From time immemorial, the birth of a child was considereda great sacrament. Midwives in Russia enjoyed a special honor, and not every woman could become a midwife: she must have impeccable health, her children should also be healthy, her thoughts should be clean. Even during pregnancy, midwives taught the future mother an old slander, which was read to children in the womb: "From you, my light, my droplet, I myself will take the whole trouble. My love is a dome to you, all is patience for a cradle, and prayer is consolation. I await you, my light, like the earth of the dawn, like the grass of the dew, like the flowers of rain. " The sound of these gentle words had a beneficial effect on both the baby and the mother, creating the right mood for the upcoming birth. Childbirth is the culmination of pregnancy and in most cases occurs as a normal physiological process. The future mother wants to know everything about the birth: to learn the signs of labor, the beginning of labor, the symptoms of labor and childbirth, when they begin, at what point it is necessary to hurry to the maternity home, how much labor is painful and how long they last. Each childbirth is an individual, and births take place in different ways, but the main signs of an early birth are experienced by almost all women in labor: the uterus contracts during labor; Smoothes, thins the cervix, then opens; the child turns and moves along the generic paths; you give birth to a child, then the placenta, umbilical cord and membranes. The whole process takes from several hours to a day (occasionally and more) and is the beginning of motherhood, and for the child - the transition to an autonomous existence. In this process, everything is important: the mechanism of the course of labor, the physiological characteristics, sensations and experiences of the mother, her psychological state. The onset of labor is not always clear, especially the signs of birth in primiparous mothers. Experts believe that the initiator of childbirth is the child. By the 40th week, and sometimes earlier, because of the rapid growth of the child, the number of amniotic fluid decreases, the baby is more difficult to move. The placenta has grown old, and the baby receives insufficient amounts of nutrients and oxygen. The child experiences very unpleasant sensations, it activates the adrenal cortex and releases a large amount of cortisol - a stress hormone. In response, the hormonal balance in the mother's body changes. As a result, the uterus becomes very sensitive to biologically active substances produced by the placenta and the pituitary gland of a woman. She begins to contract - there are regular contractions, followed by childbirth. In the organism of the future mother, there are also changes: the quantity of estrogen that prepares the uterus for childbirth increases, and as a consequence, the cervix shortens and softens, the uterus starts to decrease regularly. ... Read More