Pregnancy Signs & Symptoms, Week by Week Pregnancy Guide

In order to learn about labor and delivery, the best thing you could do is to participate at a childbirth class.

A good class will teach you about the options, the hospital policies and also about the standards of a given area. In case you are looking for such a class, make sure that it has a certified educator.

What exactly goes on during labor and delivery?

In case you start worrying about whether you entered labor, it means that your pregnancy is over. A lot of women are worried that the pregnancy symptoms are in fact signs of labor. It is true that sometimes these are masked by the pregnancy symptoms.

You can know that you are facing labor and delivery in case the contractions are stronger and longer than they used to be.

You could call your doctor for his or her opinion, or use the 411 method: contractions every 4 minutes, lasting for 1 minute for 1 hour.

Details

Once you know for sure that you are facing childbirth and labor, you will see your body having different kinds of reactions.

Because of the contractions the cervix will open for the baby to be able to get born. The time period of labor varies from one mother to the other. In case you are at your first pregnancy, you can expect it to last for about 12-18 hours.

Support

One of the most important things that you could have during labor and birth is support. This way you won’t feel alone during this time but you will also have someone to discuss your fears and concerns with.

One of the things that you could do is to hire a doula who has experience in the manner and who can tell you about the emotional and physical components of labor and delivery.

It is interesting to know that the hiring of such a person reduces the chances of complications and also the number of interventions decreases.

Natural childbirth

This is a concept that could mean different things to different people regarding labor and delivery, but in the majority of the cases people mean that certain interventions aren’t used during childbirth including the use of painkillers. In such a case women turn to relaxation, positioning and other kinds of comforting measures to help them.

Birth medications and labor

In many cases when it comes to giving birth and labor a lot of women opt for having birth medications to help them cope with what they have to go through. The medications could be IV medications or epidural ones.

The medications that you could take regarding labor and giving birth depend on the health of the baby, you and your health care provider. You should ask some questions regarding these in advance.

Common interventions

Many of the interventions regarding labor and birth giving are considered to be routine and so you have to speak up in case you don’t want to use them. There are a lot of things you have to prepare for regarding labor and delivery but the good news is that the female body is engineered to go through giving birth naturally so keep a positive attitude about the matter.