Picture Page 2- Scenes From The Delivery Room

This is the delivery room. The birthing table is standing right in the middle. You can't see the stirrups, they are still hidden, we don't want to frighten the women who come in here.
They are already frightened enough... Walking through the corridor they hear all the screams from the other women in the delivery rooms. Can you imagine how these women feel when they are finally standing right in front of the doors to the birthing room? They have  to go in there now, they have to give birth. They know it will be painful, it will hurt a lot. Just listen to these screaming and yelling coming through the other doors...
But there's no going back now. You have to go in there, through these doors... A midwife, a nurse or a doctor will welcome you. They will ask you to get onto the birthing chair and open wide...
You are frightened? Well, we cannot tell you what they will need to do to finish the birth. No, it doesn't look like it will be an easy birth, but they don't want to scare you...
Come on, open the doors, your contractions are getting stronger and stronger... Soon you will start pushing, beaing stretched and opened wider and wider... The doctors and the midwifes will help you. But now come on, the d

elivery room is ready for you, onto the table, please!

While the woman is reluctantly pushed through the doors into the room she is so frightened of, shall we have a look at what is going on inside these rooms?

Here you see Anne right in the middle of a contraction. It hurts! Oh, it hurts so much! A birth helper is comforting her, but she's got her eyes closed to get through the pain. Yes, now the peak is there... She is screaming. "When will it be over? OOOOOWWWW!" she wails.

The doctor, too, wants to see how far she is. He is already wearing gloves and takes an instrument from a tray to examine her. What will he be doing to her? Will he wait until the contraction is over? Or will he reach inside her while she is still in pain? He hears Anne moaning while he is preparing himself, but he ignores the noises. He knows he has to deliver the baby, and has to do everything to get it out, no matter how much he will have to hurt Anne.

Here you see him examine her. Her feet are high up in the stirrups, a nurse is ready with a trolley full of instruments the doctor might need.

The woman next door is less lucky. Well, her feet aren't in the stirrups (yet?), but the doctor has to open her wide and wider to be able to see. Or is he just stretching the opening for a colleage to reach in or put something inside this woman? 

You can see that this birth has hardly started. There will be many hours of pain and screams for this woman before she will finally give birth. So let's go to Delivery Room 3...

Look! This one is further along. The head is crowning! Her legs are opened wide, and the doctor is stretching her. Hard he is pulling to open her more and more. She screams at him to stop, but he is firm. "I have to do this." he says. "We have to get this baby out."

She is pushing and pushing... You can see how the baby slips deeper, her vagina is getting more and more stretched. She yells... "I can't do this anymore!"
"Yes, you can", says the doctor. "Wait until the head is coming out, then the real fun begins..."
Oh, I heard something from next door... A VERY loud scream... Let's go there!

Lucky girl! No stirrups! Normal birthing bed! Usually they don't allow that here in this clinic...
See how she is holding on to the bed? The pain must be unbearable. The babys head is stretching her. "I'm tearing!!!" she screams. "AaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUU!" The midwife is supporting her perineum. Her husband is pressing her thigh onto the bed, this way her vagina will open even better. And the contraction still isn't over yet... "OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!" she shrieks.

Back in Delivery Room 1. Oh, now Anne, too, is pushing! "PUSH HARDER!" the doctor orders.
But she is exhausted. She has been doing this four hours. "I can't do this anymore!" she wails. "I want to go home!"
"You can't go home now!" the midwife answers. "You're about to give birth... Come on now, you have to push! PUSSSHHHH!"

"Push harder, Anne, HARDER! Come on, push!"
"UUUUUHHHHHHHHHH!"
Are you sure we should stay in here? She is yelling and shouting...
"Aaaauu-UUUUUHHH!"
"Anne, PUSH! Harder, even harder..."
The midwife has already prepared the forceps. "if you don't push harder, the doctor will have to use these... And a forceps birth hurts even more! So - PUSH!!!!!!!"

Glad you're not a woman? This picture shows you what hard work a birth is. Anne is screaming, as loud as she can. "This hurts! Pull it out of me! AAAA-RRRRRHHHHHHH! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!"
"You have to do what we say", the doctor says. "Push harder, this is not hard enough... Come on, PUSH!!!" Now the doctor is yelling too. "HARDER!!!!"
Do you see Anne's pain? Again she screams. "Nooooooo-OOOOOOOOO! UUuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUHHHH!"

Just when you thought noone could scream this loud her shrieks got even louder and louder. The head came through! It was hard work to open her up enough to make room for the head, but now, with a loud "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!" it is born. 
And now she's lying there... The pain is too much to bear! This head is in her vagina, and the doctor is telling her not to push now. He doesn't want her to tear... "This hurts so much!" she yells.
"Pant, pant! Pant through the pain! No pushing now!"
"No, pull it out! Pull it OUT OF ME! AAAAAhhhhhhhh....IIIiiiiiiiHHH!!!"
Do what the doctor says, Anne, a few more pushes and you will deliver! 
Oh, let's go back next door, to where the loud scream earlier on came from...

The scene has changed here too.
"Well, we had her in the stirrups." the doctor, who is now wearing a plastic apron, tells me. "The head was too big, and the baby didn't come down the birth canal, so I had to use vacuum. But I can do the rest manually now."
"IIIIEEEEEEEEEEE-RRRRRRRRRUUUUHHHHHHH!" the woman screams as the doctor is pulling the baby out of her.
"Push, Susan, PUSH!!! This, too, would be easier with stirrups... PUSH!!!!!!!"
"I can't! I can't!"
"Yes, you can! Come on, woman, PUSH! NOW! PUSH!!!!!!!"

 

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