Episode 216 - Childbirth for Children
Mel:
[0:00] Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host Dr Melanie Jackson. I'm a clinical and research midwife with my PhD and each episode I cast a critical eye over current maternity care practice by grappling with research and historical knowledge to help you get the best out of your pregnancy, birth and postpartum journey. Welcome, everybody, to today's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. My name is Mel, and joining me today is Frida, who's nine.
Frida:
[0:36] Hi.
Mel:
[0:37] Frida's joining me today because we are doing a special episode as part of the National Science Week program. We're going to talk to you about childbirth, how babies are born, and a little note for parents. Today, we're going to use the right and real words for our bodies. And so if you haven't yet shared the correct terminology or anatomy with your children, just be aware that in this episode, we are going to be using those words. Aren't we, Frida? Yeah. Okay, let's get started. Children, this is all for you, and we are going to explain as much as we possibly can about childbirth. Before we do, I'll introduce myself. My name is Mel, and I am a midwife. That's my job. As a midwife, I help mums when they're pregnant and giving birth and looking after their babies. That's my job. So I know exactly how babies are born.
Frida:
[1:40] I'm Frida. I'm nine years old, and I just started to write one of my first books. I'm a writer and I can publish and I just had my first business of walking dogs and I do garden tours. So I know a lot about plants and animals mostly.
Mel:
[2:02] Okay. And today we're going to learn a lot about childbirth. So Frida, about childbirth, if I think about where I want to start, first, I would want you to know that your body's really clever and capable of keeping itself alive and functioning and healthy, right? Yeah. What normal things can your body do every day that keeps you alive, well, and healthy?
Frida:
[2:28] Um... It can help me run. It can help me think and do my schoolwork.
Mel:
[2:34] So your brain and your legs work. Yeah. And we breathe all day long. Yeah, we can breathe. We can eat.
Frida:
[2:42] We can eat. And we can give birth.
Mel:
[2:43] And we can give birth. This is exactly the point I'm making, is our bodies are designed to live and be healthy. and part of that for women, the normal part of their body is to grow a baby and give birth to a baby. It only happens a few times in your life, though. Yeah. You know, we have some friends who've got six or seven children, but most women.
Frida:
[3:12] Have like two or one.
Mel:
[3:13] Maybe only have one or two.
Frida:
[3:15] They might not have any.
Mel:
[3:16] They might not have any. And so childbirth is something that our bodies can do just like our bodies can run and our heart can beat. And, Frida, have you ever seen a woman with a big, big belly with a baby inside?
Frida:
[3:31] Yes, I know two people who have done that. Three, actually.
Mel:
[3:34] Who've had huge, big bellies with babies inside? Now, the reason their bellies are big is because...
Frida:
[3:39] The baby's getting bigger inside of them.
Mel:
[3:41] Correct.
Frida:
[3:43] I think.
Mel:
[3:44] That's true. So the longer that you're pregnant, so you can be pregnant up to about 42 weeks is how long a normal pregnancy can be. And so the baby becomes big inside its mum's tummy. And the question that we're going to ask today is, how does that baby get out?
Frida:
[4:05] How does it get out?
Mel:
[4:06] How does it get out? It's a great question. And here's where I want to tell you about how your body works. So you're a girl now, but you are going to mature into a woman. And women are capable of having babies. Now, we have something in our body that boys don't have. Do you know what that is?
Frida:
[4:26] A vulva?
Mel:
[4:28] Well, we have a vulva.
Frida:
[4:30] We also have a bladder.
Mel:
[4:33] Yeah, boys have a bladder. Boys have a bladder. Do you know the name of the organ inside us where the baby grows?
Frida:
[4:41] An egg.
Mel:
[4:43] We've got eggs. That's how the baby starts.
Frida:
[4:47] A placenta.
Mel:
[4:49] That's how the baby stays alive. Good. We have one organ inside us. That's where the baby lives and grows in our belly.
Frida:
[4:58] I know this because I've seen it come out when the goats were born.
Mel:
[5:03] Oh. Oh, you saw the placenta come out when the goats were born.
Frida:
[5:06] Yeah, but the babies were inside of something too.
Mel:
[5:09] They were inside an amniotic sac.
Frida:
[5:11] Oh.
Mel:
[5:12] Correct. That's also inside of us.
Frida:
[5:14] I don't think that happens to babies though.
Mel:
[5:16] Yeah, it does actually.
Frida:
[5:17] But they come out in the sac.
Mel:
[5:19] Yeah. Well, they can. Yes, that's pretty normal.
Frida:
[5:23] Okay.
Mel:
[5:23] Let me tell you, inside your body that doesn't exist inside the body of a boy or a man is an organ called a uterus.
