Free birth and the cord

[neostudded]

I was wondering what do mothers who are having a free birth do if the cord is around the babies neck?

Do you just move it with your hand?

I am thinking about having a free birth if I ever get pregnant in the future, because we don't have government funded midwifes in Australia, and I don't think I want to pay for a midwife.

[westerner]

I was wondering what do mothers who are having a free birth do if the cord is around the babies neck?

Do you just move it with your hand?

I am thinking about having a free birth if I ever get pregnant in the future, because we don't have government funded midwifes in Australia, and I don't think I want to pay for a midwife.

We do.. perhaps not in your state though..

[Areca]

Was going to say the exact same thing Goose said. Hopefully by the time you have another baby government finded midwives will be available close to you Neo.

I know here the free standing birth centre is approved for homebirths, and because they are getting busy, instead of employing more midwives there they are looking at approving the local public hospital for homebirths.

[Freya]

Yeap, just like with DS1's birth (in the hospital) it will just be moved by hand.

[kymmy]

I expected to deal with this as my first 3 had the cord around their necks.
J didn't though.

[neostudded]

We do.. perhaps not in your state though..
No they don't have them in my state (QLD). I only thought it was a small amount of Australia that did it and not even a state. I know things may change by then but I wont rely on it.

[AM]

Cord around the neck is probably among the least of my worries, Louie was born with it around his neck and under his arm, it was just a matter of unravelling him really, so I'm pretty blase about it, if I need DP to help with it, so be it.

[neostudded]

Did you keep pushing, or move it while he was in the birth canal?

[stellarella]

My midwife said that there is no need to remove the cord from around the neck until the baby is fully born. Unless of course the length of the cord is stopping the baby from coming out freely.

It's fine to wait until the baby is out and then untangle them. I've seen quite a few videos of that happening.

[neostudded]

Sorry about all the questions, I have never been exposed to normal birth in real life. So my knowledge is limited, I find the whole thing amazing really.

For my next pregnancy I love the idea of staying home, never seeing "professionals", and then just giving birth. Sounds so simple and great to me.

I want to learn more about birth but I am in no rush right now.

[neostudded]

My midwife said that there is no need to remove the cord from around the neck until the baby is fully born. Unless of course the length of the cord is stopping the baby from coming out freely.

It's fine to wait until the baby is out and then untangle them. I've seen quite a few videos of that happening.
Thanks, that makes sense to me. Because the baby still gets oxygen from the cord so I don't see the need to rush. But I was wondering about short cords, what would happen, what if it was to short to untangle.

Would someone just cut it?
I don't like the idea of cutting the cord.

[AM]

My midwife said that there is no need to remove the cord from around the neck until the baby is fully born. Unless of course the length of the cord is stopping the baby from coming out freely.

It's fine to wait until the baby is out and then untangle them. I've seen quite a few videos of that happening.

Yep, exactly.

With Louie, he came out tangled, he had a nice long cord, so it was all after he had been totally born.

[AM]

But I was wondering about short cords, what would happen, what if it was to short to untangle.

Would someone just cut it?
I don't like the idea of cutting the cord.

In very rare cases the cord does need to be cut, but most often if it is too short for bub to be born, then it is usually still fairly easily able to be eased over the neck.

[neostudded]

Oh cool, thanks everyone for answering me.:)

[PunkyDiva]

As DS head emerged DH asked me to pant whilst he removed the cord. I panted but an enormous contraction overtook me and bub was pushed out furthur. The cord tightened pushing DH's fingers out and because the cord was also wrapped around his body twice he was just stuck there, half out of me, under water. He opened his mouth and turned blue.
No time to cut so DH held cord as far away from bub as he could and broke it. He lifted him from the water holding cord tightly and we rubbed him vigorously whilst breathing gently into his face to revive him. This all happened in seconds although it felt a lot longer but I will never forget anticipating that release as head emerges, but not having it happen and the burn/ring of fire just going on and on. I did actually scream at this stage apparently and I know that had we had a midwife present she would have been able to handle this scenario a lot better then we did and also to have known that bub didn't swallow water so we wouldn't have transferred to hospital where the trouble really did begin.
My bub was huge so not sure how he managed to get so tangled in there and although my experience was an "exception", no one anticipates or chooses to be that and it truly showed me why you do need a midwife/experienced doula present at a birth.

Everyone and everything I read before birth had said bub would be ok under water as cord supplies oxygen but no one talked about scenarios such as we experienced.
Because he was so tangled we were lucky that oxygen had not been cut of earlier in which case we could have had a far worse outcome.
My cord was so long it trailed behind me as I stood up and I am nearly six foot, what if it had been short or tougher, so many what ifs I know so then you have to say we had some lady luck on our side too. And that's not a responsible or acceptable attitude to a birth.

We had seen that the head was descending and would then pop back up again which was a clear sign that cord was around his neck. I tried to ask DH to call my midwife friend as I knew this might be the case but I never spoke a word outloud, I just held the convo in my head and Dh was so tired that it didn't click with him until he could actually see bubs head.

