PSYC 2400 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Umbilical Cord, Blood Transfusion, Childbirth
Document Summary
How birthing has changed: prior to the 20th century, birth was a female social ritual, home deliveries and midwives, reducing the risks of childbirth, growing use of maternity hospitals, antibiotics and safe anesthesia. Improved hygiene and drugs for inducing labor: blood transfusion and better prenatal assessment. Contemporary settings for childbirth: hospital birth has become a surgical act, home births with trained nurse-midwives, homelike birth centers, demedicalizing birthing experience, rooming-in policies. The birth process: parturition: process of giving birth, begins two weeks before delivery, determined by increase in the rate of production of corticotrophin-releasing hormone, uterine, cervical and other changes occur, false contractions may occur. Electronic fetal monitoring: tracks the fetus"s heartbeat during labor and delivery. Indicates how the fetal heart is responding to the stress of uterine contractions: provides valuable information in high-risk delivers, drawbacks, costly, restricts the mother"s movements during labor, has an extremely high false-positive rate.