Frida:
[5:32] That's right.
Mel:
[5:34] Her uterus.
Frida:
[5:35] They had a brain fart.
Mel:
[5:36] That's okay. We all have brain farts. And inside the uterus, I want you to think about it a little bit like a big, very strong balloon. And it's got muscles, the uterus inside you. And inside your uterus, that's where the baby grows. And the baby is fed through its placenta, which is attached to the uterus.
Frida:
[6:03] Okay, that makes more sense.
Mel:
[6:04] That makes more sense. Because what you saw, so Frida and I, we live on a farm and we've seen goats give birth, haven't we? They're adorable. They're adorable. And after the baby goats are born, the goats give birth to a placenta. Yeah. Humans are the same. Human babies are the same. They need the placenta inside their mother's uterus. Yeah. The uterus is attached to another organ that only girls and women have. And if you imagine the end of that balloon, there's a long tube and that is called your vagina. And you mentioned before about your vulva. Yes. So your vagina is inside your vulva.
Frida:
[6:54] I thought they were the same thing.
Mel:
[6:56] They are not the same thing. Okay. Right, so if you look on the outside, so kids at home, little girls at home, in your underpants, right, is where your vulva and your bottom live. And your vulva is all of the outside parts of your anatomy, all the parts that are in your undies. You've got your vulva on the outside. Now, in your vulva, there's three holes. And we've got the hole where wee comes out. There's a hole where poo comes out. And there's a hole where babies come out.
Frida:
[7:39] Isn't the hole where poo comes out not on your vulva?
Mel:
[7:43] It's behind your vulva. It's kind of next to your vulva. And it's connected by a part of your vulva, which is called the perineum. If you see the hole where your poo comes out, then there's like a little bridge called your perineum. It's a soft, squishy skin part. Then the next hole that you'll find in front of that is your vagina. And that's the hole that the baby comes out of, the one that's connected to the uterus where the baby is growing. Is that making sense?
Frida:
[8:19] Yes, I think so.
Mel:
[8:20] Do you want to explain that to me? See if you get it. We've got a uterus. And then where does that lead to?
Frida:
[8:30] A vagina.
Mel:
[8:31] Vagina. And a vagina is one of the holes in your?
Frida:
[8:35] A vulva.
Mel:
[8:36] A vulva. Right. So let's go through that again. Your vulva has three holes, one for wee, one for poo, one where babies come out. Yeah. Right. Okay. So that answers our first question of where does a baby come out from? It comes out of your vagina. I want to tell you something about your vagina and your vulva. Some people find this very interesting because how is it possible for a big baby to come out of a small hole like a vagina?
Frida:
[9:14] Doesn't it matter how big the baby is?
Mel:
[9:17] Sometimes. But let me tell you something clever about the vagina. The vagina is so clever and your vulva is so clever, that when it's time for the baby to come out, your vulva and your vagina can grow and open big, big enough to let an entire baby out. Usually your body will make a baby with the right size to fit out. OK, most of the time, sometimes babies get bigger than they should be. And I'll talk to you about how those babies can get out. But normally, if everything is well and normal, you'll grow a baby that will fit through your body and through your vulva and your vagina. Yeah. Now, this is a really super clever thing about our vulva and vagina. Yeah. Is that it's capable of getting big enough to let a baby out.
Frida:
[10:17] That's huge.
Mel:
[10:18] That's huge. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it can be huge.
Frida:
[10:21] But it can also be tiny.
Mel:
[10:23] How does that happen? And do you think you're just standing there one day when
Mel:
[10:25] you're pregnant and the baby just falls out? No. No?
Frida:
[10:28] You can get contractions, can't you? Correct.
Mel:
[10:31] That's exactly right. That uterus that I was telling you about where the baby lives and how strong and muscly it is. Yeah. When it's time for the baby to be born, the baby tells its mother's body, I'm ready now. It's time for me to be born. And the mum's body starts to contract or like squeeze the uterus where the baby lives and starts to push the baby down and out of the woman's body. Sometimes this takes a long time. Sometimes it can be really fast. For example, your brother Charlie, he took one and a half days to come out for my uterus to push him out of my body. How did you sleep? I slept in between contractions. Okay. So contractions come and go. It's not constant. You get a contraction maybe for a minute or a minute and a half, and then you get a nice rest and a break in between for maybe three or four minutes.
