Polly: Two Positive Fast Physiological Births, NHS Midwife Led Unit Birth, Fully Dilated on Arrival, Second Degree Tear, Planned NHS Home Birth, TENS Machine Only, Tongue Tie and Breastfeeding Challenges
About this episode
Polly shares her experiences of two fast and positive births, one in a midwife led unit and the other at home, discussing the challenges she faced with breastfeeding and tongue tie.
She woke up at 4.30am to contractions that were a minute on and a minute off from the very start. Polly had two fast, positive births. Her first at the NHS midwife led unit in Bristol, where she arrived fully dilated and had her daughter within the hour. Her second at home, where within two hours of the midwives arriving she was back in her own clean bed with her baby. Polly is a mum of two from Bristol who shares two fast, positive births. Her first was a planned midwife led unit birth that moved so quickly she arrived fully dilated and gave birth within the hour, with nothing but a TENS machine and her partner doing counter pressure on her back. Her daughter came out in the superwoman pose, hand by head, which caused a second degree tear and significant blood loss during stitching. What followed was a difficult breastfeeding start because of tongue tie, and nearly three months of pain before things finally settled. Second time around, Polly chose a home birth purely for practical reasons. After a first labour that lasted barely three hours, getting to hospital safely was never going to be guaranteed. So she planned for the home birth instead. She woke up in the early…
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