Delivery and Maternity Care

Many women choose to give birth without pain medication or anesthesia at all, and we support this choice. No one at Temple Health will ever pressure you to use pain control if it’s not what you want. If your preference is natural childbirth, we will do everything we can to keep you comfortable during labor, without the use of medication.

Intravenous or IV pain management is medication that’s given to you through an IV drip. These medications won’t make you completely pain-free, but they can help take the edge off and reduce the intensity of your pain.

Because these medications are given through the bloodstream, they can affect the baby and the mom. While they aren’t harmful, they can make the baby sluggish or sleepy. For this reason, we don’t administer any IV pain medication after you’re dilated to 6 cm. This ensures that the baby will be awake, alert, and vigorous for the final stages of labor, which can facilitate a healthy birth.

This means that IV medication can provide good pain control early in labor but isn’t an option in the later stages.

An epidural is a procedure that involves inserting a small catheter into the lower back and using it to administer local anesthesia or numbing medication. This numbs all pain in the lower body.

With an epidural, you will be completely pain-free in your lower body, but you will still feel some sensation, like pressure, in the numbed area.

Epidurals have been widely used for decades, and large research studies have shown that they are the safest and most effective way to control pain during labor and delivery.

The epidural procedure itself takes between 10 and 30 minutes to complete. During the procedure, you will sit on the side of the bed, and your lower back will be numbed with a topical numbing medicine. A tiny catheter, about the width of angel hair pasta, will be inserted into a small space in the lumbar area of your back, away from the spinal cord. You will feel a small pinch when the catheter is inserted, like getting a vaccine.

You can get an epidural at any point during childbirth, from the very beginning stages of labor, right up until moments before delivery. The epidural provides continuous medication to maintain pain control for as long as you need it. The effects will wear off as soon as we stop the medication drip.

Temple is now offering a dural puncture epidural, an updated technique that works faster to control your pain.

• Frequently Asked Questions About Epidurals

• Breastfeeds better

• Cries less and is calmer

• Stays warmer

• Has better blood sugar levels

• Has more stable and normal heart rate and blood pressure

• Is protected by some of your good bacteria

• Breastfeeds more easily

• Learns cues that their baby is getting hungry

• Bonds more with their baby

• Gains confidence and contentment in caring for their baby

The best start for breastfeeding is when a baby is kept skin-to-skin with the mother immediately after birth until the first feeding. Babies' sense of smell allows them to find the breast to begin the initial latch.

While in the hospital, you will stay in a home-like room in our Mother-Baby Unit. This is where you'll start your recovery and get to know your baby. The same nurse will care for both you and your baby, a pairing that helps you become well-acquainted from the beginning.

At Temple, we encourage “rooming-in.” This means you'll keep your baby with you in your room the entire time you're in the hospital. This is a healthy choice for families because it lets you care more directly for your new baby. Rooming-in will help you learn to care for all your baby’s needs while our staff is around to help if you need it. This will also help you feel more comfortable taking care of your baby once you go home.

• You can more easily hold, cuddle, look at, learn to respond to, and get to know your baby.

• Your baby can get to know you more easily.

• Your baby will usually cry less than babies in the nursery who are away from their mothers.

• Your baby can learn to breastfeed faster and gain weight sooner.

• You should feel more able to take care of your baby when you go home.

• Breast milk is easily digested

• Perfectly matched nutrition

• Protective effect against SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)

• Less gastrointestinal disturbances, ear infections and allergies

• Skin-to-skin, eye- and voice contact

• Less diabetes and obesity later in life

• Convenient

• Economical

• Helps the uterus return to its normal size faster and prevents excessive blood loss

• Helps with losing the weight gained during pregnancy

• Reduces risk of osteoporosis

• Less likely to develop uterine, endometrial and ovarian cancer

• Reduces risk of breast cancer

As a designated Baby-Friendly^Ⓡ birth facility, all our nurses and healthcare providers have been educated on how best to support your desire to breastfeed your infant. Specialists will be on hand to educate you in breastfeeding and newborn care, such as the safest sleep positions, holding, diapering, dressing and bathing.

Because of the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of a baby’s life. This is based on scientific evidence that show benefits for infant survival and proper growth and development.

Breast milk provides all the nutrients that infants need during the first 6 months of life. Exclusive breastfeeding may also reduce infant death caused by common childhood illnesses such as diarrhea and pneumonia, and hastens recovery during illness.

1. “Watch your baby and not the clock” is the advice to live by. Learn your baby’s feeding cues and feed early and often.

2. Your baby will eat 8 to 12 times every 24 hours.

3. Rest as much as you can. Sleep when the baby sleeps.

4. Milk production is regulated by supply and demand. The more you breastfeed, the more milk you will make.

• Sucking on tongue or lips during sleep

• Sucking on fingers

• Moving arms and hands toward mouth

• Fussing or fidgeting while sleeping

• Turning head from side to side

• Falls asleep

• Relaxes the body

• Opens fists

• Relaxes the forehead

• Lets go of the nipple