Science-based
principles of care for spontaneous labor and normal birth care include the following
physiologically-sound practices:
1. Continuity of care
2. Patience with nature
3. Social and emotional support
4. Full-time presence of the primary caregiver during active labor
5. Mother-controlled environment (place) for labor and birth
6. Provision for appropriate psychological privacy (persons present)
7. Mother-directed activities, (positions & postures) for labor &
birth
8. Opportunity for an upright and mobile mother during active labor
9. Recognition of the non-erotic but none-the-less sexual nature of spontaneous
labor & normal birth
10. Non-pharmaceutical pain management such as walking, one-to-one care, touch
relaxation, showers & deep water tubs, other tradition midwifery
strategies
11. Judicious use of drugs and anesthesia when needed
12. Absence of arbitrary time limits as long some progress, mom & babe
OK
13. Vertical postures, pelvic mobility and the right use of gravity for pushing
14. Birth position by maternal choice unless medical other factors require
otherwise
15. Mother-Directed Pushing --NO prolonged breath-holding (Valsalva Maneuver)
16. Physiological clamping/cutting of umbilical cord-- after circulation
between baby and placenta has stopped
17. Immediate possession and
control of newborn by mother and father
18. On-going & unified care and support of the mother-baby during the
postpartum/postnatal period
Physiological management is the science-based model of normal
maternity care and, logically-speaking, should be the foremost standard of care
for all healthy women with normal pregnancies, regardless of the category of
maternity care provider (obstetrician, family-practice physician or midwife)
and regardless of the setting for labor and birth (hospital, home or birth
center).