How And Why To Avoid Childbirth Tears During Labour!

A child birth tear during labour can cause significant pain and discomfort during both at the time of labour and afterwards. Is there anything that you can during pregnancy and in the build up to labour to prevent the chance of you suffering a child birth tear?

This article explains that there are some small steps that you can take to reduce the risks of a tear.

What Is A Childbirth Tear?

Childbirth tears are natural tears to the skin ( the virginal tears by itself) that happen during labour. They are more likely to occur if the birth is assisted by ventouse or forceps or if the baby is in distress and the medical team need to move quickly to ensure the baby suffers as little as possible. They are also now considered to be more likely to happen if the mother has an episiotomy (a medically applied cut to the vagina walls to speed up the delivery of the baby). It used to be the case that an episiotomy would reduce the chances of tearing.

Why Avoid Childbirth Tears?

Whilst many tears can be minor with minimum long term complications, these tears being called a first or second degree tear, the more severe third or fourth degree tears can cause significant problems and pain. They can lead to infections, swelling, immobility and in the most severe cases incontinence and pain during sexual intercourse.

Therefore, if there is anything that you can do to reduce or avoid the likelihood of you tearing during childbirth you should do it.

How To Reduce The Chances Of Childbirth Tears.

The first thing you should do, relatively early on in your pregnancy is to discuss the chance of you tearing during childbirth with your midwife. Explain that you are very keen to do all that you can to avoid this and ask her for her help in doing so. You should particularly ask her to talk to you about how pelvic floor muscles can reduce your chances of tearing, and how to carry out a perineal massage to help the flexibility of your perineum (see below).

Perineal Massage.

You should undertake a perineal massage for around five to ten minutes a day from around the 34th week of your pregnancy. This can help to stretch the perineum so that during birth there is less likelihood of it tearing.

Use an oil or a water soluble jelly to carry out the perineal massage (not mineral oil or petroleum jelly but vegetable or wheat germ oil, or K-Y Kelly will work). Start by placing your thumb inside your vagina approximately one third of the way down one side of your vagina. From this starting position, move your thumb slowly down the starting side and then across the bottom of the vagina and halfway back up the other side, all of the time whilst gently stretching your vagina as you do this. Try to relax as you do it and as you become more comfortable with the massage push down a little harder until you feel a tingling or stinging sensation (but do not push any harder once you feel this). This will stretch your perineum and make it more flexible to reduce the prospects of it tearing.

Pelvic Floor Muscles.

You should also practise pelvic floor muscle exercises during your pregnancy. Whilst these are primarily used to help you to learn to tighten and strengthen your pelvic floor muscle, this also means that you will know when your pelvic floor muscle is relaxed. This is important as during labour if you can relax this muscle as you push (fighting the natural tendency to tense it) you will reduce the likelihood of tearing.

Summary.

These are only small steps, but if you take them and avoid a childbirth tear during your birth, you will have saved yourself a considerable amount of stress, anxiety and pain.

Causes Of Miscarriages (most common causes)

A miscarriage is never forgotten. It doesn’t matter if it was one week ago or several years, because it’s not just a “miscarriage”, but the BABY that has been lost and could be next to you right now.

So if you endured this kind of loss and you’re fearful it may arise again, learning about the causes of miscarriages will help you prevent them and have an accomplished pregnancy that will bring to you a marvelous and healthy child.

These are the 3 Most Common Causes of Miscarriages:

*Genetic Causes

Genetic causes of miscarriages usually happen because of an advanced maternal age. The reason of this is that, as you age, your body starts to deteriorate; and after 35, your eggs start to “loose their freshness” and develop genetic issues, so try to keep in mind the relashionship between age and fertility when evaluating your conception plan.

If the miscarriage happens before the 12th week of pregnancy, probabilities are there is a genetic cause that provoked it. Another characteristic of genetic causes of miscarriages is that it is usually a single event. This indicate that if you had a second or a third miscarriage, chances are it’s NOT because of a genetic problem.

Nonetheless, if you are trying to conceive and you are over 40, it is highly recommended that you consider the possibility of looking for a donor of eggs.
The child will still be developed in your womb, but you will be using “fresher” eggs that have less chances of having a genetic anomaly.

*Physical Causes

The physical causes of miscarriages are mainly related to 2 parts of your body involved with reproduction. Your cervix and uterus.

