August 2011 Moms

Perineal Massage

I was told about these exercises to prevent that terrible tear most women get from child birth. Anyone thought about these yet or having hubby help with it? LOL I can't help but giggle to the situations we put our husbands/SO's in. Honey can you shave my whohaa, then stretch my perineal and help with Kegal exercises lol

Re: Perineal Massage

  • These will be part of my Bradley exercises, so I'll learn about them when we start classes in early April. Until then, Kegels are good enough. 
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  • oh my goodness I really can't wait for my mother and I to take those classes. It's going to be so hard not to giggle. You would never know I write romance novels LOL.
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  • They can help; but don't expect them to be a fix all. I did them with ds and still had a 3rd degree tear.
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  • I'm starting the Bradley Method course in mid-April too, so will find out more about it then.  I'm leaning towards having a waterbirth, and from what I've read, tearing is less common when birthing in water, so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that I'll be one of the lucky ones!

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  • I don't think most women get terrible tears.  But I'm also skeptical as to how much perineal massage actually helps when done during pregnancy.  During actual child birth the best methods of avoiding a tear are better positioning for birth (squatting being the best option), perineal massage done by your doctor/midwife during pushing/crowning; and breathing through the contractions of crowning when the head emerges so that your body slowly pushes baby out at that point and you don't shoot the baby out too quickly (allows the skin more time to stretch).  

    That said, I didn't stand a chance.  My son had craniosynostosis, which means a suture (special word for skull joint) was fused and he didn't have a soft spot (which translates to - his skull was solid bone and couldn't mold to the shape of the pelvis/vagina like most babies in vaginal birth - he didn't have that fabulous cone head, you'd think he was a c-section baby!) and because his head couldn't mold and smoosh itself through the vagina, something had to give and that was my perineum.  Still, I only had a 3rd degree tear (I say "only" because I would have expected something worse from a solid-skulled newborn), so I'm pretty confident that as long as this baby has the proper skull anatomy, I won't tear at all :) 

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