What is the number one question that pregnant women ask about their upcoming labor and delivery of their brand new baby?
It’s not what you might think.
It’s WILL I POOP DURING DELIVERY?
And the variations thereof, if the search logs of the NURSING BIRTH website are accurate. Everything from “Pooping in labor” to “How many women poop during delivery” are asked in that site’s search box.
Sometimes the Internet and access to search engine results is not always something that we needed to have. But really, we’ve already covered that EVERYONE POOPS, so the fact that some women happen to poo a little bit while giving birth is nothing to be ashamed of. Heck, there have been tons of studies done that have shown that a vaginal birth offers additional immunities to the newborn than a Caesarean-delivered child would have, partly due to a little bit of poo.
Still, Nursing Birth was nice enough to list their TOP TEN DO’s and DON’Ts of POOPING DURING LABOR AND BIRTH.
Among the answers that they provide are:
- Try to go to the bathroom before your labor intensifies. Don’t save this until late in the labor process.
- Tell your birthing-room companions (friends, parents, loved ones, children, etc) NOT to tell you if you did share a little poo during Little Johnny’s birth.
- Doctors and nurses have seen it all before. A little poop from you won’t embarass them at all.
Nursing Birth is written by a labor and delivery nurse; that should be proof enough that they know what they’re talking about.