Tag Archives: Labor & Delivery

My Water Broke At 7 Months, So I Had To Quarantine Alone In The Hospital

Pregnancy And You

Courtesy of Jennifer Indig On the evening of the fourth of July, we gathered around the dining room table for a delicious feast of steaks, corn on the cob and pasta with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella. Close friends of ours from Brooklyn we hadn’t seen since the beginning of the pandemic were visiting us in Connecticut where we rented a house for the summer. My eight and almost six-year-old daughters were looking forward to staying up past sunset to light fireworks and sparklers. Seven months pregnant, I […]

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Anxious About Giving Birth? Here’s What These 5 Doulas Want You To Know

Pregnancy And You

Courtesy of Summer Roger, Janet Scheller, Chauntel Norris and Calvis Williamson Giving birth in America should not be dangerous, yet more women die during pregnancy and childbirth here than in any other similarly wealthy country in the world. Most, about 60 percent, of those lives could have been saved. Of those lives lost, Black and Native American women are disproportionately represented. Meanwhile, the experience of giving birth in an American hospital costs a whopping $32,000 or so—more than any other similar country in the world, and with […]

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The New Moms Of Twitter Are Calling Out Folks Who Won’t Wear A Mask

Pregnancy And You

amil/Twitter and DjelicS/Getty I gave birth during a scheduled C-section to my twin daughters in the middle of summer five years ago. I waddled my 36-week belly into labor and delivery at 6am on July 13th, 2015, eager to see the babies who’d kicked me and evaded all ultrasound wands for the entirety of my pregnancy. Would they look like their 3D ultrasound photos? I was skeptical. I could not imagine giving birth this year, in the throes of COVID-19, with the possibility of my partner not […]

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More Moms Are Opting To Have ‘Gentle’ C-Sections — Here’s Why

Pregnancy And You

Scary Mommy and FatCamera/Getty Both times I was pregnant, my biggest fear after the usual health concerns every parent has was that I would end up needing a C-section. My youngest was born 10 years ago, and back then, with Facebook still fairly new and not yet teeming with (often conflicting) pregnancy and birth advice, I educated myself via books and magazines. The message I inferred from those sources, a message which remains prevalent to this day as far as I can tell, is that a woman’s […]

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COVID-19 Left Me To Deliver My Twins Alone

Pregnancy And You

Scary Mommy and Kemal Yildirim/Getty I’m a planner. I like to be efficient and over organized. It’s a defense mechanism to deter debilitating anxiety. But, see, there are just something things you can’t plan for. Like a global pandemic that changes your whole birthing plan. The whole country just shut down over night and our lives haven’t been the same ever since. We knew we needed to come up with different plans, and backup plans, and backup-backup plans. With this being our second set of twins, I […]

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A C-Section Is Major Surgery And Its Impact On Your Body Is Major, Too

Pregnancy And You

Jonathan Borba/Pexels I’m a c-section mama. Twice over. The first time I delivered via emergency c-section, my beautiful, well-thought out plan for a quiet delivery was thrown out the window when the baby went into distress for no reason anyone could discern. The second time, because…well, no one wanted a repeat of my first go around. After my first was born, I couldn’t stand straight to walk. I hunched, too in pain and too afraid to lengthen my abdominal muscles. I couldn’t get out of bed without […]

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My C-Section Stole My Ability To Trust Myself

Pregnancy And You

Randy Faris/Getty The faded blue chair in my therapist’s office is not comfortable. And it’s not just because talking about my intense postpartum anxiety is uncomfortable. The actual chair kind of sucks — it swallows me every time I sit down. I sink so far into the seat that it’s hard to get back up again when we’re done. And right now, I want to be done. We’re talking about the vivid images that assault my mind anytime I take my two toddlers out by myself. That […]

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I Gave Up Birthing At A Hospital So I Wouldn’t Have To Be Alone

Pregnancy And You

Courtesy of Lo Photo Birthing alone was a fear I never knew I had. Flashbacks of my moments spent in the abortion clinic came to me with full force. Scared and alone in one of my most vulnerable moments. No one allowed to hold my hand or to comfort me during the procedure. Hot tears streaming down my face. Those hot tears returned in the second half of March 2020. Eight months pregnant and a pandemic filling our lives. Visitors were being removed one by one. No […]

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13 FAQs About Epidurals For Childbirth––Answered By An Anesthesiologist

Pregnancy And You

Courtesy of Dr. Stephen Freiberg Want to know how an anesthesiologist can make birthing another human more tolerable? Then allow me to address one of the areas where I receive the most questions, both from patients but also friends and families: epidurals. Courtesy of Dr. Stephen Freiberg Specifically, lumbar epidurals. More specifically, lumbar epidural catheters. Even more specifically, lumbar epidural catheters for labor. Why all the specifications? An epidural derives its name from the fact that the procedure involves accessing the epidural space. This is an area […]

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How To Adjust Your Birth Plan During COVID-19

Pregnancy And You

Prostock-Studio/Getty For many pregnant women, their “birth plan” is everything. Oftentimes we enter the labor and delivery experience with high hopes, specific expectations, and dreams of how it’s going to go. Epidural… without drugs… home birth… hospital birth… pushing in a bed, in a squat, or in a pool… each of us has thoughts and preferences, rules even, of how we want to bring our babies into the world. Some of us want only our significant others there; others bring an entourage and a  professional photographer. In […]

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