Birth Preparation and Prenatal Care
With respect to medical prenatal care, two broad categories are recognized by unassisted childbirth proponents:
Assisted: Many women who are planning an unassisted birth choose to have professional prenatal care as part of their birth preparation. This may include regular prenatal visits with a doctor or monitoring by a midwife. Seeking the assistance of a doctor or midwife may allow for discovering risk factors that might make an unassisted birth inadvisable, such as placenta praevia. Professional prenatal care may also help identify risk factors that could be managed so that the unassisted birth can continue as planned. Rather than keep to a traditional prenatal care schedule, some women may also selectively choose prenatal care.
Unassisted: Some women who choose UC also choose to have a medically unassisted pregnancy; i.e. they do not visit a doctor or other birth professional for prenatal care. There are potentially life-threatening consequences of having no medical follow-up in case there are complications.
Read more about this topic: Unassisted Childbirth
Famous quotes containing the words birth, preparation and/or care:
“That was the birth of sin. Not doing it, but KNOWING about it. Before the apple, [Adam and Eve] had shut their eyes and their minds had gone dark. Now, they peeped and pried and imagined. They watched themselves.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Living each day as a preparation for the next is an exciting way to live. Looking forward to something is much more fun than looking back at something—and much more constructive. If we can prepare ourselves so that we never have to think, “Oh, if I had only known, if I had only been ready,” our lives can really be the great adventure we so passionately want them to be.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Coming together again after a long day apart can be an experience where joy, relief, anger, and fatigue are all present in different degrees both for the parent and for the child. Because of their importance in marking the resumption of direct contact, reunions deserve as much attention and care as separations to enhance the relationship between parent and child.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)