As I said in my previous post, delivery happens in The Netherlands preferably at home. That's in contrast to most places in the Western world. So I thought it would be interesting to post how my wife's delivery at home went. It turned out to be a 'full' experience in the sense that she did a part of the delivery at home and a part in the hospital. But the baby didn't want to come out, so it ended with a caesarean section.

First of all: although a delivery is hard work, my wife and I thought it would be much harder. Although you shouldn't ask her that when being in labor :)

Anyway: Sunday evening my wife feels weak contractions that are getting stronger. So she consults the midwife. The midwife says that it looks like the delivery is beginning, but there is still a chance that the contractions will stop. The midwife doesn't work for the hospital by the way. She works for an independent company.

So we climb into bed. And I mean literally 'climb', since our bed is raised by 30 centimeters for about 4 weeks now. Our bed stands on 8 steel poles. That had to be done to prevent that the midwife has to lean over all the time. You can have a home delivery from week 37, so you have to raise your bed before that. A less visual alteration to the bed is an extra cover over the mattress of my wife. That will prevent blood seeping into the mattress.

Two hours later in the middle of the night, the contractions are strong, regular and they come often. We haven't slept at all and my wife is in agony, walking through the house as if she could walk away from the pain. So we call the midwife again. She comes to our house to check the dilation. It appeared to be 5 cm. Then she manually breaks the amniotic sac, which was still unruptured at that time, to speed up the dilation. We agree to call her again at either seven o'clock or earlier if the contractions of my wife become that strong that she will start to groan. After then the midwife heads back to her own home to get a little bit of sleep.

Well, my wife is quick because within three hours we call the midwife again and within half an hour the midwife is back at our bed. She concludes that my wife is almost ready to expel the baby from the womb. The midwife immediately calls the "kraamverzorgster", somebody who helps us managing our household and the care for the newborn in the first week.

But after two hours there still isn't any progress. The baby is stuck in the vagina. So the midwife basically has to give up. We fetch all the things we could need in the hospital, give my wife some clothes, I put a special clean cloth on the seat of our car and we drive to the hospital, a trip of about 10 minutes. The kraamverzorgster leaves our home a bit later, after she cleaned up the mess in our bedroom.

The hospital part is probably less interesting for you, but as you understand I can't stop here with my story. To keep it short: they attached in the hospital something to the head of our baby and tried to pull a bit, while my wife had a contraction. But that didn't work either. So they had to get our little girl with a caesarean section. So after an hour we were finally with the three of us together.

There's only one thing: since the first delivery ended in a caesarean section, we have to have the next one in hospital. We are not happy with that, because not everything went well in the hospital. But that's another story...


As you may see, it has been quiet on this bloog the last two weeks. That's because I'm busy settling into the new situation and helping all the visitors that come to see the baby. But that doesn't mean that I don't have something to post. It will just take a little while for me to find the time to write.

Labels: labor, medical

When we were buying furniture for the babyroom, we decided that the baby should be sleeping in the nursery. I checked with a few people and they all have done that. In fact: it's standard practice in the Western world. So it appeared to be a no-brainer for us. But since we saw an item on tv about "natural parenting" we started doubting.

One of the aspects of natural parenting is co-sleeping. Having your baby in bed seems logical. You have the baby close to you and it's very handy when you're breast feeding the child. But the closeness also comes with safety issues. Although I couldn't find conclusive data on it, I wouldn't want to risk the baby being smothered by a pillow. Or even worse: being smothered by my own body, when rolling on the baby while sleeping. Although this (alleged) risk is enough to keep the baby out of our bed, there are also some more situations when co-sleeping is unsafe:

• When you used alcohol or drugs (duh!)
• When you are stressed or very tired
• When you're extreme obese
• It is very unhealthy for the baby when you're a smoker. Even if you don't smoke in bed. The evidence isn't solid, but it should raise the chance of a sudden death.
• The blanket shouldn't be too heavy, too warm or too cold
  

Now then. That was the why-I-wouldn't-do-co-sleeping part. I am convinced why I shouldn't do it, but I still want to keep the baby as close as possible. I want to keep an eye on it and the closeness is also good for the baby. I could buy some stuff that could make a co-sleeping situation safer, but there is no law that those tools have to be tested. So you can't be sure that your baby is safer when you use these tools.

So the next best thing is having a crib next to the bed. We bought one that cannot rock. That way my wife cannot unintentionally rock the crib while getting out of the bed because she has to go to the toilet or to breast feed the baby.

• Some helpful tips on making co-sleeping safer
• Co-sleeping, a personal story (from parentingideas.org with more tips on co-sleeping)
• Wikipedia on co-sleeping
  
• Consument en veiligheid (in Dutch, as you can see)
  

Labels: sleeping

Our due date is on Monday. So when the weekend started a few days ago, we were full of expectations. Could it happen this weekend? And indeed: on the very first night of the weekend my wife had something that looked like contractions. In the early morning the contractions even kept her awake. So I skipped my early morning jogging so I could be near in case something happened.

But when she got out of bed, the contractions faded away slowly. Bummer. Next night: same thing but the contractions were weaker and kept her awake for a shorter amount of time than the day before. We consulted the midwife in the morning. She thought the womb was just 'training' for the actual birthing process. And that seems to be true because it's now Sunday evening and the day passed by uneventful. So we have to wait.

The actual birthing process is going to be special for you non-Dutch by the way. Here in The Netherlands we have the tradition to deliver at home. We only go to a hospital in emergencies or special cases like breech births. Home deliveries seems to be one of the key components of 'natural parenting', which is a way of parenting that in fashion nowadays. Anyway: you can be sure I'll report the home delivery in detail :)

Labels: labor, medical