I trusted and beleived in my bodies ability to birth. A few weeks before I had anxiety over cords even though none of my 5 previous births had had this occur, and I did extensive research and spent many hours talking with a midwife friend about it.
About an hour before the birth I suddenly declared I wanted to be on my bed, but unfortuneately I returned to the bath as I passed through transition. My body told me but I didn't/wasn't in a position to listen hard enough. A IM would def have picked up on these signs.

I love my homebirth but I deeply regret my choice to freebirth and I now understand all the things the IM's I talked with were trying to explain to me, but I chose to wear blinkers.

IMO finance should never be the reason behind choosing to freebirth as I don't beleive you could ever really be in the right head space, there are always midwives and doula's out there who will help you acheive a homebirth cheaply but safely.
Yes our bodies are designed to do this but as we evolved our structure changed making the birth process harder, one reason we have so much pain and long labours compared to animals. So much has to occur at the right times and if you look back in history or in countries not westernised there is still always a midwife or experienced woman present at births, most woman do not choose to birth alone.

As I have been before, I'm sure I'll get shot down here again but it is the other side of the equation when making a decision and I make no apologies for sharing what is so often kept quiet, because it may just save a life or encourage someone take that little extra step in preperation.
Has anyone contemplated that these babies found dead in plastic bags at bus stops etc in the last few years maybe from freebirths ??

A huge question to ask yourself as part of the decision making process may be "How will we cope if the worst does happen, how will it affect me personally, my relationship with partner, our family ?" The responsibility of a freebirth is far more outreaching then decisions normally surrounding pregnancy and birth.
Freebirthers in the purest sense, no medical intervention at all, consider life and death equally a part of the equation, do you ?

[Freya]

As DS head emerged DH asked me to pant whilst he removed the cord. I panted but an enormous contraction overtook me and bub was pushed out furthur. The cord tightened pushing DH's fingers out and because the cord was also wrapped around his body twice he was just stuck there, half out of me, under water. He opened his mouth and turned blue.
No time to cut so DH held cord as far away from bub as he could and broke it. He lifted him from the water holding cord tightly and we rubbed him vigorously whilst breathing gently into his face to revive him. This all happened in seconds although it felt a lot longer but I will never forget anticipating that release as head emerges, but not having it happen and the burn/ring of fire just going on and on. I did actually scream at this stage apparently and I know that had we had a midwife present she would have been able to handle this scenario a lot better then we did and also to have known that bub didn't swallow water so we wouldn't have transferred to hospital where the trouble really did begin.
My bub was huge so not sure how he managed to get so tangled in there and although my experience was an "exception", no one anticipates or chooses to be that and it truly showed me why you do need a midwife/experienced doula present at a birth.

Everyone and everything I read before birth had said bub would be ok under water as cord supplies oxygen but no one talked about scenarios such as we experienced.
Because he was so tangled we were lucky that oxygen had not been cut of earlier in which case we could have had a far worse outcome.
My cord was so long it trailed behind me as I stood up and I am nearly six foot, what if it had been short or tougher, so many what ifs I know so then you have to say we had some lady luck on our side too. And that's not a responsible or acceptable attitude to a birth.

We had seen that the head was descending and would then pop back up again which was a clear sign that cord was around his neck. I tried to ask DH to call my midwife friend as I knew this might be the case but I never spoke a word outloud, I just held the convo in my head and Dh was so tired that it didn't click with him until he could actually see bubs head.

I trusted and beleived in my bodies ability to birth. A few weeks before I had anxiety over cords even though none of my 5 previous births had had this occur, and I did extensive research and spent many hours talking with a midwife friend about it.
About an hour before the birth I suddenly declared I wanted to be on my bed, but unfortuneately I returned to the bath as I passed through transition. My body told me but I didn't/wasn't in a position to listen hard enough. A IM would def have picked up on these signs.

I love my homebirth but I deeply regret my choice to freebirth and I now understand all the things the IM's I talked with were trying to explain to me, but I chose to wear blinkers.

IMO finance should never be the reason behind choosing to freebirth as I don't beleive you could ever really be in the right head space, there are always midwives and doula's out there who will help you acheive a homebirth cheaply but safely.
Yes our bodies are designed to do this but as we evolved our structure changed making the birth process harder, one reason we have so much pain and long labours compared to animals. So much has to occur at the right times and if you look back in history or in countries not westernised there is still always a midwife or experienced woman present at births, most woman do not choose to birth alone.

As I have been before, I'm sure I'll get shot down here again but it is the other side of the equation when making a decision and I make no apologies for sharing what is so often kept quiet, because it may just save a life or encourage someone take that little extra step in preperation.
Has anyone contemplated that these babies found dead in plastic bags at bus stops etc in the last few years maybe from freebirths ??

A huge question to ask yourself as part of the decision making process may be "How will we cope if the worst does happen, how will it affect me personally, my relationship with partner, our family ?" The responsibility of a freebirth is far more outreaching then decisions normally surrounding pregnancy and birth.
Freebirthers in the purest sense, no medical intervention at all, consider life and death equally a part of the equation, do you ?

Wow. Thankyou so much for posting that. I am so sorry for what you went through.:hugs::hugs: