What showed up in my inbox this week was startling!

It was titled Common Terms You Must Learn Before Going Into Labour. 

I was curious, so I checked it out.

Here are the common terms this website and journalist felt were important for you to know before going into labor (spoiler alert - I am going to tell you not to go out and learn these terms before this article is over!)

• Placental abruption
• Amniotic fluid
• APGAR
• Breech presentation
• Cephalopelvic disproportion
• Cervidil
• Cesarean
• Colostrum (ok, you can learn this one)
• Complete breech
• Contraction (another ok one)
• Crowning
• Dilation
• Effacement
• Engagement
• Epidural (good one to know in case you need one!)
• Episiotomy
• Fetal distress
• Fontanelle
• Forceps
• Frank breech
• Incontinence (let's hope not!)
• Induced labor
• Jaundice
• Labour (since we read the article, we probably already knew this one)
• Lightening
• Meconium
• Neonatologist (which they actually spelled Beonatologist, I guess they need to study their own terms)
• NICU
• Oxytocin
• Perineum (it's ok to know your own anatomy)
• Phenergan
• Placenta
• Placenta previa
• Posterior
• Postpartum
• Post-term
• Preterm
• Prostaglandin
• Ruptured membrane (this one is useful)
• Speculum
• Timing contractions (this one is good)
• Transverse
• Umbilical cord (yep, ok with this one)
• Vacuum extractor

Did you get them all? Are you ready to make flash cards so you are ready for labor with the right vernacular?

Actually, over 90% of these are most certainly not the words you should be learning before labor and birth, unless you are also studying to become a labor and delivery nurse, a midwife or an obstetrician of course.

Learning the vernacular of birth may give you the impression that you are prepared, but it is a false sense of security. These types of words do not help you when you are actually in birth. In fact, even if you did learn them all, your ability to recall this list of words will be almost impossible as your brain will be very pre-occupied with your birth process, not words.

Here are the words you should really know before labor and birth: 

• Informed consent
• Tell me more
• Could you tell me how that helps
• What can we expect if we don’t do that
• What other approaches have other people taken
• We understand the concern is…., some things we would like to try before that are…
• Could you assist me to have a calm birth by…
• Could my birth partner and I have some private time
• Hey Siri, tell me about...
• No thank you 

Learning how to gather complete information rather than just being told what you should do so you can have a discussion with your birth team that supports your birth vision will help you be far more prepared in the birth room over memorizing a vocabulary list of terms you hope to not have to use.

Being prepared in the right way means no memorizing and no vocabulary. It should mean learning about your body and your interactions with your environment, learning the natural rhythms of birth and how those will unfold for your birth personality (read a previous post for more about this) so you naturally go with the process of birth without having to think your way through. With this kind of preparation, you don't have a false sense of security, you just have security.

Learn more about homebirth preparation in the Unschooled Homebirth podcast wherever you listen to podcasts!