I've been reading a lot about exhaustion during labor lately due to the way my doula births have been going. One of them questioned the idea of "getting things moving", saying that our bodies will get things moving when they're ready, and that resting is more efficient in that respect than being active, which was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. What these articles said really makes a lot of sense with what I've seen, and with my own labors (where my water broke, I walked a lot to try to get labor going, passed out from exhaustion for a while, and then woke up and things got going better).
I do feel there's something missing in there, because my understanding is that historically women tended to carry on with their normal activity until active labor kicked in, but they were probably more active than the typical USian to begin with. It's also possibly one of those noble savage myths that doesn't truly reflect reality.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-04-12 11:29 pm (UTC)I do feel there's something missing in there, because my understanding is that historically women tended to carry on with their normal activity until active labor kicked in, but they were probably more active than the typical USian to begin with. It's also possibly one of those noble savage myths that doesn't truly reflect reality.
Anyways, here's two links:
http://www.breechbabies.com/restinlabor.htm
http://observantmidwife.blogspot.com/2006/06/pre-earlyprodromal-labor.html