Mel:
[11:39] Then another one, and then it keeps going until your baby's born. but you were a different story madam for you I was sitting down and eating dinner and I started to get contractions I could feel my uterus squeezing and I thought oh here we go it's nearly time for Frida to be born my body's telling me, and so I got all ready dad was helping me I was moving around because moving around helps to manage the contractions. Sometimes contractions, you know, when you're working hard on the netball court, because you play netball and your muscles can get sore and tired and you think, oh, I'm really tired. I'm working hard. That's kind of like what labor is, but it's your uterus that's doing the hard work. And I was breathing.
Mel:
[12:35] Like this. Every time I got a contraction and then it would go and I would have a little rest. You came out in two hours. Fast. That's fast. That's a pretty fast birth. So this is what we call labor. And labor can be short sometimes, but it can be long. And at the end of labor, we give birth. And that uterus pushes the baby out through your vagina. Your vulva can get big. And your baby comes through the vagina and out of your vulva. Got it, right? Usually the baby comes out head down. But sometimes they can come bum first.
Frida:
[13:16] That's what that happened.
Mel:
[13:17] It's the same as a head down birth, but your midwife, who's usually the person who will be caring for you, like me, might need to do a few different things to help your baby out if your baby is in a bummed down position. But you can still give birth.
Frida:
[13:37] Can the baby come in any other ways, like back first?
Mel:
[13:40] Back first won't fit. They have to come straight up and down, either head first or bum first. If something else is coming down, that's not the head or the bum. The baby is not going to come out. Shall we have a talk about what happens?
Frida:
[13:57] Don't you have surgery?
Mel:
[13:59] Correct.
Frida:
[13:59] Isn't that how dad was born?
Mel:
[14:01] That's correct. Exactly. If for some reason something happens, something is not quite right, This is the good thing about most places in the world. Women will have somebody caring for them, a health professional who can tell them if everything is normal and fine or if maybe they need more help. Maybe they need surgery. And sometimes the baby needs to be born by cesarean section is what we call it. And this is where the baby can't come through the vagina for some reason. Then the doctor will cut into the mummy's tummy and bring the baby out through its mummy's tummy. And the baby's born with a cesarean section. That's a big conversation for another day. But that's the other way that babies can be born for childbirth.
Mel:
[14:59] And after the baby's born, you know how we were talking about the placenta?
Frida:
[15:04] Yeah.
Mel:
[15:05] The mom gives birth to the placenta too. It's usually not as hard as having a baby because the placenta is soft and floppy.
Frida:
[15:14] You don't have to stretch.
Mel:
[15:16] And the placenta is attached to the baby's belly button.
Frida:
[15:21] So, you know. Yeah. So, like a cord thing. Yes. I forgot the beginning. I can only remember a cord.
Mel:
[15:28] An umbilical cord. There we go.
Frida:
[15:30] That's a big word to say.
Mel:
[15:31] Yeah. Umbilical cord. And an umbilicus is the medical name for your belly button. It's your belly button cord. And that's how the baby was getting all of its oxygen, nutrients, snacks. Blood, food.
Frida:
[15:48] You're basically eating for two when you have a baby.
Mel:
[15:51] Well, you are caring for two when you're having a baby. And all the stuff that goes into the mom's body goes into the baby's body through the placenta and through the cord.
Frida:
[16:00] When you were pregnant with me, when you ate, did you eat like spicy food or?
Mel:
[16:08] I ate all kinds of food. All of that was going through the placenta and to you, through your umbilical cord into your belly button.
Frida:
[16:14] Is that one of people that are always pregnant hungry?
Mel:
[16:17] We are very hungry. We are very hungry when we're pregnant because we're growing a whole baby. Yeah, our body's doing a lot of work. So yes, we do need extra vitamins to look after ourselves, but also our babies. So then when your baby's born, the baby has the placenta attached to its umbilical cord.
Frida:
[16:38] And you're still very hungry.
Mel:
[16:39] We're still very hungry because then we start making milk for the baby, don't we? Soon after the baby's born, when it's finished getting all of that extra blood from the placenta and back into its body, when the cord goes completely white and empty of blood, that's a sign that it's time to cut the cord. The baby's finished with it.
Frida:
[16:59] Doesn't even know that it gets cut.
Mel:
[17:01] No, it's like hair. They can't feel it. You know when you get a haircut and you can't feel that anyone's cutting your hair? It's like that when you cut the cord. It's fine. They don't feel it.
Mel:
[17:12] Maybe we should talk a little bit about the sensations of having a baby. What do you think it feels like when a baby is moving through your vagina and out of your vulva?
Frida:
[17:24] It feels kind of like there's a little worm.
Mel:
[17:27] A little worm, yeah. Wriggling out? Yeah.
Frida:
[17:32] Not sure if they can move while they're there, but...
Mel:
[17:34] Yeah, they do move a little bit when they're being born.
Frida:
[17:37] Don't they kick while they're in your tummy?
