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Facility Name: Swedish
Advice from: Labor Doula
Advice Date: May 2004
The fact is that many of you reading this will deliver at Swedish--most women in Seattle do. With Swedish it is all
dependant on the nurse you get. Your doctor won't come until it is time to push which leaves you in the hands of
your assigned nurse for many hours! Know that if the nurse you get isn't working with you to get the type of birth
you want you can send your partner to the nurses' desk, ask for the charge nurse and tell her that mom is having
a personality conflict with her and would like another now. Don't Be Shy about this! It will make a huge
difference!! You can ask ahead of time for a nurse who likes to work with unmedicated births. There are several
there who will be thrilled to help you. The rooms are roomy and they have plenty of birth balls and mats for the
floor and lots of room in the bathroom to work. They have a huge shortage of pillows so bring a bunch of your own
if you're trying to go without meds--you'll use them! They like to monitor with the EFM constantly so you should be
sure to say that unless something is wrong you want them to use the EFM for the minimum amount of time
required. The biggest thing about Swedish is that they closely follow the Friedman Curve which says that mom
needs to progress about a cm per hour--something which stems from a place so deeply embedded in nature rarely
holds to a something which is superimposed onto it so exactly like a time schedule and you will experience more
and more interventions the longer you are there...best advice is to labor at home for a really long time, show up
when you feel hot with labor and are super active, keep vaginal exams to a minimum and always ask what your
options are for every option they give you.
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