hey everybody its Alice here again with the big wheel of birth so the big wheel
of birth is it's kind of like a game show and in childbirth education class came
together and we're doing little nuggets of childbirth education really based on
what the spin of the wheel does what else are we ready to spend I think so okay let's do it
awesome okay so today was number nine and let me bring it to the camera and get a little look is a
basement so the Faceman has to do with the cervix so the cervix when we talk about the cervix a lot
of times you'll hear people talk about dilation of the surface cervix so that is the opening
how how open is the cervix and the cervix is the bottom of the uterus so uterus holds the baby at
the bottom and the cervix and thankfully for us during pregnancy if everything's going normally
the cervix is nice and closed and it's also thick so it's almost like a turtleneck sweater if you
thought of a turtleneck sweater upside down or turtleneck shirt with a really tight neck so
it's thick and imagine that turtleneck closed up so the other thing about the cervix is it's also
pointed backwards kind of tilted backwards in our body so when we talk about changes in labor
a lot of times dilation gets the bit gets all the the airtime we talk about you know how many
centimeters dilated but just as important is this word which is a basement so a basement is
the thinning of the cervix so as the cervix opens it also thins out and it is just as important as
dilation now when while dilation is measured in centimeters Faceman is measured in percentages so
if the if your cervix is not have faced at all at 0% 0% of face have not faced at all
and when it's always thinned out it's a hundred percent so before before you start pushing your
cervix should be very thin 100% and then also will dilate - so the good thing to know about
a Faceman is that sometimes you can make change in your face minh tweye you don't change in your
dilation so it's nice if you're getting a cervical exam to find out what your effacement is ask your
care provider what is a Faceman if they only tell you dilation so a Faceman is an important
number to let you know what's going on with your cervix and labor it goes from 100 0 percent to a
hundred percent when it's totally thinned out the other thing to know is that a lot of times
a cervix has to a face before it really starts dilating so sometimes we'll see progress in the
effacement before we see progress in dilation and it's not uncommon for people in the last few weeks
or days of pregnancy before labor starts to see some Faceman happen in our cervix before labor
really gets going so effacement is the word of the day from the big wheel of birth if you
are looking for more information please check out supporting her calm it is a great online
course for partners blogs with different topics kind of like this and if you have any questions
about a placement let me know in the comments below and I'm happy answer have a great day