Mel:
[17:38] They do. Babies are alive, and so they do. They kick and they move, and they can become part of the birth process and help their mum give birth. And some mamas explain that labour and birth, for some women, it feels not very painful at all and not uncomfortable at all. And some women can find it really uncomfortable.
Frida:
[18:02] Was it painful for you?
Mel:
[18:05] Was it painful for me? I think if I had to describe it, I would say it was a big job. Yeah.
Frida:
[18:14] Just like you went for a big job.
Mel:
[18:16] It was like having a, you know, I play netball too. It was a really hard netball game and I had to work really hard. But here's the secret. Here's the trick. is actually women are really strong and really capable and we can do hard things because that's how our babies are born. So we were actually made to give birth. We were also made strong enough to be able to work with those big sensations and the hard work of having a baby. And it's made a lot easier if you've got great people around you who are helping you have every single contraction.
Frida:
[18:59] Why do people give birth in the water on a birth stool?
Mel:
[19:03] It's a great question. You can actually give birth anywhere you like. People choose all kinds of places to give birth. It's usually about how comfortable they feel. So you were born in water.
Frida:
[19:16] Wasn't Charlie born on land?
Mel:
[19:18] Charlie was born on land. I was sitting on a birth stool with Charlie. That's what felt most comfortable for me when he was coming through my vagina, through my vulva. For you, I got in a big warm bath, big warm pool of water. That's what made me feel most comfortable.
Frida:
[19:36] How I want a bath.
Mel:
[19:36] Yeah, it's comfy. It makes you feel relaxed, doesn't it? Yeah, it's so warm. It's cozy. That's where you were born. Some babies are born at home in their mama's house, which is where you and Charlie were born. Some mommas choose to go to a place called a birth centre where there's midwives and they can use the rooms at the birth centre. Other mums choose to have their babies in hospitals.
Frida:
[20:04] You might need to have a baby in hospital.
Mel:
[20:05] You might need to have a baby in hospital. Other mums need to go to the operating theatre to have their baby, like we spoke about with cesarean sections.
Frida:
[20:15] What's an operating theatre?
Mel:
[20:16] Operating theatre is where they do surgery in a hospital. So there's lots of places that you could choose to give birth. And there's a collection of healthcare professionals who are involved in caring for women who are pregnant and having their babies. and they include a doula, which is like a professional support person, you know, a really good person there who's going to help you work through labour and birth. Then you've got midwives. Every woman deserves a midwife to have their baby. Then if we need extra medical care, if you've got some extra special needs or things aren't quite going as normally as you would hope, we can involve someone called an obstetrician. And an obstetrician is a medically trained professional. And then if you've ever been to the doctor.
Frida:
[21:08] I have been to the doctor.
Mel:
[21:09] Right. Those doctors also can help women who are pregnant.
Frida:
[21:13] What is exactly a birth stool?
Mel:
[21:16] A birth stool. It's like, it's a little bit like a toilet seat actually, but it's not on a toilet. And it's somewhere where you can sit. And then when you're giving birth to the baby, the baby can come through the hole and you can, but you can actually catch the baby.
Frida:
[21:31] There's a hole?
Mel:
[21:32] Yeah, in the birth stool.
Frida:
[21:33] So is it basically just like a stool with a hole in the middle?
Mel:
[21:36] Yeah, exactly, because you've got to push the baby out.
Frida:
[21:38] You don't sit on it like this, you're sitting in a squat position?
Mel:
[21:41] Kind of, yeah. You know what's really amazing about our bodies too? We have something called a reflex. That when the baby, it's time for the baby to be born, our body is so strong that it takes over and pushes the baby out of our body. I know.
Frida:
[22:01] That's cool.
Mel:
[22:02] It's so cool. Our bodies are really cool and super clever. So clever that we can grow a baby and push a baby out and then feed a baby all with our body. Do you have any questions about birth? Any extra questions about birth? Not really. Not really. Amazing. Thanks for joining me today on the Great Birth Rebellion podcast, Frida. That has been this episode. We were talking about childbirth for children, and I hope you understand a little bit more about how babies are born. Bye. Bye. Nice one, Frida. Did you like that? Yeah.
Frida:
[22:44] My brain isn't really braiding anymore, though.
Mel:
[22:46] No, that's okay. It's hard work. To get access to the resources for each podcast episode, join the mailing list at MelanieTheMidwife.com. And to support the work of this podcast, wear The Rebellion in the form of clothing and other merch at TheGreatBirthRebellion.com. Follow me, Mel, @MelanieTheMidwife on socials and the show @TheGreatBirthRebellion. All the details are in the show notes.
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