When to go to the maternity ward?

As the term approaches, you must be attentive to the contractions. Those which announce the onset of labor are painful, regular, tend to radiate towards the back and do not stop after a few tens of minutes. For a first child, it is advisable to go to the maternity ward after an hour and a half to two hours of contractions every 5 minutes. For subsequent deliveries, this spacing between each contraction increases from 5 to 10 minutes. This allows time to tell the dad, to take a shower or a bath (provided you have not yet lost the water), to make a light snack if you are hungry and to check your suitcase one last time. In case of loss of water without contraction, it is also necessary to go quietly to the maternity ward because this is the sign that labor has started.

If you can’t get a car drive to the maternity ward, don’t risk driving yourself. Be careful, taxis rarely accept to pick up women about to give birth. The ideal is therefore to find out in advance about the taxi-ambulance companies available, including evenings and weekends. Otherwise, you will have to call 15 which will send the fire brigade. They cannot refuse to take you, even if you are only early in labor. On the other hand, they will probably drop you off at the nearest maternity ward, not necessarily the one where you are registered.

Warning: A multiple birth, announced by breech, on a scarred uterus or with a scheduled cesarean section, requires going to the maternity ward without delay.

Arrival at the maternity ward

Once there, you will be greeted by the on-call team who will ask you to fill out some paperwork and collect your medical file (ultrasounds, anesthesiologist appointment, etc.). If it was agreed that you give birth with your obstetrician-gynecologist or midwife, they will contact them. You will then be installed in the labor room (a small room) or directly in the delivery room. Monitoring and vaginal examinations at regular intervals will allow the progress of labor to be assessed.

If you have not yet lost your water when you arrive at the maternity hospital, the midwife is likely to break the bag of amniotic fluid herself with a large needle to speed up labor. Rest assured, it is absolutely painless and safe for the baby.

Other medical procedures can take place. They are not systematic and their frequency varies according to the habits of the teams. For example, shaving for a possible episiotomy is still practiced but it is becoming increasingly rare. Placing a urinary catheter is not mandatory either. You can discuss its usefulness with the team, while of course trusting them if it is necessary to empty your bladder well before the baby’s passage. Placing an intravenous catheter on the forearm or top of the hand is important, however: in case there is a problem and anesthesia is needed, at least everything is already ready. Whether or not to use these gestures is one of the questions to ask when choosing your motherhood.

The installation of the epidural

If you have requested an epidural, all the information necessary for the anesthesiologist on call to practice this anesthesia safely has been entered in your medical file during the compulsory anesthesia consultation of the 8th month. This also allows you to request an epidural along the way when you had planned to do without.

Doctors usually wait until the cervix is ​​5 cm dilated before inserting the epidural, but this is not a written rule. There is nothing to prevent it being installed sooner or later. But keep in mind that the anesthesia takes about 15 minutes to take effect.

Before inserting the catheter to distribute the anesthetic product, the doctor will put the area to be stung to sleep with local anesthesia. Then he will make you lean forward and will take advantage of a respite between two contractions to locate the epidural space located between two vertebrae, in the lower back, and make sure that you no longer feel anything before placing the catheter. .

The work phase

All the time during which you are going to have effective contractions, that is to say able to shorten your cervix and bring it to a dilation of 10 cm to allow the passage of the baby, is called the labor phase. . It is more or less long depending on the future mothers but it usually takes 12 hours for a first baby, then 8 hours for the following ones.

It is rare for a midwife to be able to stay next to the future parents throughout the labor phase. Most often, when everything is going well, she regularly comes for a monitoring to see how the fetus reacts to the contractions and to observe the evolution of the condition of the cervix.

Placing an epidural usually requires staying still. But if you have the possibility and if you feel the urge, do not hesitate to take a few steps in the room, to use the equipment sometimes available such as a balloon to vary the positions and find the one that helps you best. to experience the contractions. This is the time when everything you have learned during the birth preparation and parenting sessions can come in handy in dealing with stress and pain.

Expulsion: breathe and push