Usenet Writings

Monitoring During Labor

©1992 Beth Weiss, Posted to misc.kids Usenet newsgroup, July 27, 1992

I wrote this during a discussion of the pros and cons of monitoring for contractions during labor.

I found it invaluable to have my husband tell me when a contraction was starting.  I used a lot of distraction breathing during the worst of the labor (the last 2 hours when I couldn't have another shot of Nubane was the worst of it).  Once my husband told me a contraction was starting, I made up a pair of numbers, each of which was less than 4.  If my numbers were 3 and 1, then I would do 3 deep abdominal breaths making a hissing noise, and then 1 without a hiss.  I made up a new pair for each contraction.  If he didn't tell me a contraction was starting, then I wasn't ready to breathe, and I would feel panicky.

(By the way,, it took the doula a little while to figure out what I was doing, since she was trying to breathe with me, and I kept making up new breathing patterns :-)

I did have to keep rearranging the monitors to make them pick up properly.  Since I was on pitocin, I had to keep them on throughout the labor.  Changing positions made the contractions more painful, though.  My husband and the doula got very good at using more gel and repositioning the monitor to re-pick up the baby's heartbeat.