Google me: From old wives' tales to the latest drug-free painkilling techniques

By JULIET ROWAN


A lot of time and thought can go into planning a birth.

But all the planning in the world can't stop some babies arriving where, when and how they like, as North Shore woman Megan Yates found on Monday, when rapid contractions forced her to give birth at home with only her 2-year-old daughter for support.

Baby Ashley's unassisted arrival in less than an hour made front-page news, with the midwife saying it was rare for a home birth to happen without another adult around.

It prompted the Herald to take a look at what's being said about childbirth on the web in this week's Google column.

Typing the word "childbirth" into Google produces a hefty 1,560,000 entries, beginning with www.childbirth.org, which does its best to ease the minds of expectant mums.

Information is sorted into clear sections and the site seems to answer every question imaginable, from the ordinary ("Is caffeine going to harm my baby?") to the obscure ("I hear this popping noise when the baby moves, is that okay?").

A fun diversion is the "Will it be a girl or a boy?" quiz, which the site freely admits is based on old wives' tales. Choose from options such as these below to determine your baby's sex:

I am carrying the extra weight

a) Out front

b) Around the hips and bottom

Hang a thread with a needle over your belly. The thread moves

a) In circles

b) From side to side

Sites such as www.unassistedchildbirth.com, www.empoweredchildbirth.com, and www.alexandertechnique.com promote different birthing techniques.

There's also the "The Bradley Method" (www.bradleybirth.com) from the American Academy (yes, a whole academy) of Husband-Coached Childbirth.

While pain was probably not much of an issue for Megan Yates, so fast was baby Ashley's birth, HypnoBirthing, a trademarked technique advertised at www.joes.com/home/HYPNOBIRTHING/, may well be appealing for anyone who wants to avoid pain as well as painkillers.

Using HypnoBirthing, a form of deep relaxation and slow breathing that releases endorphins which stifle pain, you can enjoy "an unmedicated, safe and gentle birthing". Or so the theorygoes.

The Worldwide Fistula Fund ( www.wfmic.org), meanwhile, offers a reminder that not all women have access to obstetricians and gynaecologists and that millions in the developing world suffer injuries or die during childbirth.

The statistics are bleak: the chance of a woman in Africa dying in pregnancy or labour is one in 12. In Scandinavia, it is one in 30,000.

The site says a "hidden epidemic" of untreated obstructed labours exists in the developing world and leads to problems such as permanent urinary and faecal incontinence, amenorrhoea (when menstruation stops) and sexual dysfunction.