I myself do not have any children. I have an older brother who has 3 children, but I was not present for any of those births. I have a friend who gave birth 16 years ago, so this is the best experience I have with childbirth. When my friend had her daughter, she had a private room. I was amazed at how big the room was. At the time my boyfriend , myself and the father were the only people in the room. There were not many nurses or doctors coming in. The baby was in the nursery and was brought to the mom a couple times during the day for feeding and bonding. If I remember correctly, my friend stayed in the hospital for 3 days. Unfortunately, that is all I remember of the child birth experience I have.
I chose to take a look at Denmark and their practice of child birth. It was surprising to me to learn that the mother can choose to have the baby in a public hospital or at home. The doctor assigns the mother a midwife who will attend to her regularly. Giving birth is considered a natural event, so only the midwife is present during the birth unless she feels there are complications in which case the doctor will also be present.
The child sleeps in the room next to the mother. The child is never taken away. The mothers are encouraged to take care of the baby right after birth. Nurses are available to help and to take care of the baby if the mother is tired and needs to get her strength back. If it is the first child, the mother stays in the hospital for a couple of days; otherwise the mother leaves within a day or two.
What I found most interesting is that when the mother returns home from the hospital with the baby, she is visited by a nurse who makes sure mom is ok, does checkups on the baby and answers questions that may arise during the first year of life.
There seems to be many differences between these experiences: The midwife instead of doctors in the delivery room, the baby stays with the mom in the room isnstead of going to a nursery.the fact that a nurse comes to the house after the birth. The duration of the mother’s stay is pretty similar in both experiences for the first child, I do not know if it is the same for the second child.
The website I found this information from is:
Thanks Alisa for sharing. Having a choice is a good option to have and the fact that midwives are heavily involved is interesting. I really like the fact that someone is checking in to make sure that everything is fine in case of issues of questions.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I agree that having someone come to check on you after you go home is a fantastic idea. I think having someone available to you would ease a new mother's mind because sometimes you might have a question that needs to be answered quickly and let's face it doctors are very busy and may not always get back to you in a timely manner.
The information that you shared for very informational. It is great to know that even after the child is delivered and brought home that a nurse is required to visit to ensure that both child and mom are doing well.
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