Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Mar
20
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…Laying On Your Side…Is The Best Way To Bring The Baby Down.”
“You can, but laying on your side like that really is the best way to bring the baby down.” L&D nurse to a mother who asked if she could sit upright with her epidural.
There are 9 comments to this post.
The Deranged Housewife had this to say,
Mar 20, 2010 @ 7:18 pm (Quote)
Uhh….All I’m picturing is having no mobility whatsoever and basically being stuck. How are you going to get any leverage?
That said, I pushed for awhile on my left side, but my daughter was slightly posterior. It worked. But I was elevated in the bed, no lying flat.
I don’t know that she necessarily didn’t know what she was talking about, because it’s hard to say how far along in labor this mom was.
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While laying on your side may be an ok position in labor and birth, it is only one of many options and you don’t necessarily know what position is going to work best until you’re actually in labor and try it. For the nurse to say that laying on your side is the best is just plain not true and ignores both the individuality of the mother and the physics of birth.
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Judith Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 3:18 pm (Quote)
Dear Kelly:
It is useful to read the post carefully! This woman had an epidural and while without an epidural, you should figure out what is most comfortable for you, your choices are limited once the epidural is in! I would urge all of you who are so disparaging of this nurse, to read Penny Simkin’s book ” The Labor Progress Handbook”. Penny does a fine job of showing how different positions affect labor. Penny is a doula and originally trained as a Physical Therapist so I trust she knows her A&P and physics! It is unfortunate how this nurse worded her response and yet, Penny will tell you that lying in semifowler position in bed with an epidural can encourage a baby to turn to OP. Babies can change their position quite a bit in labor so using positions like side lying with an epiduralized woman is applied to prevent an OA baby to go to OP or to help turn an OP baby. Sitting up some up the time is fine.so much is trial and error like some people here say what worked for them, but it might not work for others.
I am a maternity nurse myself and love reading the posts to learn and am sad when we pounce on people so savagely without maybe being very versed in the subject. this is a great forum to vent and a little kindness and compassion does not hurt! We are all wrong sometime, somewhere!
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kelly Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:57 pm (Quote)
I agree that is important to read the post carefully which I did and the nurse doesn’t say that lying on her side would be the best way to turn the baby, she says it would be the best way to bring the baby down. I appreciate your post and wish I’d known that the left side thing can turn a baby during labor when I had my first (she was OP) with an epidural.
I can appreciate that we are all wrong sometimes but if the mother is asking to sit upright, even with an epidural and assuming there are no outlying circumstances, then that request should be honored and not met with misleading or perhaps irrelevant information.
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Add Your Comment.
This nurse obviously failed A&P…
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