As a first time mother, Nandini 'beat the odds' and had a great active natural birth at Singapore 's KKH after attending our Labour and Birth Plan Classes .

My baby daughter Keya (pronounced K-yeah) was born on 10th Nov at 7 AM in KKH. She weighed 7 pounds at birth and is 49 cms tall. Keya is an old Indian name and means "monsoon flower".

My baby was posterior, but since I was working till the last day, I was not able to maintain hands-and-knees positions 3 times a day as recommended. I substituted with gyrating my hips (figure 8 and in circles) several times in the office toilet and at home (check this article for details http://inamay.com/view_article.php ?Article_ID=10&page_number=1). I belive this may have helped my baby turn anterior just before or during labour.

I am very happy that - at the much-maligned KKH - I was able to experience the natural labour and childbirth that I so fervently wanted. I made it with God's grace, Ginny's coaching and my wonderful husband's patient labour support. Here is my birth story:

My water bag started leaking at 12:45 AM on the 10th. Contractions started at 1:30 AM and were 20 mins apart at first. At home I laboured standing and used my husband for support. We left for the hospital when contractions came regularly every 8 mins and lasted 45 secs each.

At the hospital, they made me to lie down for EFM. The doctor also did a VE, which was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Since lying down was just too painful, we insisted on labouring on the floor and agreed to intermittent monitoring with Doppler. We also signed a form taking responsibility for any
complicatins arising from not doing continuous EFM/IFM. I also informed the nurse that I did not want an episiotomy or syntometrin for the placenta later. The nurse pretty much left me and my husband to labour on our own and only came in a couple of times to monitor the Keya's heartbeat with the Doppler. This suited me fine because I didn't want strangers interfering during my labour.

Initially I laboured standing up but later got into a hands-and-knees position on the floor and gently rocked back and forth during contractions. I also practised deep breathing ("oooh") throughout (thanks to Ginny for showing us how). At about 6:00 AM , my contractions became really intense and I started experiencing pushing sensations. At their highest points, the pains were really unbearable, making me want to give up. But thanks to patient coaching from my husband, I made it through them.

When my moans became rather loud, my husband called the nurse in and insisted that I get onto the bed. The nurse did another VE and declared I was fully dilated. The doctor told me to push when I felt like pushing, but strangely, lying there on my back, I no longer felt any pushing sensations! I realised this was probably the rest-and-be-thankful phase Ginny had mentioned in class. Anyway, Keya's heart-rate had gone down somewhat, so I just pushed in the lithotomy position and Keya was born in a few mins. I had a second-degree tear and needed stitches later. I breastfed her immediately but the placenta took an hour to come out.I breastfed and roomed in with Keya during my entire saty at the hospital. I was back home with Keya by lunch time on 11th Nov.




To Ginny: We want you to know that we definitely benefited from attending your Strategies for Labour and Making Decisions classes. The classes were very enlightening (more so for Niranjan, because I had been soaking in all possible info thru the Net and library books since day 1) I would say that based on what he learnt in your classes, he was able to understand and appreciate my point-of-view regarding many birth rites and was able to be support me when dealing with the KKH staff.