Really fast labours! They might not be all they are cut our to be! In this episode I talk about what a fast labour can be like and how to recognise that a labour is progressing faster than you might think. If a Birth Before Arrival is imminent then I talk about what you can do and how to cope. There are also a good few stories about fast labours and how they ended up!

What you need to know

1. First time labours are about  23 hours. Second time labours are less than half that.

2. Most fast labours are in multipara mothers

3. Look for signs of labour progression; changes in position, changes in frequency of surges, change in demeanor, a latent “not sure ” phase can sometimes quickly develop into transition. If the waters have released with contractions then things are moving along – call the doula, call the midwife midwife or get heading to hospital!

4. Know what to do if a BBA occurs; be prepared for what your baby will look like (purple, covered in fluid and blood), understand basic physiology; the placenta via the umbilical cord keeps oxygen flowing to the baby for those first seconds and minutes. The cord does not need to be cut. Baby needs to be kept warm.

For more on supporting every kind of birth  my Comprehensive Doula Training is open for registrations. 10 moon payment plan also available. More details here

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How often have we heard of people being told that they “failed to progress” because their labour was slow or stalled?

How often do we hear of people being induced or augmented in our maternity services?

We have been groomed as a society to believe in labour kicking along at a certain pace, that all labours whether first or second plus are the same and follow the same patterns and have the same baseline to adhere to. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Not all labours are the same, not all labours have the same pace and not all babies come with the same factory setting expected by our factory style maternity services.

Listen in to firstly understand the real patterns that normal labours take and then also to see what we can do to help babies achieve their normal and intuitive journey to birth.

If you are interested in supporting people in their journeys to birth and beyond, maybe doula work is for you? My Comprehensive Doula Training is now open for registrations and the 10 month payment plan is available until the end of June. Find out more here

Placenta encapsulation is often difficult to find information on. In this episode I discuss what placenta encapsulation is and also the history of encapsulating placentas as well as the available research and the risks and benefits that have been evaluated by the existing research.

No one can ever fully control birth, not the cosy APP promising you a candlelit waterbirth or the obstetrician who thinks that they have intervened early enough to mitigate every risk imaginable. Birth will always have unknowns and part of the work of preparation is to acknowledge that.

One of the most important things we can do is get to know and trust ourselves as part of our preparation. Communication with our minds our souls our bodes and even sometimes with our deepest fears all feature in birth preparation.

There are also pragmatic things such as getting familiar with breathing well, moving with strength and flexibility, understanding the mechanics of labour and how our different body systems function in labour, and then there is the environment we birth in and the way our mind affects us. For more . . . just listen in.

I you feel drawn to support people in labour or just afterwards, consider my postnatal doula training course, which is both a stand alone course and an entry into the Comprehensive Doula Training that will continue after the summer. More information here