Supporting you to become the parent you want to be
Info Centre - Your labour
- 'Best' baby positions for birth
- The way in which your baby lies in your pelvis can affect how smoothly your labour progresses. This page looks at ways that will encourage your baby into the best position, prior to birth.
- Caesarean birth
- This page provides information about caesarean birth.
- Choosing an independent midwife
- This page explains the role and status of independent midwives.
- Going past your due date
- Only a small percentage of babies – about five per cent – are born on their ‘due’ date. This page looks at the options if you go past your due date.
- Guide to labour
- The text on this page is taken from the NCT's booklet 'Guide to labour: a step-by-step guide for first-time parents'. This guide aims to help you through the last day of pregnancy and into the first day as a new family.
- Induction and acceleration (augmentation)
- This page provides information on starting labour artificially (induction) and accelerating labour (augmentation).
- Labour and birth in water: how and why you might use water
- The information on this page is taken from the NCT booklet 'Labour and birth in water' and describes the main benefits and possible risks of using water in labour and birth.
- Making a decision
- Making a decision
- Positions for labour and birth
- This information sheet uses illustrations to demonstrate positions to make your labour shorter and easier, and positions to make the birth of your baby easier.
- Sex during pregnancy
- The information on this page is taken from 'Get Closer', an NCT booklet guide to the effect pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenthood may have on your sex-life.
- Straightforward birth
- This information sheet aims to give you some suggestions about how you can help yourself have a straightforward birth.
- Supporting labour and birth
- Having someone they know and trust with them during labour can really enhance a woman’s confidence in her ability to give birth. This page looks at the role of a birth supporter and who a birth supporter can be.
- Swine flu - your questions answered
- This document provides pregnant women, their partners, and parents of babies and young children with information about how pandemic swine flu might affect their pregnancy, the health of their baby, or their own health.
- The role of a midwife
- This page provides information on the role of a midwife, how they work, and what you can expect from them.
- Third stage of labour
- Most women don’t know that they have a choice when it comes to the delivery of the placenta, because it has become usual in hospital for women to have a ‘medically-managed’ third stage of labour. But there is another option as this page explains.
- Working with pain in labour
- Labour is complex, but your body is in control. You just need to let it do what comes naturally. This page tells you how.
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