Will You Be Helping Someone Through Labor?
Here is a guide to help you prepare.
Deliver! —A concise guide to helping the woman you love through labor by Julie Dubrouillet and Simon Firth.
Deliver! is an easy read, detailing how you as the supportive Dad (partner, friend, grandparent …) can offer the most productive help throughout the labor process. As labor conditions change, the help you offer will change too.
Gentle guidance is the theme of this book, giving you plenty of room to experiment and modify the support you offer. You will be expertly guided to discover what works best for the two of you, while helping you to create very special memories you’ll share for a lifetime.
As stated in Deliver! “Women who feel they were taken care of, respected and listened to, will typically look back at labor as a positive experience.”
If you’ve been wondering how you can be supportive and involved in this wonderful adventure you’re about to experience, you will find the encouragement and guidance you desire in Deliver!
For more information go to their website
http://www.deliverbooks.wordpress.com.
For you and yours,
D. Fravert, RN
Ease Your Fears About Having a Newborn
Is it possible to ease your fears about having a newborn?
Newborn Care
I believe … yes, it is.
Experience Is a Good Teacher
My own experience as a baby nurse allowed me to observe first hand that new parents’ fears were easily quelled and quickly changed to confidence with a newborn care professional by their side. Without fail, demonstrating baby care and sharing tips to make life easier worked miracles for new parents, and for their newborns. With just a little help, happy babies were fed, burped, changed, swaddled, and cuddled with confidence and with ease.
The experience of trying to provide hands-on newborn care for the first few times with a baby professional by their side made all of the difference in the world. Professional support quickly changed fear to confidence and allowed new parents to enjoy having a newborn.
Now You Can Have This Experience Too
Wanting to help ease your fears too by offering this same support to you, and to new parents everywhere, is what prompted the creation of Newborn Baby Manual—Tips & Videos. You can now have a baby nurse by your side 24/7 to provide visual demonstrations of baby care (videos) and share professional tips to make your new life easier.
Repetition
Repetition is the perfect way to learn most anything in life. This guide to newborn care provides that gift of repetition.
You now have the opportunity to learn the important basics of newborn care, even before your baby arrives. Learning tips and techniques in advance can help take the guess work and trial and error out of this new experience ahead of you.
And, having video demonstration at your fingertips can give you the opportunity to reference “Changing Your Baby’s Diaper” for instance, as needed, once you are home alone with your newborn.
Knowing What to Expect
Newborn Baby Manual also provides important information about the first 30 days with your newborn. Learning about your baby’s cues, the perfect design of baby sleep, feeding your baby whether breastfeeding or bottle feeding, positively influencing your baby’s body and brain development, and the wonderful benefits your baby care choices can provide, etc. will also help build your confidence about newborn care.
Conversations about these topics happen spontaneously at the bedside when new parents are learning to care for their newborns. Now you can have these same “conversations” before your baby is even born. Having most of your questions answered in advance will help you know what to expect.
Ease Your Fears
Knowing what to expect will ease your fears.
Understanding your newborn will ease your fears.
Practicing newborn care tips and techniques will ease your fears.
The Unknown
There is always the element of the unknown that is part of any new experience … and with it may come a fear of the unknown. But, I believe that the support provided in Newborn Baby Manual will ease your fear of having a newborn, and will allow you to truly enjoy this new experience, starting on Day 1.
For you and yours,
D. Fravert, RN
Tips for Scheduling Your Newborn’s First Appointment
Perhaps this inside information will be helpful for scheduling your baby’s first visit with the doctor.
Day of Discharge – Going Home
Magic Words
When you call the doctor’s office to schedule your baby’s first appointment, mention that your newborn was just released from the hospital. These are magic words. Baby doctors routinely allow special appointments in their schedules to be set aside for newborns. You should be able to easily schedule an appointment for your baby.
Special Waiting Room Area
When you make your baby’s first appointment, also ask if there’s a special place in the waiting room for parents with newborns—away from the patients who are sick. Most clinics offer this option, or will try to room you and your newborn right away after check-in. Just ask.
Timing for First Visit
If your baby’s doctor examines your baby on the day of discharge (the day you take your baby home) from the hospital, the usual appointment time for that first visit is 2 weeks after discharge.
