Do-it-Yourself Prenatal Care

The Center for Unhindered Living

According to a meta-analysis of 50 studies involving 669,876 women, prenatal care has not been demonstrated to improve birth outcomes conclusively.

Fiscella K, Does prenatal care improve birth outcomes? A critical review, Obstet Gynecol 1995 Mar; 85(3): 468-79. PMID: 7862395

The results of another study, conducted on over 57,000 women, show that those who received the most amount of prenatal care by their physicians had the worst pregnancy outcomes and the highest rate of cesarean sections and induced labor.

Gissler M, Hemminki E, Amount of antenatal care and infant outcome. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 1994 Jul; 56(1):9-14.

True prenatal care consists of eating a healthy and robust diet, getting a moderate amount of exercise daily, thinking positive thoughts and reducing stress to you and your baby. However, if it will make you feel better to do your own prenatal care, do so, by all means.

The average blood pressure reading is 120/80, but a rise of 20 over the top number and 15 over the bottom number of your baseline reading is considered high. If your pressure is high, a diet of watermelon and cucumber is recommended, with supplements of garlic oil and calcium/magnesium. You should also make sure you are getting the 80 to 100 grams of protein a day that is necessary to prevent toxemia or pre-eclampsia. If you are not getting enough protein, your blood pressure can rise. Also, not drinking enough water can be a problem. Take your weight, divide by two, and that is the number of ounces of filtered water (not tap water) you should be drinking per day.

See the Metabolic Toxemia of Late Pregnancy page to find out about preventing pre-eclampsia and toxemia.

Also, if you have large arms, make sure and get a unit that has an extra large adult cuff. If the cuff is too small to fit your arm appropriately, it will make your pressure appear higher than it actually is. Eliminate this problem by using the wrist model at right.

Need to Measure maternal weight?

If you are eating a diet of wholesome, healthy foods with plenty of protein and no junk food, the amount of weight you gain is really of no consequence. The only time weight gain is suspicious is if it is a sudden weight gain from excess water. This normally occurs because of three factors: You have not been eating enough protein, you have not been drinking a minimum of 1/2 gallon of water a day, and you may need to increase your calcium/magnesium supplementation. Your weight gain is more likely to be unhealthy if you have not been eating a healthy diet.

Determining fetal position
inside the uterus.

Most mothers learn to determine their babies' positions simply by paying attention to the way the baby feels inside them and outlining the contours of the baby's body with their hands on the outside of their bellies. It is often the case that babies communicate to their mothers through dreams so the mother will know their position. Suggest to yourself that you should have a dream about the baby's position, and ask the baby to communicate it's position to you. You will usually receive some feedback from the baby within a short period of time. However, whether the position of the baby is head down (vertex) or breech (feet or buttocks first) really is of little consequence, since both can be born easily and without complications. If the baby is in a transverse position (lying across the mother's body) a suggestion to the baby that he/she should change positions usually does the trick. You can use the Emotional Freedom Technique, discussed below, to do this. If you are still several weeks away from delivery, there is still lots of space and time for the baby to turn itself.

Closer to the end of the pregnancy, the head will probably be down and will engage in the pelvis. Your partner can use his/her hand to feel close to the pubic bone, and can probably feel the outline of the head engaged there.

Use the Emotional Freedom Technique
(EFT) to alleviate pain, anxiety, or anything else you don't want
during your birth.

I am not advising you to get prenatal care, nor to avoid it. I am simply informing you that many women do their own prenatal care, and that this is an option for you. If I were pregnant, I would do my own prenatal care. I can't tell you what to do, I can only tell you what I would do if I were in that situation. This page does not constitute medical advice. You are responsible for your own life and health. See Statement of Personal Responsibility

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We do a four session- class called EFT for Pregnancy and Childbirth, or we also offer private sessions to teach you the technique. You can then use it for pain, anxiety, helping the baby turn to a different position, lower blood pressure, or anything else you need during pregnancy. The class
can be done in person or online.

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A fetoscope is similar to a stethoscope, except it has a large bell attached which amplifies the sound of the beating fetal heart. The heartbeat usually cannot be heard with a fetoscope until at least 20 weeks gestation. It will take some practice for you to learn to hear it, but learning to hear your baby's heartbeat is very rewarding and can help you bond with your baby. The normal range for fetal heart tones is 120 to 160 beats per minute. Count the beats for ten seconds and multiply by 6 to get the total beats per minute.

If you choose to monitor your own blood pressure, take a baseline reading as soon as you find out you are pregnant. Click Here to learn the procedure for taking your own blood pressure.

Self-Taking Home Blood Pressure Kit. Includes attached stethoscope which really makes this a self-taking unit, it doesn't require two hands.

Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor

Some women who choose to do their own prenatal care see that care not as readings they take once a month, but they see it as EVERYTHING they do, from eating right, to relaxing, to doing positive visualizations. For those women, they usually do not take readings or write anything down. They simply know that they are giving themselves the best care possible. They choose to avoid the doctor's or midwife's office so that they can have a truly unhindered pregnancy without the scare tactics often introduced by caregivers.

What do I mean by "scare tactics"? I mean statements like "You are gaining too much weight. Now you don't want to gain more than 24 pounds" or "You are spilling protein and your blood pressure is up. You need to come in and be hospitalized" or "If the baby doesn't turn, you'll have to deliver by cesarean" or "You have a lot of extra fluid, you could have diabetes or toxemia. You'll have to give birth at the hospital." None of these statements are necessarily true. But by introducing negative thoughts and fear into the pregnancy, it creates a lot of anxiety which is not good for you or your child, and the more you dwell on a particular outcome, the more you bring it to reality. Your mind controls your body, and whatever thoughts or beliefs you introduce into your mind, if dwelt on, can have a negative impact on your pregnancy. For this reason, we call prenatal care by a "professional" caregiver "Prenatal Scare" rather than prenatal care. All caregivers are trained to identify possible complications, so they see everything in that light. When one is looking for problems, one will find them (or manufacture them). When you see pregnancy in a healthy, positive light, you will know that babies often turn at the last minute, that you can facilitate turning your baby through EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), intuitive communication, positive belief suggestions, and pelvic tilt exercises, and that if the baby doesn't turn, breech birth is perfectly safe if not interfered with. Spilling protein in the urine can be remedied by eating more protein, drinking more water, and increasing your intake of certain vitamins and minerals. As long as you are eating a healthy diet, the amount of weight gain doesn't matter. They will try to scare you and say that you will have a harder birth, or complications is you are overweight. However, the complications they speak of aren't caused by the weight itself, but by the nutritional deficiencies often present when a person eats a junk food diet. I can personally vouche for the fact that weight doesn't have to affect the quality of your pregnancy - my two births were at 230 and 250 pounds, respectively, and both were easy and smooth. I am told the same thing by many overweight women in the community I work with.

The Center for Unhindered Living
Lawton, OK 73505

When you go to the doctor, you usually have your urine tested for glucose or protein. Testing for glucose has not been shown to improve pregnancy outcome. Testing for protein might be helpful because if you are spilling protein, you need to increase protein in your diet. You don't spill protein unless your body is digesting your kidney tissue to provide for it's protein needs. Every product sold on our site is now provided through Amazon.com, but they don't sell the urine test strips. Click here to go to a store where you can buy them. The site is MacGill School Nurse supply, but you don't have to be a nurse to order them.