Baby Delivery Positions. Comprehensive List.

Since young age when watching how women deliver babies in Hollywood movies I always wondered why they are always lying down on the bed. When I got pregnant luckily there was plenty of information available to explore all options. And here what they are:

- Standing. I talked to a few women who delivered a baby while standing and leaning over a bed. In this position baby weight will gravitate down and speed delivery process. It is however one of the challenging positions physically because you need to stand thought out entire pushing stage. Pushing can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 3-4 hours. I did meet one woman who said she pushed for 3 hours and was standing the entire time. There are few videos on YouTube demonstrating the experience. Most famous video is from "Business of Being Born" film. Disadvantage is that you can't have an epidural with this position because epidural will completely paralyze or at minimum waken your legs.

- On knees while facing a back of the bed. Most of delivery beds nowadays incline and transform into a high back chair. If you like standing position but are concerned with ability to handle it for a long time, consider kneeling. You would be able to sit down between pushing and take short rests. Similar to standing, the main advantage of this position is that baby will gravitate down speeding up the delivery process. Mobile (partial) epidural would be an option for this position.

- Sitting up while holding the rope. In some countries (ex. Germany) birthing suites have a rope connected to the ceiling above the bed. Delivering woman would sit up or squat and hold the rope for better balance. Holding onto a rope would also help managing pain. Since you will be in upright position, baby will also gravitate down and hopefully will speed up the grand entry. Full epidural should be no problem for this position, given that someone will be at your back supporting you.

- Squatting. This was a position that I delivered my baby in. When you squat your pelvis opens up by 30% to accommodate your weight and balance your body in the air. If you have a big baby and or small pelvis this is recommended position. Not only you will allow for more room for the baby you will also take advantage of gravity phenomenon to help baby make smooth entry to the world. In addition you may have easier time pushing as when you squat pelvic floor muscles naturally activate as squatting has historically been pooping position for humans. If you can't push for some reason, try squatting to at least activate pelvic floor muscles. I had mobile epidural and had no problem squatting. I was able to lean back onto the bed and take short rests between pushing. In hospital where I gave birth, North York General in Toronto, the bed had a squatting bar, so I didn't need anyone to help me. Once contraction came, I just reached over to a bar to lift myself off the bed to a squatting position. Otherwise your husband or a nurse should be able to help you if bar is not available. Disadvantage of this position is that full epidural would not be an option as you need good control over your legs. Also, your baby may come out fast which may result in more tearing. Squatting is the most popular baby delivery position among African tribes. I chose this position because I wanted to avoid instruments at all costs and thought that baby will have easier time to come out. I pushed for 20 minutes what appeared effortlessly. I didn't even sweat.

- All Fours. This is one of the best positions to give birth from what I read if you want to avoid tearing. When you are on all fours (like a cat standing on your arms and knees), baby weight pushes in opposite direction from Perineum. This creates less strain on Perineum where most of tears occur. In fact from what I read many women who delivered in this position didn't have any tearing at all! This position is an option when you have full epidural. You can lean over the wall, or have someone hold you. This position was also reported as one of the most comfortable for women who had no pain drugs, aka non-medicated birth.

- Lying on the Side. This is not very common position for delivery but happens depending on circumstances. Full epidural is no problem for this position given that someone will hold you leg in the air. This position was found comfortable for some women who had unmanageable pain. Rolling onto a side can help managing pain as your may release some of the muscles and compressed veins. Also, if you have a very fast delivery, lying on the side can slow things down a bit to help avoid or minimize tearing.

- In the Bathtub. In bathtub you can take several positions while pushing and thus find the most comfortable one for you. There is no concern of you tripping or falling over and there is no concern of baby slipping off anyones hands. Of course epidural would not be an option for bathtub, but bathtub is chosen by women who want to have home birth anyways. There are lots of YouTube movies demonstrating bathtub birth and they all look quite serene.

- Lying on Your Back. Most of women in North America deliver in this position. Reportedly this position is prefered by doctors. Most of delivery beds incline a bit so woman can grab her own knees while pushing, but her back will be more or less horizontal. Doctor will be sitting on a chair with full control over the situation. This is also one of the most common positions for women who have an epidural. It is considered the safest position with epidural and would be recommended for that reason. For many women who had no epidural and can't manage pain well, lying was also a preferred position as more muscles are relaxed causing less strain on abdominal and transverse muscles. This is the least natural position however for the baby.