If your baby’s doctor does not have privileges where you deliver your baby and is not able to examine your newborn, then the first visit will be 1-2 days after you take your baby home. Since your baby’s doctor has never seen your baby, the visit is scheduled right away.
Now you can anticipate your new baby’s first appointment feeling a little more relaxed.
For you and yours,
D. Fravert, RN
New Baby New Emotions
Having a new baby awakens new emotions.
That First Night
Emotions
Although everyone’s experience is different, most every new mother feels her emotions are overwhelming at some time in the days to weeks following childbirth. A combination of hormones, fatigue, and the desire to do your best with the little experience you have as a first time mom all play together and can throw your life out of proportion at times. Just knowing this common experience is both normal and possible may be helpful for you. Here are some examples.
Responsibility
That first night after giving birth, as you realize there is no going back, an overwhelming sense of responsibility may engulf you. Your life has changed dramatically. Not that you really want to go back to the way things were, but the “24-hourness” of having a baby is no longer a general concept, but is now your reality. Suddenly you have a tiny person totally dependent on you. It can feel overwhelming.
Let Them Help
This overwhelming sense of responsibility may make you feel that you alone must do the work of caring for your baby. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. You may have family and friends willing to help you. They know they will never change as many diapers as you will during your baby’s diaper stage, and a few now and then are just part of sharing your baby. Letting someone help you requires trust, and the person who helps is aware of the gift.
Inconvenience
Your overwhelming emotions may make you feel that your baby somehow is an inconvenience to others around you, particularly when your newborn is unhappy and letting everyone know. I assure you that those around you choose you and your baby and delight in the time together no matter what. Your baby is just being a baby, not an inconvenience, something your family and friends (whose emotions are not running rampant) already know.
It Gets Better
Taking the moments as they come, and giving your best in those moments, will help you through these emotional times. And, when the opportunity presents itself, letting someone help you will be beneficial for all three of you. As you become more experienced, and as your helpers prove trustworthy, you will be able to feel more relaxed, and not so easily overwhelmed, allowing you to truly enjoy this new adventure. Little by little, it gets better.
For you and yours,
D. Fravert, RN
Being Born is Challenging
- A Few Hours Old
Challenges
An awareness of the challenges your newborn faces at birth when transitioning from the warm, fluid environment of the womb to the cooler, dry environment of our world helps you understand what your baby’s doctor and nurse are looking for when they examine your newborn. Here are the three main events that will be new challenges for your newborn to experience once outside the womb.
1: Breathing
The majority of term babies easily transition to breathing on their own. You can tell the newborn in the picture is breathing easily by her relaxed facial expression and pink lips.
Some babies may need a little help in the form of suction or oxygen before they can breathe on their own. And some babies require no additional help at all. Certainly the vast majority of term newborns make this transition to breathing on their own very easily.
2: Regulating Body Temperature
Most term newborns can regulate their body temperature shortly after birth too. Regulating temperature means that whenever you change your baby’s diaper or clothing, your newborn will quickly return to a normal body temperature once dressed and swaddled.
If your baby needs a little help to keep warm, the most common intervention in the hospital is to place your newborn in a warm protective environment called an incubator. This will help your baby stay warm while “learning” to regulate body temperature.
3: Eating Well
Before going home, you and your baby as a team should be able to demonstrate successful feeding resulting in minimal weight loss for your baby. No worries. You will have lots of opportunity to learn about feeding. Your new baby will want to eat frequently.
In fact, for about an hour after delivery your baby will be alert, and will usually be interested in feeding. Professionally, this first hour after delivery is considered to be a very special time to offer that first feeding. So, if at all possible, you should try to feed your baby right after delivery. It’s really good for both of you.
Summary
Although breathing, keeping warm, and feeding are challenges every newborn faces at birth, the vast majority of healthy term newborns master these challenges quite easily. Thank you Mother Nature! As your baby’s doctor and nurse examine your newborn they should share your baby’s progress with you and discuss your plan for going home. To keep the exchange of information flowing, just ask.
For you and yours,
D. Fravert, RN
Taking Your Newborn Home: What You Need
Taking your newborn home is exciting!
Hats Can Be Fun!
aboutyournewborn.wordpress.com 