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| Stuff I've Learned..... | ||||||||||||
| Braxton Hicks contractions: are sort of like warm-up or practice contraction that get her body for the real thing: pushing out that baby! When the due date gets closer they can get more frequent and stronger. (1) | ||||||||||||
| Dilation is the gradual opening of the cervix, measured in centimeters. The scale goes from 0 to 10 cm. There really is no hard and fast rule how much and how fast one should dilate. Every woman and every pregnancy is different. | ||||||||||||
| Effacing or Effacement is the gradual thinning out of the cervix, as it pulls back to allow the baby to wriggle, squirm out (heehee). | ||||||||||||
| Posterior: means the baby is facing forward in mom's pelvis. The opposite, Anterior means when the baby is facing toward mom's back. Anterior is generally more the ideal position. The baby will usually turn on his own prior to birth. There are also exercises mom can do to help this along before labor starts. (2), (3) | ||||||||||||
| Station: Refers to how far the baby is in the plevis, measured in centimeters. Zero station means that the widest part of the baby's head is at the mid-point of the pelvis where there are boney projections called "spines". | ||||||||||||
| Any moms out there, please feel free to share your wisdom and provide input, advice or feedback to my list of pregnancy/birth definitions. | ||||||||||||
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