Trusting Tuesday: Birth Stools

I found a wonderful blog entry by the Arizona Birth Network on birth stools and squatting bars. Find it HERE

Here is a picture of a birth stool. You use it, well, like a toilet. Did I just say that? Well, I guess I did. Often when you push or bear down to birth your baby we tell women to push like they are pooping. Well guess what? Pooping lying down is hard to do- how many times in our adult lives have we pooped lying down??? How many times have we pooped, lying on our backs and holding our legs up by our ears? Do you get the picture yet? It is hard to teach some women how to push effectively if we teach them to push like they are pooping.

However, with a birthing stool we can do just that. We can tell women to push like they are pooping. Because this is something we know how to do. Every day (sometimes more or less) we sit down to poop. We know how to push when we sit down on a birthing stool.

To operate this very sophisticated piece of material, one would sit on it and push in order to deliver the baby, but obviously there is a spot cut out for a baby to come out and the attendant/midwife/physician/father etc would be able to to reach forward to help gently guide the baby safely earthside.

The post on Sunday was about a birth stool company that is trying to improve the design of the birth stool. More or less make it more comfortable, because come on... take a look at the picture above. Not very warm and friendly.

http://www.kayabirth.com/faq.html