Fetal development in pregnancy week 34
17.7 in | 45 cm
4.7 lbs | 2.1 kg
Your amazing baby is on the move!
Until now, your wee womb-squatter's been living fairly high up in your poor stretched-out womb - blithely compressing your poor lungs and internal organs.
This week your baby's going to pack their tiny bags and make the "big" move to your pelvis - commonly referred to as the time when your baby "drops".
If you haven’t noticed it already, you’ll be feeling the weight shift indicating your baby is most likely out of breech position (if they're being stubborn, check out 17 Ways To Turn a Breech Baby) with their head now resting on your pubic bone.
When baby drops this may also give you some horrific stabbing back pain as they press on your sciatic nerve.
If that's the case, get off your feet and try to do some spine-lengthening stretches to help your baby move OFF that poor throbbing nerve.
In developing internal-organ news: although not quite fully formed, your little poop-factory's liver is now capable of processing a certain amount of waste.
Because your baby's liver is not quite birth-ready, it's common for newborns to get a case of mild and harmless jaundice (signaled by a slight yellowing of the skin).
Jaundice is the result of your baby's body producing more bilirubin (a by-product of blood production) than the liver can currently breakdown, leading to a subtle yellow tinge that goes away in a few days.
Babies born earlier than their due date tend to have moderate to severe jaundice, which - in the hospital, will be treated via light therapy to help their body break the bilirubin down.
For home-birthers, jaundice is easily dealt with by increased breastfeeding (to help their body pass the bilirubin) and "naked time" for baby in a warm sunlit area for 10 minute intervals throughout the day until it disappears.
Share your baby's development on Facebook!
Hey mama! Did you know your watermelon-betwixt-my-legs waddle is still as charming as ever?
If you've got back pain, get yourself another warm bath/shower/heating pad as needed and keep trying to stretch and twist to manipulate your pinch-tastic fetus off those poor sciatic nerves.
Just a reminder: keep on drinking those tall glasses of water (and peeing like a fiend), take cat naps whenever possible and prepare yourself mentally for the big day.
Labor Issues and Options
YOUR BIRTHING SUPPORT TEAM
Your midwife or doula should be picked with an eye for their education, midwifery history, personality and personal beliefs - which should gel with your personality and personal beliefs to the degree you trust and like her.
In terms of non-birthing experts, only your partner or closest family and friends should be present during labor. Ideally, you should be around people you know and trust and no one else.
GETTING TO THE HOSPITAL or BIRTHING CENTER
If you're not giving birth at home: once you're in Active labor (contractions every five minutes for an hour), head over to the hospital - that is, if you live within a half an hour drive of the hospital.
If you're in the middle of nowhere, then plan to go in once contractions come every five minutes for a 30 minute span.
Trust us, jumping the go-to-hospital gun before you enter the Active phase is a waste of gas and more disheartening than being ditched on a first date.
THE EPIDURAL
If you're planning on birthing in the hospital and get the epidural,try to wait till your contractions are constant - indicating you're nearing Transition.
Given any earlier, and the epidural may significantly slow your labor's progress, putting you at risk for an "emergency c-section" on the hospital's "24 hour labor" clock.
The epidural process: a six inch needle will be inserted into your spinal column as you're curled up in a fetal position to expose your spinal nerves to the technician.
Once the drug has been administered, the numbing effect (if it works, which it might not) -- will relieve your labor pain, but it will also as render you immobile and effectively chains you to your bed, forcing you to labor and birth on your back while psychologically numbing your mind to the process at hand, inhibiting your milk let-down and interfering with the postpartum endorphin release that combats postpartum pain and depression.
The take-home message: an epidural can provide much-needed pain relief during labor, but is not without serious risks including: long-term back pain (20% of women experience nerve damage), slowing labor and significantly increasing your risk of c-section. It also inhibits the entire postpartum release of endorphins, which may negatively impact your postpartum recovery.
THE CATHETER
Inserting/poking a thin tube into your urethra so you can pee from the comfort of your bed is an option which is there purely for the attending staff's convenience - unless you're unable to walk due to an epidural.
Long story short: just say no to catheters if you can walk.
