Last Three Weeks
Things to Do
- Get packed for birth center and hospital
- Have postpartum care kit ready
- Have newborn clothes and bedroom ready
Exercise & Health
- Do 1+ mile walk every night.
- Take a primrose oil capsule every day.
- Drink at least 16 oz of red raspberry tea daily.
- Get tons of rest! Take naps, showers and soak in a warm tub.
- Stay hydrated!
- Be super careful of posture to help avoid back labor.
Other Way To Encourage Labor
- Spicy food: didn't seem to work
- Castor oil. Never going to try.
- Membranes stripped: small risk of water breaking, releases prostaglandins which help soften and ripen the cervix
- Black cohosh: so nasty! Never again.
- Dum dum suckers: to push pressure point on roof of mouth, no idea if it worked, won't do again unless resort to black cohosh too
- Sex: the semen has prostaglandins in it, don't do if water has broken
- Nipple stimulation and orgasms
Other Random Thoughts
- An average pregnancy is actually 40 weeks 5 days if there are no interventions.
- First babies typically come at 41 weeks if there are no interventions.
- There is nothing you can really do when you get a pinched nerve in your leg. Try pelvic rocks. Wait it out. It hurts like crazy.
- Unless there are complications the baby knows when it is ready as baby's brain emits hormones to trigger labor.
- Timing contractions is super annoying and distracting. Probably won't keep track of them next pregnancy until I start having to really focus on breathing through them.
- When water breaks stay on the toilet as much as possible. The birth center uses infant diapers to hep absorb the water because they're way more absorbent than pads.
- Have distractions for the last two to three weeks before due date. Only necessary with baby one because kiddos keep you busy after that.
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