This article presents the advantages of the active participation of the parturient in childbirth and the use of vertical positions during childbirth.
The concept of 'active birth' is relatively recent, from the early 1980s, but it has quickly gained a lot of supporters among both women giving birth and medical personnel.
The promotion of this mode of birth by birthing schools and the mass media has resulted in an increasing number of hospitals adapting their delivery rooms and training their staff in this direction. In this way, they are giving birth mothers more freedom and the opportunity to choose the most comfortable positions during childbirth and to take the most active part in this most important event in their lives.
Separate rooms adapted to each period of childbirth, the possibility for those closest to the mother to participate in the birth, as well as the possibility for the mother to be with her newborn from the first moments of her life, make women who give birth more confident and relaxed about the birth.
Increasingly, women are being offered the opportunity to give birth in vertical positions, i.e. positions in which the birth canal faces downwards and the head descends more easily by force of gravity into the birth canal and accelerates cervical dilation. The instinctive and subconscious adoption of the most favourable positions is a very important element in positively influencing the course of the birth.
The use of vertical positions during childbirth has been a phenomenon known for many years, but with the progress of civilisation and the increasing prevalence of childbirth in medical facilities, the natural and most physiological positions have been replaced by those most comfortable for the medical personnel assisting during childbirth. The 'supine' position on the birthing bed is the least physiological birthing position, however, it allows accurate control of the progress of labour and easier access to the child in labour.
Being able to choose the most comfortable position has many advantages. Not only does it reduce the sensation of labour contractions, but it also speeds up labour, allows you to relax and unwind between contractions and make the most of the effectiveness of the contractions. Greater confidence in their own instincts allows parturients to control the course of labour themselves, making the woman fully the subject of the event.
Advantages of birthing in vertical positions
- Reduction in fear, nervous tension and feelings of helplessness
- Possibility to relax and unwind
- More efficient use of strength
- Increased regularity and effectiveness of labour contractions
- Reduction in the sensation of labour contractions
- Increased size of the bony pelvis
- Easier and more precise insertion of the head into the birth canal
- Faster cervical dilation
- Less tension on perineal tissues
- Reduced risk of perineal trauma
- Reduced risk of head injury
- Increased push force
- Improved breathing
- Improved oxygenation of the foetus
