Supporting you to become the parent you want to be
Info Centre - Labour and birth
- 'Best' baby positions for birth
- The way in which your baby lies in your pelvis can affect how smoothly your labour progresses. This page looks at ways that will encourage your baby into the best position, prior to birth.
- Breech Baby
- This sheet is for women who have a baby lying in a bottom down (breech) position towards the end of their pregnancy. It provides information on possible ways to turn the baby and planning for the birth.
- Caesarean birth
- This page provides information about caesarean birth.
- Choosing an independent midwife
- This page explains the role and status of independent midwives.
- Going past your due date
- Only a small percentage of babies – about five per cent – are born on their ‘due’ date. This page looks at the options if you go past your due date.
- Guide to labour
- The text on this page is taken from the NCT's booklet 'Guide to labour: a step-by-step guide for first-time parents'. This guide aims to help you through the last day of pregnancy and into the first day as a new family.
- Home Birth
- This NCT Information Sheet looks at questions and answers to help you decide if home birth is for you.
- Home birth: all you need to know
- The text on this page is taken from the NCT's booklet 'Home birth: all you need to know'; this information aims to help you decide whether giving birth at home may be right for you, and includes practical suggestions for organising a home birth.
- Induction and acceleration (augmentation)
- This page provides information on starting labour artificially (induction) and accelerating labour (augmentation).
- Labour and birth in water: how and why you might use water
- The information on this page is taken from the NCT booklet 'Labour and birth in water' and describes the main benefits and possible risks of using water in labour and birth.
- Making a decision
- Making a decision
- Positions for labour and birth
- This information sheet uses illustrations to demonstrate positions to make your labour shorter and easier, and positions to make the birth of your baby easier.
- Straightforward birth
- This information sheet aims to give you some suggestions about how you can help yourself have a straightforward birth.
- Swine flu - your questions answered
- This document provides pregnant women, their partners, and parents of babies and young children with information about how pandemic swine flu might affect their pregnancy, the health of their baby, or their own health.
- The role of a midwife
- This page provides information on the role of a midwife, how they work, and what you can expect from them.
- Third stage of labour
- Most women don’t know that they have a choice when it comes to the delivery of the placenta, because it has become usual in hospital for women to have a ‘medically-managed’ third stage of labour. But there is another option as this page explains.
- Using water in labour and birth
- This NCT Information Sheet looks at helping you decide whether to use a birthing pool during labour.
- Vaginal birth after a caesarean
- This NCT Information Sheet looks at questions and answers for women who have had a caesarean and are pregnant again.
- Where will my baby be born?
- Where you have your baby is important not only for the kind of birth you have but also for how you manage during the first weeks of being a mother. To help you in this decision-making process, this page looks at what the various options each has to offer.
- Working with pain in labour
- Labour is complex, but your body is in control. You just need to let it do what comes naturally. This page tells you how.
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