Practice Tips

Never assume you know better than the woman herself and never say a woman is NOT in labour.

• Use other terms of encouragement and explain about effacement and descent in positive terms that she can relate to those early stages of labour. 

Never judge a women's pain - it IS what she says it is and NEVER give pharmacological analgesia without confirming her 'mild pains' aren't in fact advanced labour.

• Women are devastated when their pain is trivialized and negated -  None of us are clever enough to judge who is and who is not in labour without full assessment.

• We have moved away from doing vaginal examination routinely [quite rightly] BUT there are times when it is the only way to determine what stage her labour has progressed to.

• As labour can be unpredictable and individual speed of progress is a norm, there can be an assumption that a woman is in early labour with mild contrations until you are surprised by advancing head. Women do not appreciate this.

• In our efforts to keep birth normal we must avoid the temptation to convince ourselves this is early labour, early labour, early labour, mild contractions etc untill Oh there 's a head. Woman do NOT appreciate this.