How Much Milk a 3 Month Should Eat in a Day

Right now my son is 3.5 months old. Up until last few weeks he has been eating my breast milk exclusively. He was gaining weight and grew long - all according to the textbook. But suddenly, at exactly 3 months I started noticing that he wanted to eat more frequently - every 2, 1.5 hours instead of usual 3. He was getting more nervous and just looking unhappy soon after meals. I didn't think twice and offered my baby a formula substitute after each breastfeeding session. And what a difference! He was happy right a way and ever since even sleeps 8-9 hours at night.
I don't have any less milk than before and went through every single suggestion trying to increase milk supply. I tried:
- pumping after each feeding session and in between
- fenugreek pills
- domperidone pills
- nursing tea
- drinking more water

Nothing helped me. My milk supply remained the same. If I waited for 3 hours I would get 3-4 oz of milk depending on what time of day it is. During evening I got less milk and in the morning I had the most. But as it turned out, my boy needs at least 7 oz per feeding.

I went to forums and asked other moms of 3 month old how much he eats. It turned out that my boy was not even the hungriest one. While on average 3 months old boy would eat 6 oz, it was not unusual to see some babies eating 8-9 oz.

According to doctor recommendation baby should eat amount of milk according to this mathematical calculation: Baby weight, pounds x 2.5 = oz per day.
So for example, your baby is 10 pounds, he should eat at least 25 oz a day. My boy is now 12 pounds and he wants to eat 7 oz x 6 times a day = 42 oz, which is 12 oz more than recommended. Ends up calculation is a myth!

I was reluctant to feed him formula and was turning into what some people would call "breastfeeding nazi" starving my boy for the sake of organic food. Eventually common sense took over. We are not in a third world - baby does not need to suffer from hunger. If you have lots of milk, consider yourself lucky. Not only you will save $300 - this is what I spend on 3 months supply of formula until my boy will start eating solids. You will also feed your baby fully organic, fresh meal. But I had no choice.

Myth Debunked. Heidi Klum Did Not Lose Post pregnancy Weight in 3 Weeks

Lately the topic of celebrities losing post-pregnancy weight became so popular that a week does not go by without Yahoo and such posting pictures of various celebrities and models with their before and after pictures. To date I have not seen one article being specific about how much each celebrity actually weighted before pregnancy, after pregnancy and when exactly they got back to their initial weight. Just today there is another artcile popped out on Yahoo that is actually called "New Celeb Mom Bodies Normal and Not"

All of this creates very negative effect on young moms - like me, who just had a baby and last thing they want to worry is beating some celebrity record. When I read comments to such articles I feel very sorry for such moms because I know - we very very much worry about our bodies and about the fact that it takes time to regain at least some of the prior glory.

Not even one article goes by without mentioning Heidi Klum losing all her baby weight in a week. Ok, here is when I decided to do some research to debunk this myth. It didn't take long. Let's just get facts straight: It took Heidi 2 months - 8 weeks to look perfect again. Just watch this video:

Topic first raised during Oprah show. In the end of this video Oprah mentions that it was 2 months after giving birth when Heidi Klum modeled for Victoria's Secret runway show. 2 months is 8 weeks. Not 1 or 2 or 3. It was 8 weeks. No questions she looked gorgeous. Absolutely stunning! But there is no information that she lost all her weight. She never said that she lost all the weight. Media made it up.

But the show was put together by professionals. Heidi opened the show, she came out first. She was alone on the stage with huge wings behind her back. Wings created an optical illusion making her look tinier than she actually was.

If you look at this photo (sorry for the quality, couldn't find a better one), you will see Heidi Klum as compared to Karolina Kurkova show appeared next. Karolina was two times thinner than Heidi. Given that Heidi is a model it is safe to assume that she was of a similar size to Kurkova before getting pregnant.

On this photo you can see Heidi's tummy was very flat, arms and legs skinny. But her hips were very wide. I bet she did not try to fit in her skinny jeans even 8 weeks after giving birth. I bet she didn't try to wear flexi belt over her hips to artificially collapse her pelvis to pre-birth size.

She took her time girlies. And so should you. She ate little and exercised a lot - something she admitted to Oprah during the interview. Also, to make belly flat visually, if you don't eat for a day, yours will flatten too.

It's been exactly 3 months since I have given birth to my baby cutie little boy. My hips still have 2 inches to lose. I still have 7 kg ( about 15 pounds), half of my pregnancy weight to lose. Other than playing tennis twice a week I did not do any exercise. I eat one extra meal (lunch) a day than before pregnancy to keep my milk supply. Before I skipped lunch all together. Do I worry about going back to normal? Hell yes. But I don't have a doubt that with enough time, correct diet and exercise I will be back to pre-pregnancy. Heidi Klum is for sure my idol in this topic because she did it 4 times, but she didn't do it in 3 weeks.