THE IV
Some hospitals will automatically hook a laboring woman up to an IV to keep her hydrated, which again -- chains you to the bed or IV equipment, restricting your mobility.
Unless you're unable to swallow water for some mysterious reason, there is absolutely no need to be hooked up to an IV while in labor. As long as your labor partner or birth doula are there giving you water/juice/fluids on a regular basis, your hydration needs will be completely met without inhibiting labor's progress.
CESAREAN-SECTION/C-SECTION
C-section is major abdominal surgery in which seven layers of your stomach tissue, muscle, and fat are sliced through exposing your intestines and uterus.
If you do end up having a C-section, opt for an epidural rather than being fully knocked out via general anesthetic, as this'll allow you to breastfeed immediately after delivery.
To be perfectly fair, cesarean section can be a life-saver for both mother and baby in a small number of cases, but for most women and babies at the end of pregnancy, the risks of surgical birth far outweigh any benefit - as listed below.
With no additional risk factors, a baby born via C-section is three times more likely to die in the first year, which may be partially due to the fact that passage through the birth canal presses your child's lungs and respiratory tract clean in a way the doctor's suction device just can't.
C-section recovery takes longer and hurts more than normal birth recovery because you lose more blood during surgery and your anesthetic interferes with your natural postpartum release of hormones and endorphins which fuel the healing process.
Cool blood fact: birth vaginally and you'll lose the equivalent of nine period's worth of blood.
C-sections are also more likely to result in:
Difficulty breastfeeding and/or bonding
Postpartum depression
Postpartum infection
Newborn breathing problems
Asthma developing in childhood
Newborn cuts (hopefully minor!) from the surgery.
Elective c-sections are a disturbing new trend on the rise, which reflect a gross lack of understanding and respect for the delicate and intricate process of labor and birth.
Short of extreme medical conditions, C-sections should not be considered a viable option for a healthy pregnancy.
THE ELECTRONIC FETAL MONITOR (EFM)
This device records and reports the baby's heartbeat via a beeping sound.
Exhaustive reviews of EFM have shown NO improved outcome for the baby (in terms of preventing death) while increasing psychological stress for the laboring mother and risk of an "emergency c-section" and episiotomy.
Rather than let the EFM create a false sense of fear, opt for infrequent monitoring via a Doppler device or simply unhook yourself from the EFM after listening to your baby's heart rate for a minute or so (if that's all they've got) and get back to laboring on your feet.
Bottom line: EFMs are unnecessarily stressful to the mother and provide no support for the baby's well-being.
THE EPISIOTOMY, VACUUM and FORCEPS
An episiotomy occurs when your doctor slices you from your vagina down to your butt hole - in order "to make passage for the baby easier."
Not only do naturally occurring tears heal faster and hurt less than these incisions, but the idea that a knife is the "best option" for an area that's designed to birth babies is violently counter-intuitive.
Perineal massage, warm compresses, and oil (all things that increase your skin's elasticity and willingness to streeeeeetch) are always a better go-to option than the knife.
The vacuum and forceps are precisely what they sound like - devices for sucking and yanking your baby's head out of the birth canal.
Again, there is no research that indicates the use of any of these devices or methods ever improved fetal outcome over the simple and gentler warm compresses, oil and massage.
Take the time to discuss your caregiver's views of the above medical practices, at least to know whether there's a chance you're at risk of experiencing any of them yourself.
PERINEAL MASSAGE
If you want to prevent serious tearing (who wouldn't?), make sure you or your partner are giving your perineum a nice streeeetchy perineal massage every night.
Be ready to get intimate in a weirdly medical way. You're going to be asking your partner to stretch your vagina as much as you can bear, by inserting their sterilized gloved thumbs an inch into your vagina while pressing down towards your anus for 1 - 3 minute intervals - ten times each night. You can lengthen the duration if it becomes "easy" with maximum pressure.
We recommend taking each minute of pressure to focus on opening, slowly inhaling and exhaling as you imagine the contractions as waves of movement down and out your vagina.
Do the massage every night for the last four weeks before your due date and you'll greatly decrease any risk of being sliced up on your child's first birthday.
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