Giving birth

This post is about the best option for you and the baby between natural and cesarean birth.

I can't comment about the feeling of a natural birth as I never gave birth naturally. I tried with my first Tyler but the process wasn't progressing and then his heart rate started to slowing down so ended up having a emergency cesarean, but even if I did give birth naturally I wouldn't have been able to tell you about the pain the actual feeling because I had epidural and couldn't feel pain. The only pain I felt was from my first epidural as it was hitting a nerve and for about about 8 hours or so I had nerve pain in my thigh and my partner and mother had to rub my leg to ease the pain. With my second and hopefully last I was in two minds to try natural again or opt for a elective cesarean.  It pretty much took me up to 2 days before I had my cesarean to choose how I wanted to give birth and I opted for elective cesarean, however it ended up as a semi emergency but the surgery team had to put emergency in my notes.

This brings me to writing this post due to hearing other mothers getting upset as they had to go through a cesarean or even natural but wanted the opposite. Before pregnancy and up until I was in labour with my first I never wanted a cesarean, but waiting and waiting for the birth to progress with my first stayed put for about 6 hours or longer at 8 cm and talks about cesarean I was ready in my mind to go ahead with it.

So I am trying to say just go into pregnancy and birth with a open mind and whatever birth method happens just remember as long as both you and baby are safe and the baby get out that's all that matters. So don't feel upset if you wanted a natural birth and end up having cesarean as that was the safest way for your baby to come.

Riley 4 weeks on.

So today Riley is 4 weeks old, it only feels like yesterday that I was having my cesarean. Nothing major has happened in this month.

She was born 6Ib 2oz and lost some weight in the first 4 days which is bound to happen and normally happens. She went down to 5Ib 7oz which was within the 10% range if she lost more than 10% we probably would have ended up in hospital. She gain back her weight on the day the community midwives discharge me from their care. Then 2 days later she put on more weight when the health visitor came to talk about what they do etc. She was 6Ib 5oz that was about 2 weeks ago. Will be getting her weighed tomorrow hopefully at the weigh in clinic as health visitor as asked me to pop in before she comes out to do 6 week check on Riley and myself.

Riley was terrible at bringing up wind or I was just inpatient to wait for ages but she has been on Infacol which helped a bit but then we discovered Dentinox Colic Relief and used it about 3 times and it worked a star so I stopped using it as she was bringing up wind fine however she has wind the other end now so have started to using it again as the wind the other end is really making her uncomfortable. This morning after 3 lots of dentinox she doesn't seem as uncomfortable.

She had to have two scans this month too. One for a dimple on her back which Tyler had to have a scan for and on her hips. Both scans was all good and nothing to worry to about. Riley's heel prick which the midwife does on day 5 came back clear too.

We get her registered next month and have her 6 week check over by health visitor and then at 8 weeks she will have her first lot of immunisations which will roughly be in 4 weeks time.

She is too young to take interest in toys at the moment so I just talk to her. Tyler is very good with her too. He loves her and very helpful at getting things like nappies for me and putting her dummy in if she is crying.

Cheerio for now.

What to feed a newborn

I haven't fully read a article about Jamie Oliver going on about how all mothers should breastfeed to try and cut out obesity in childhood but I wanted to put my opinion and advice across.

We all know boob for babies are the best but boob and formula both have pros and cons but at the end of the day it's down to what's best for mother and child. If breastfeeding is going to effect the mothers mental health that she is going to struggle to look after her newborn child wouldn't formula be better so that way everyone can help out (father, grandparents etc)

Breastfeeding is hard. I would have liked to have breastfed both my children but Tyler wouldn't latch on at all, he didn't seem interested, however he took to bottle with formula. With Riley she did latch on and she did get some milk, however she didn't latch on for long and she seemed to be stressed so ended up bottle (formula) feeding with Riley. The one concern I have if breast milk is best and babies do not latch or don't latch on for long why don't people like midwives, doctors and health visitors encourage mothers to express and even use breast pumps so that way the baby is still getting the goodness from breast milk. Mothers who can't breast feed but is wanting to pump should get a discount voucher on electric pumps as I have heard that electric is better than manual. I don't feel there is much help when it comes to feeding your baby from midwives, doctors and health visitors, when I say no help with feeding I mean with both breast and formula and especially expressing. It seems as long as your feeding the child all is good. It's like when I had both my children the midwives will try the newborn on the boob while we wait for space on the ward but once on the ward the midwives there don't really help as long as you say your doing one of them.

So yes to summaries my post do what ever feels best for your mental state so you can look after your newborn and just enjoy it. Don't feel upset because so and so didn't work out try a different way. Babies and children in fact people are all a learning curve, if something works for one doesn't mean it's going to work for all.  Trial and error.