way cool stuff

I get so jazzed when I pick up something new! Via Facebook I came across this post on how to check cervical dilation without an internal exam. Some of the information I knew already, but a few suggestions were new to me...like this:

...Think about the shape of the uterus. Before labor, the muscle of the uterus is thick evenly around all sides, above, below, behind. As the cervix starts thinning and dilating, all that muscle has to go somewhere – it bunches up at that top. The top of the uterus thickens dramatically the more the cervix opens. During a contraction, at the beginning of labor, check how many fingers you can fit between the fundus (top of your bump) and the bra line – you will be able to fit 5 fingers. As the top of the fundus rises higher during labor, you will fit fewer and fewer fingers. When you can fit 3 fingers, I usually tell mothers they can think about going into hospital as they will find they are around 5cm dilated. At 1 finger, you are fully dilated. (Awesome, huh!)...

check out the whole post/list HERE

I'll for sure be trying this out and encouraging my ladies to give it a go also.