Uterine Pressure Post Delivery
Due to a complication I have to deliver in a hospital. It's by far my first or best choice; it's just what I have to do now. But I still want as natural a delivery as possible. I'm refusing all pre-birth interventions like inductions, meds and constant monitoring but today this is bothering me. The way nurses press and roll on your uterus after birth seems unnecessary to me. I've heard all the reasons why - to deliver the placenta (like you can't have a chance to deliver it yourself), to clamp the organ for bleeding, to "flush" everything else out, etc. Why can't I refuse this after birth and deal with bleeding or whatever may come later? I have a friend who said this was worse than all her labor and another who just delivered this week and actually screamed when the nurse pushed all over her. I can deal with the pain of birthing; this doesn't seem anywhere in the realm of natural to me. Just one more thing I have to be anxious and depressed about going to the hospital...
Re: Uterine Pressure Post Delivery
My midwives at the birth center also pushed on my uterus to help it contract after the baby was born (maybe because I was bleeding too heavily). In any case I don't actually recall the nurses in the hospital doing that with my first at all.
Definitely nothing that was that painful and definitely nothing worthy of a scream. So I wouldn't worry too much about it.
House / Baby blog
I had a c/s so I didn't feel them pushing on me immediately post birth.
However, one thing I did that I really think helped me avoid the painful fundal massage that others mention was to do it myself. Every time I thought of it while in the hospital, I massaged my uterus a little, pushed on it, etc. (A little TMI, but I felt lochia gushing out a little when I did it, and I could feel my uterus firm up.) It didn't hurt because I was doing it myself. The nurses still had to check me, but they almost never did any massaging since my uterus was already firm. Just a suggestion
As far as refusing it- I suppose you could talk to your provider about it (and obviously you can refuse whatever you want), but fundal massage is really the standard of care for preventing pp hemorrhage. It might be uncomfortable, but IMO it's better than getting pit, and way better than hemorrhaging.
Well if i was going to refuse fundal massage for a no intervention birth I would surely refuse pit. Why can't I just try to deliver everything on my own and let my uterus return to normal naturally???
So is it a sure thing you'll hemorrhage if the massage is not done? I'm just trying to figure all this "routine" stuff out in a rush now to see what's really important. Just like I don't want my baby to hemorrhage, I don't want to myself to either, (who would?) but is that a guarantee without the routine vit K injections and massage?