Baby care and Maternity

Childbirth is a baby's most stressful period. This book discusses the lessons learnt from our experience that have helped us have happy and healthy babies. There are a lot of different special physical skills required for the birth. Our pediatrician gave us lots of information to go over together but we were keen to do things on our own and we found the information provided vital. There are also special support and support lines available that can be used to call for advice if you need to.

Our doula, who is a native artist and dancer, was the first person we talked to about our pregnancy and birth. Although we knew little about vaginal birth, she had wonderful instincts and her idea about the birthing process made a huge difference. Our first experience with the birth was really rough. She made many adjustments to help with my contractions and delivered our baby. Her speech and all her skills make her a special person, and is universally admired in our maternity ward. She has been a mentor to me and all the parents and deliver unit for the baby. We see her everyday and are reminded that there are always a lot of people around and helpful hands to be available.

There are lots of different special procedures we could take from our maternity ward, but we tried to relax as much as possible. Our birth lasted 9 minutes and we would have liked to have done this a little longer, but many moms-to-be are anxious and panicked at this stage, and some are forced to think about the labour and delivery themselves. Our doula came straight into the ward and had her 1 and a half hour self paced power washing exercise - we performed this before we slept, and as a reward our newborn baby woke us up. There was also a Lindy Method electric birth which was good, but there are potential risks, so stay aware of the possible risks of any procedures.

In our birthing class, we were told exactly what to expect so there was an easy connection with the class. We understand this so well that we didn't notice there was no special leave given. There were lots of practices we should do to prepare for birth, but mostly everything was on hand from the in-patient ward and the nurses.

Triage (Neonatal Assessment)

We had our first COVID-19 precautionary assessment on January 12th. During this review and assessment, our babies were taken to the Parental Infant Assessment Suite (PUAS) to continue to be looked after. After we were home for 3 days we had our final test. We were given another review on January 17th and did again and just before they left to come back to the ICU, a few other babies were born in our unit. Two of these babies did not make it, and we hoped for better news for one or both of our babies.

Stacking (Pregnant Women and their Baby's Transverse Perforated Pessation (ePP)

Pregnant women are admitted to RBC on the 6th and the 28th of the month. The first baby in this category, who was a vaginally-laboured mum, would have been expected to arrive at 10pm. She was booked for 4 hours on the night of January 13th, and due to go to collect her daughter (18th day of pregnancy) at 7am on the next morning. She would get there by car and then we would walk 3 hours home before getting picked up by a taxi which would take us to our GP clinic. The 24hrs maternity ward would be full, so on the morning of January 16th we decided to postpone her delivery to January 18th, so we could take a taxi back to our home. As you can imagine, this meant her baby would have to arrive a little later than she would have hoped.

Pregnant Women and their newborn Baby's Pessation (ePP)

This baby was due at 10.30am, and a courier would be picking her up from 6.30am. This baby's due date had been expected at 9.30am, so she would have to arrive late on the 8th morning after only 3 days of delivering. Although her baby was due at 10.30am, due to her and our baby's due dates being a bit late we were ready to take her home, but we were eager to see him or her! To keep our baby safe, we made the decision to have both baby and mum in the hospital.

She was monitored 24/7 by a nurse who was caring for our baby. The nurse in charge of her ward performed a Pessation Follow-Up with her before the baby was placed on Pessation to ensure he or she was OK. We left for the evening at 6pm, and her baby was placed in the hospital feeding tube at 7.15pm. She would have only seen her baby for a few minutes before being transferred back to the labour ward at 7.30pm.