How the baby's body adapts during descent

Question 1

What are the two oval regions of baby’s body?

Answer 1

1st the head
2nd the chest and shoulders (considered together)

Question 2

How do the regions work together?

Answer 2

Move in relationship to each other at the neck, which acts as a hinge, and throughout the length of the spine (which can twist from side to side and flex forward, backward and laterally)

Question 3

Fetal Pole

Answer 3

prefers to either end of the longitudinal axis of the baby’s body

Question 4

Why when the baby is cephalic can be positioned in a wide variety of ways

Answer 4

because the head is freely mobile from back to front and side to side on the neck

Question 5

How does the flexible cervical spine of the term infant allow the head to move

Answer 5

turn to either side at least 80 degrees easily

Question 6

How will the baby position their head to go through the birth canal

Answer 6

through the path of least resistant

Question 7

Why does the attitude of the head matter

Answer 7

presents the head in a more or less favorable set of diameters for birthing

Question 8

Diameter

Answer 8

A straight line connecting two opposite points across a plane of a spherical or cylindrical body

Question 9

Plane

Answer 9

imaginary flat surface that spans the object at the level of the diameter

Question 10

The diameter of the skull must be what to fit through the available space in the pelvis at all levels

Answer 10

small enough

Question 11

Why does the diameter usually change (for better or for worse) as descent advances

Answer 11

A diameter that fits through the pelvic brim may be too large to fit through a lower plane in the same pelvis as descent proceeds

Question 12

Flexion describes

Answer 12

how near the baby’s chin is to their chest

Question 13

When the head is ideally flexed

Answer 13

the chin is on or nearly on thee chest making the crown of the vertex the part of the head that leads the way through the pelvis

Question 14

How do the shoulders change as they pass through the curved portion of the pelvis beneath the pubic bone?

Answer 14

Tends to become compacted by either being depressed downward, flexing forward or hugging upwards.

Question 15

How does the shoulders move as descend through the pelvic floor

Answer 15

they may descent on an angle, may alter their position several times as they adapt to the shape of the birth canal.

Question 16

The shoulders move secondary to?

Answer 16

the movement of the head and then the chest.

Question 17

In a vertex presentation the long axis of the fetal pelvis follows the movement of

Answer 17

the torso as the spine changes position to negotiate the birth canal