News — Birth Story

My midwife and antenatal class had recommended a TENS for non-medical pain relief (avoiding medical interventions was my strong preference, given how light headed morphine can make me and how keen I was to labour in the birthing pool, which would not be possible with an epidural).  I looked into a couple of hire services online and am so glad that I chose Natal Care - the machine arrived promptly, was very easy to set up and test, and it was a great relief that it came with a return envelope so I knew sending it back would be a...

We asked one of our lovely new mums, Kimberley some questions about her labour. Here's some of her advice for a positive, prepared labour. What techniques, tools and people helped you during labour? A:  I had a bag of tricks at the ready after reading JuJu Sundin's book called 'Birth Skills'. I didn't end up needing many of them since my labour was so quick, but what I found helpful was my husband distracting me by counting, a heat pack on my shoulders, walking/stomping around the house, squeezing a stress ball, and listening to this calming music over and over again....

All the LOVE for this feedback from Catalina. Empowering! "Thank you so much for your service. The Tens machine was amazing and I had it on for 13 hours of my 16 hour labour (2nd baby). I managed to give birth with no other pain relief which is what I wanted. It was so empowering and gave me control to work with my body and contractions and manage the pain better. My little girl Aria came into the world on the 1st of Sept and we couldn't be more happy. Thanks again!!" Catalina TENS Hire anywhere in NZ: www.tenshire.co.nz

We love hearing your birth stories. Jahnea shares her story of Dustin arriving in the world… My water broke at 5:30pm. I had only just sat down after a tiring day wedding dress shopping with my friend. I was two days past my due date and finally had done all the things I needed to. I felt a funny twinge and thought that I needed to pee. So I took myself to the toilet and water rushed out as soon as I reached the bathroom. I did for a moment think I had wet myself. Every time I moved my...

I am super happy to share our birth story….. The birth of little Julia went so much better than I could have possibly imagined. Being our first bub we weren't sure what to expect during birth and having heard our fair share of horror stories, I had become pretty nervous in my last weeks of pregnancy. I certainly didn't expect to birth at home and without any medication at all. My first contraction was at about 2:30am, at least the first one to be strong enough to wake me up was. From then, I was having contractions every 40-30mins or so,...