How does normal delivery takes place

Things to do and try at hospital: Try not to tense up during contractions. Your body is trying to release something, not tighten up. Find positions that feel comfortable. Walk the corridors slowly, lean on the walls, use the Swiss ball and La-Z-boy chairs. Try to stay off the bed, unless for a short rest. Water is great for relaxation and coping with contractions. If you don't have use of a pool, try the shower.

Bring music and a player, if it relaxes or calms you. Bring an electric oil burner and use your aromatherapy oil.

Continue to take refreshments and drink small amounts frequently. Phone calls are a distraction from your tasks of giving birth and looking after your new baby. Encourage family and friends to phone one designated person for updates. The second stage of labour: your baby The second stage of labour begins when the cervix is fully dilated open and the baby's head moves down out of the uterus and into the vagina or birth canal. The third stage of labour: the placenta The final stage of labour is delivery of the placenta.

Physiological management Physiological third stage means waiting for your placenta to deliver spontaneously with your effort. A message has been sent to your recipient's email address with a link to the content webpage.

Your name: is required Error: This is required. Your email: is required Error: This is required Error: Not a valid value. Send to: is required Error: This is required Error: Not a valid value. How your body prepares for labour Here are some of the ways your body will prepare both you and your baby for the birth ahead. Braxton Hicks contractions In the weeks or days before you start having proper contractions, you may experience Braxton Hicks contractions.

Changes to the cervix As labour gets closer, your cervix softens and becomes thinner, getting ready for the dilation widening that will allow the baby to enter the vagina.

Engagement Your baby may move further down your pelvis as the head engages, or sits in place over your cervix, ready for the birth. Rupture of the membranes, or 'waters breaking' Some women find the sac of amniotic fluid containing the baby breaks before labour, contractions start and the fluid runs or gushes out of the vagina.

How will you know when labour has started? In preparation for labour, your baby may move further down your pelvis as the head engages, or sits in place over your cervix. How the pelvis is designed for childbirth Your pelvis is located between your hip bones. How hormones help you give birth Your body produces hormones that trigger changes in your body before, during and after childbirth. Prostaglandin Before childbirth, a higher level of prostaglandin will help open the cervix and make your body more receptive to another important hormone, oxytocin.

Oxytocin This hormone causes contractions during labour, as well as the contractions that deliver the placenta after the baby is born. These post-birth contractions, including more that can occur during breastfeeding, help your uterus shrink back to its normal size. Oxytocin and prolactin are the two main hormones that produce and let down breast milk for your baby. Skin-to-skin contact between a mother and baby helps to release more of these hormones.

Relaxin The hormone relaxin helps soften and stretch the cervix for birth, while helping your waters break and stretching the ligaments in your pelvis to allow the baby to come through. Beta-endorphins During childbirth, this type of endorphin helps with pain relief and can cause you to feel joyful or euphoric.

You may feel teary, anxious and irritable and your mood can go up and down. More information If you have any questions about childbirth or pregnancy, you can call Pregnancy, Birth and Baby on , 7 days a week, to speak to a maternal health nurse.

Back To Top. Pain during childbirth HealthEngine Blog Almost all women experience pain during childbirth which varies in severity. Preterm labour is when you go in to labour before your pregnancy reaches 37 weeks. Call us and speak to a Maternal Child Health Nurse for personal advice and guidance.

Normal delivery is a completely natural delivery of a baby by the mother without any medical intervention. The first stage of the normal delivery process involves contractions which help the cervix dilate, soften and stretch so that the baby can be delivered.

This is the most painful phase as the cervix dilates to its fullest, at about 10 cms. Painful, strong contractions continue at intervals of minutes, each lasting seconds. This stage begins after the complete dilation of the cervix.

Intense contractions continue, helping push the baby head first through the birth canal. The mother is asked to push with every contraction and may find herself highly fatigued.

She may also experience intense pain around the vaginal opening as the baby makes its way out. The mother must continue to push till the baby finally makes it out into the world. The placenta may be delivered from a few minutes to half an hour after the baby is born. The process may be manually assisted by massaging the lower abdomen.

The cervix is a tubular structure approximately 3 to 4 centimeters in length with a passage that connects the uterine cavity to the vagina. During labor, the role of the cervix must change from maintaining the pregnancy by keeping the uterus closed to facilitating delivery of the baby by dilating, or opening, enough to allow the baby through.

The fundamental changes that occur near the end of the pregnancy result in a softening of the cervical tissue and thinning of the cervix, both of which help prepare the cervix. True, active labor is considered to be underway when the cervix is dilated 3 centimeters or more.

Eventually, the cervical canal must open until the cervical opening itself has reached 10 centimeters in diameter and the baby is able to pass into the birth canal.

As the baby enters the vagina, your skin and muscles stretch. The labia and perineum the area between the vagina and the rectum eventually reach a point of maximum stretching. At this time, your healthcare provider may decide to perform an episiotomy.

The placenta and the amniotic sac that supported and protected the baby for nine months are still in the uterus after the delivery. These need to be delivered, and this can happen spontaneously or it may take as long as half an hour. Your midwife or doctor may rub your abdomen below your belly button to help tighten the uterus and loosen the placenta.

Your uterus is now about the size of a large grapefruit. You may need to push to help deliver the placenta. You may feel some pressure as the placenta is expelled but not nearly as much pressure as when the baby was born.

Your healthcare provider will inspect the delivered placenta to make sure it was delivered in full. If this happens, your provider will reach into your uterus to remove the leftover pieces in order to prevent heavy bleeding that can result from a torn placenta. If you would like to see the placenta, please ask. When you begin to push, some of the pressure will be relieved. It will feel something like a strong urge to have a bowel movement as the baby presses down on those same nerves.

If you have an epidural, what you feel during labor will depend on the effectiveness of the epidural block. If the medication properly deadens the nerves, you may not feel anything. It depends on how well you tolerate pressure sensations.