Birthing on Hand and Knees

Thank you Stephanie for sending these in and allowing others to see what birth is like off your back! ~Mrs. BWF

I know it may be because it was my birth, but I love these pictures. I think they are so amazing. I had no idea I was capable of something like this. My labor was over 30 hours, mostly because the last part of my cervix would not let go. But our little boy finally made it August 31, 2011 at 5:15 am.

The first picture: His head was crowning in this picture. If you look to the right, you can see my husband looking. I just love this. I thought his reaction would be to faint, throw up, or to not even look. Instead he was on his hands and knees trying to get a good look of his little boy coming! For some reason, Facebook thought this picture was not appropriate and removed it. 🙁

Second picture: This was so incredible. I remember when his head “popped” out my husband instantly said, “Steph you were right! He looks just like me!” I love seeing his hands there catching our little boy. ~Stephanie

midwife

baby crowning

10 Comments

  • Jen @Plus Size Birth

    Incredible pictures! I LOVE how your husband got on his hands and knees as well! I gave birth within a midwifery program at a hospital and they encouraged me to give birth on my knees with the bed propped up to place my hands upon it. I’m a plus size woman so it was REALLY comfortable and nice to not have to hold my legs up in the air. I also felt like I wasn’t completely exposed. Best part about this position was being able to push my bottom out with every contraction and bring that baby down fast (I only pushed for 30 min)! Thank you for sharing!!!

  • Elisabeth

    Beautiful raw real pictures! I love his reaction when he saw Baby’s face. I am so looking forward to my husband’s reaction, I think the baby has my nose and his mouth, we’ll see!

  • Rachelle

    These pictures are fantastic… what the husband did during this birth is exactly what mine did during the birth of our daughter… one minute he was by my side, the next my mother was there… I thought he’d moved away cos he didn’t feel well until I felt his hand rubbing the back of my leg while he was egging me on… I do think for some men sheer fascination takes over and they end up doing the complete opposite… more women need to have th option of birthing like this regardless of the place they birth… it is, I think, one of the easiest and best ways to birth…

  • Ashley Cherryholmes

    JUST awesome I had my second daughter same position except over the back of our couch and yes it was comfortable…labored on the ball for a long while (probably a couple hours)though and it was rough on the knees…so moved to the couch during transition (only pushed for around 20 minutes)…glad to see others enjoying the cool stuff our bodies are capable of…I made an entire shutterfly book of our birth start to finish and would show everyone…but some people are weird and get grossed out…me..I love it, placenta pictures and all!

  • Tanya

    Awesome pics! 🙂

    I planned my second birth for almost 4 years, and I thought for sure I would birth either standing, squatting, or on hands and knees. And you know what? As soon as transition hit, I just wanted to lie in bed on my side! It was SO odd! lol I started pushing without any warning, still on my side. I do remember thinking to myself that I wasn’t in the right position, but he was coming so fast that thinking about changing positions was impossible!

    So funny…I NEVER thought I’d be pushing lying on a bed again, but there I was! 🙂

  • Heather

    This is the position I birthed our little girl in 4 weeks ago. I was NOT comfortable on my back and my knees aren’t good so I hunched over and grabbed a pillow. The pushing was only 5 minutes!

  • Sky

    Great pics! I love your husbands reactions:) I too birthed my last son (who is now 3) on my hands & knees leaning my upper half on the lounge seat.I just walked straight into the birthing suite ,saw the lounge in the corner & went straight to it & got down on my hands & knees & stayed there.I was fortunate enough to be in a midwife program so i didn’t have one bit of interference.It was my best birth,no drugs no interference what so ever & i’m hoping this next one will be similar.

  • Shelley Dobbin (Beautiful Birth)

    HANDS AND KNEES is my FAVOURITE birthing position! Birthed this way for #2 and #3 (after a very tough flat on my back birth of #1 which resulted in 3rd degree tearing and an unwanted episiotomy)!

    Hands and knees helped so much with the birth of our 2nd baby who was born breech!

  • Shara

    I love these photos! They are so beautiful, and I love how daddy is involved!

    My gramma always swore that our line of women had a shelf in our pelvis that prevented easy births. She told my mom and then me that we would need to push baby off the shelf repeatedly in order to have a vaginal delivery. Never made sense to me…but then I started having babies. My first two children would not be born on my back, I pushed with the oldest for 2 1/2 hours, almost getting a section. My second birth, the midwives had me lean forward and his shoulders were born, but still it was 56 minutes of pushing, and a bit of that was with his head born…his shoulders WOULD NOT COME.

    My last baby I (and some neighbors, lol) drempt that I birthed on my hands and knees. Sure enough, I did. Later, I found out that with some women this makes birth smoother, and yeah, he was only a few pushes and he was out. 😀

    So Gramma maybe knew what she was talking about, maybe not, but she surely had something going there!

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