The Environment for Labor During Pregnancy
Posted on December 11, 2007
Filed Under Pregnancy Care | Leave a Comment
Along with changes in health care and in education has come a change in concepts of what labor facilities should look like. In the 1940s a labor room in a major hospital might have been a rather large room done in gray ceramic tile. A low bedspring,coming to about eighteen inches off the floor without either headboard or footboard nor in any way adjustable,. covered by a thin mattress, might have stood in the middle of the floor. The only other furniture in the room might have been a bedÂside table. The windows were likely to be barred by heavy wire mesh, and the room looked for all the world like the isolation room in a psychiatric hospital.In the half-century since, we have changed to labor beds with ample springs and innerspring mattresses, sometimes with bolsters and other appurtenances of bedroom luxury. Floors may be carpeted and comfortable overstuffed furniture are often provided for both the woman in labor and her support team. The electronic gear that we have come to employ so extensively can be stored inconspicuously and everything done to attempt to simulate a comforting home environment. Music is occasionally piped into the room, lighting is indirect and soft, curtains are hung in the windows, and it is taken for granted that a maximum of privacy will be assured.Not every hospital is able to provide environments as pleasant as this, but more and more the effort is being made in modern obstetrical facilities to make the surroundings homelike and comfortable.
Perhaps an even more far-reaching change is the option of choosing a birthing center to have a baby, or to birth at home. In the middle of this century, home birth was considered something to do only if you were very poor and couldn’t afford the hospital. The hospital was the place for educated, middle and upper class women. More recently, however, as women have been seeking more control in the conduct of their births, women in these socioeconomic categories have opted to deliver in out of hospital settings. Several large studies published in major medical journals have shown that with careful selection of women for these births and with the births attended by educated providers, birthing center and home birth can be as safe as hospital birth for mother and baby. Readily accessible medical consultation and a back-up hospital are essential. Currently, the overwhelming majority of babies in the U.S. are delivered in hospitals.
Women and their partners should think about what it is they want for their birth. They should talk to friends and family members who have had babies about the quality of their experience. They should discuss with their physician or midwife his or her views on the use of routine fetal monitoring or other technologies. Before pregnancy women should talk to current gynecologic care providers to see if they attend births. If so, find out where your physician or midwife delivers and something about his or her approach to pregnancy care and birth.
Tags:birth at home, birthing center, home birth, labor room, major hospital, obstetrical, pregnancy care psychiatric hospital
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