hey guys Alice Turner here we haven't met in real life I am a doula a childbirth educator
and I set up the big wheel of birth in order to do some little nuggets of childbirth education
on different topics and I'm gonna spend and see what we are going to talk about today okay today
we're talking about station station now if you are excited to find out about station hit that
like button and let me know that you are watching and excited to find out about what station means
now I have my props right out of camera frame right here and for talking about station we're
gonna need to be pelvis and we're going to need the baby okay so station is a measurement that is
done to a set or to quantify where the baby is in relation to the pelvis so before the baby's
head is engaged in the pelvis or the baby drops you might have heard has your baby dropped that
means the baby's head engages into the pelvis so drops into the pelvis see how the baby's in
the pelvis right now before that happens the baby is just floating and that is a negative three you
might hear negative four negative three negative four station so negative three station up here as
the baby drops down into the pelvis then we're gonna go towards zero so negative 3 negative 2
negative 1 as the baby is halfway through the pelvis right at the part of the ischial spines
that is a zero station and then as the baby passes through that midway point then we start to our
positives and we eventually get to a positive 4 station plus 4 and that is baby out of the pelvis
okay so maybe all the way through I'm not going to put anything about this right now because on
video that looks it looks so awkward because this pelvis doesn't have any joints and doesn't move so
it's a little bit harder to get this baby through gracefully so the station has to do with how far
the baby drops down through the pelvis so we've got negative numbers zero right at the middle
positive numbers for our station now you might be wondering I remember when I learned about this I
was wondering law how do they know how can they figure out if the baby what station the baby is
in so this is another number that they can find give you assessment they can be made during a
vaginal exam so during the vaginal exam which I will we have a video on that that I will put a
link down below the dilation the opening of the cervix is assess the thinning the effacement is
assessed and the station is assessed so as the your provider does the cervical exam they can
feel how low down that baby is if they touch the baby's head and it floats up well the baby's head
is not engaged in the pelvis yet so they can tell where at what station baby is that and again it's
it's not an exact science it's really done by feel and by experience of that provider as they
do more and more vaginal exams then they get a feel of what each station feels like but they
can tell how far down the baby is and a lot of times before it is time to push we see baby up
in the negative 1 negative 2 range and then a lot of times we see pushing start right about
neck anywhere from negative 1 0+1 kind of station when pushing begins and it kind of depends on that
what the cervix is doing whether the provider if it's time to push if you have an epidural and you
don't have a strong urge to push and you might be dilated your provider might recommend waiting
a bit until the baby comes a little bit lower station before active pushing is done so that
that kind of depends on your preference and your providers preference and what they think is best
but sometimes if if with an epidural you might wait until a lower station before the active
pushing is done so zero station is right there at the midline now it's interesting number I thing to
know as a as someone in labor because sometimes we can see lots of contractions happen without
a lot of change in dilation or Faceman but where we'll see change in station so every time you do
get a vaginal exam or you make the option to go ahead with the vaginal exam you I would ask what
station is my baby or how low is my baby because if you are saying the same dilation between your
first cervical check vaginal exam and your second vaginal exam if your dilation is the same but your
sir your baby has dropped lower in station then it's a good feeling that progress has happened
so it's just another number to show us how much closer we are to the birth of the baby and how
low the baby is in our pelvis so station is not talked about as much as dilation or effacement
but it is a supe super helpful number to know and very interesting so I encourage you to ask that
when you get a vaginal exam and find out how all your baby is and how baby's progressing so again
I will have links below to related videos that we that relate to station also we have 50 videos
so far on from the big wheel of birth and to make them easier to navigate we've organized them all
into a free course so you can get into that course it's called birth a-to-z I'll put a link below
and you can get in there and get access to all of the videos and they're organized by sections like
coping measures or how to deal with contractions anatomy and physiology which is where this one the
station video is going to go wouldn't we load it up there and also how to prepare for labor
so different sections check it out birthatoz.com and I always love comments about the video so I
encourage you to leave a comment below let me know what you're thinking about this video or
any of the big wheel of birth videos thanks for hanging with me today guys see you next time bye