The uterus is commonly known as the womb, and its function is to nurture and hold the baby while it develops inside of you. The cervix is a muscle in the lower part of the uterus that mantains the baby in its place until the moment of birth comes.

The causes of miscarriages related to the uterus are:

- Malformations in the uterus:

Most common are “Septate uterus” or “Two horn uterus”.

What they cause is that the space inside your womb gets divided or reduced by strings of tissue, affecting the full development of the embryo because it doesn’t have enough space to grow the way it’s supposed to.

- Malformations in the cervix:

Incomplete cervix

Think of the cervix as the door to the uterus. If you happen to have an undeveloped cervix, when the embryo has reached certain size, it will start putting pressure against it, and if the cervix doesn’t have the strength to hold him, this could very easily lead to a miscarriage.

Malformations are causes of miscarriages that are intricate to deal with. Nonetheless, they can be fixed using surgical procedures.

To know if you may have any of these internal issues, make an appointment to your gynecologist or fertility endocrinologist to practice yourself an ultrasound. This is usually enough to find out, however, if the ultrasound results are not very clear, the next process would be to do a Laparoscopy, which is a minor surgery that allows the doctor to look inside your uterus.

*Hormonal Causes

Hormones are the chemicals produced by your brain to give signals to all the organs of your body. Progesterone is the most important hormone that controls of all your reproductive functions.

Hormonal causes of miscarriages happen when the creation of Progesterone falls out of balance and starts altering the way your body controls pregnancy, including your menstrual cycle and the inner lining of your uterus.

The most common cause of hormonal miscarriages is a condition called Polycistic Ovaries Syndrom (PCOS), which starts producing a great number of masculine hormones (testosterone) and less quantity of feminine hormones (progesterone).

Some of the symptoms of PCOS are

-High blood pressure
-Growth of unwanted body hair
-Oily skin
-Dandruff
-The absence of your period or too much irregularity on it

To reduce your chances of miscarriages when conceiving with Polycystic Ovaries, you should follow a treatment with a fertility specialist or a qualified gynecologist.

These treatments usually consist on the prescription of substances to regulate your hormonal production; such as a very popular fertility drug called Clomid, exercise and a healthy diet.

These are the main causes of miscarriages you should know to improve your chances of having a secure pregnancy and giving birth to a healthy child.

Pregnancy and Smoking- affects your unborn baby

Numerous things could be harmful to your unborn child in the event you smoke throughout pregnancy. If there was ever a correct time to quit smoking, it's whenever you discover out you're pregnant. Whatever distress it causes you to quit, your baby's health is worth it.
Plus you will find obviously so many numerous positive advantages for you, too. Not only will you feel significantly much better, but you'll have a great deal more energy which you'll require. Simply because pregnancy is really a stressful time you have to be additionally committed to what you're performing. Here are just a couple of the numerous hidden dangers for your child when you are smoking throughout pregnancy.
Cigarettes have hundreds of added chemicals which attack all of the systems. When a mother smokes throughout pregnancy, the baby's immune system is compromised which makes them much more susceptible to colds and infections. Smoking throughout pregnancy also causes numerous complications for the respiratory system. Your child's growth will also be affected by your smoking although pregnant. 1 of the most typical problems with babies born to mothers who smoke is low birth weight which can trigger complications. It has been estimated that low birth newborns make-up about twenty to thirty percent of all low birth weight babies. An additional typical condition of smoking throughout pregnancy is the likelihood of preterm labor. Approximately 14% of preterm labors could be attributed to smoking throughout pregnancy. Infant mortality could be attributed to smoking throughout pregnancy such as SIDS. The American Lung Association has studied this statistic to its fullest.
Much more kids are being diagnosed with ADHD or attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. In reality, millions of diagnoses are made every year, and also the figure appears to be climbing every year. Researchers know that there are lots of causes of ADHD, but it's also recognized that smoking a minimum of half a pack a day increases your child's tendency toward hyperactivity. This leads to an increased risk of your child being diagnosed with ADHD.
The most severe effect for your unborn child could potentially be fatal. Although most recognized effects passed on to your baby aren't fatal you should keep in mind that you're compromising the health of your baby. Numerous of your body's organs and processes will and could be negatively affected, there's also evidence supporting that your child's future behavior nay be affected.