of the lungs and causes the baby’s blood circulation to change from fetal to mature.

It is also not true that a baby’s hearing is so sensitive that it is disturbed by the noises around it. The sound of the uterine vessels inside the uterus is similar to a noisy vacuum cleaner. Leboyer also believes that the mother is an “enemy and a monster” for the child, she pushes and crushes him inside the birth passage. He likes that she tortures her. Many women oppose this point of view, since it minimizes, even diminishes the role of the mother.

Dr. Leboyer believes that the baby should not be touched by foreign material but by human skin. The ideal place for the bay is to place it upside down on the mother’s abdomen and cover it with her arms. This has been shown by experimentation, not by Leboyer, to be much more efficient at preventing baby from losing heat than ceiling heaters. Research has shown that a baby can clear mucus from his airways more efficiently when he lies on his mother’s stomach than with a suction tube.

Leboyer suggests drawing the curtains and blinds in the delivery room and dimming the lights. Some medical authorities oppose this because they say that it is not possible to assess the condition of the baby in dim light.

Few centers practice the pure Leboyer method, but many hospitals and community midwives practice Leboyer-based delivery. Hospitals were slow to adopt Leboyer because research has shown that Leboyer babies appear to receive no additional benefit compared to others, although many ‘Leboyer mothers’ may feel they do.

Dr Michel Odent

A French doctor named Michel Odent has advocated placing the mother in a welcoming, home-like environment, giving her complete freedom to act as she wishes and encouraging her to reach a new level of animal consciousness where she lets go of her inhibitions and returns to a quite biological state. primitive.

Dr. Odent believes that high levels of endorphins, the body’s natural narcotics, should be allowed to have full sway in the mother’s body. He logically argues that if a woman is given painkillers and pain relievers, her endorphins are cut off, thus depriving her of the benefit of natural pain relief.

Dr. Odent’s clinic at Pithiviers in France, where he pioneered his natural labor techniques, became a center for those who wished to change views and practices on labor.

Dr. Odent believes that during labor there should be music, soft furniture, and a relaxed atmosphere. A woman going into labor should be allowed to sit, walk, stand, eat and drink, and do what she wants. Women should not be interfered with in any way and may assume any position that is most comfortable for them at any stage of labor. Left to their own devices, many women adopt a position on all fours, which seems to ease the pain. Later in birth, many stand or squat so that the force of gravity can assist them, a natural practice practiced by most primitive tribes.

Odent encourages the supported squat in which he, or the woman’s partner, stands behind her, takes his weight under her armpits and upper arms and allows her to bend her knees and place her weight on your partner’s arm.

Dr. Odent believes that birthing pools, which he now uses for many home water births, should be viewed primarily as a means of relieving pain. The birth itself doesn’t need to be underwater, although Dr. Odent is only too happy to take the baby into the bathwater, if that’s what happens. There seems to be no evidence that an underwater birth is dangerous for the baby, as long as the heads are removed from the water immediately.

Dr. Odent’s methods have always had low episiotomy, forceps, and C-section rates. The supported squatting position is the one that prevents severe perineal tears during childbirth. Because the mother has been in an upright position when the baby emerges, she sits upright with the cord still intact and the baby in her lap.

The baby immediately smells the mother’s skin and this is believed to be important for the baby in the establishment of lactation. Within a few seconds, most mothers instinctively pick up the baby and place it on the breast. It is not necessary to tell the couple to surround the mother and baby with her own body and arms. Each will do what comes naturally to them in these very personal moments.

Yoga based methods

This is not just for those who already practice yoga. During childbirth, a woman must focus her consciousness on being totally one with what is happening to her. Through yogic methods she is able to control her consciousness according to her capacity and tolerance, so that at times she is able to distract herself from the contractions and at others, to become fully involved in them. She can use meditation and chanting supported by the spiritual involvement of yoga groups.

Practitioners of yogic methods believe that a woman can handle childbirth in a mature and serene manner. Yogic labor education helps in the belief that a woman has the ability to create or destroy her own pain and joy during childbirth.