by Sweety (Chandigarh)
There is a big fear in my mind that I can't give birth to a baby due to my small size. I am 29yo and married three months ago, but I look closer to 20yo – I am very petite. My weight is approximately 45kg.
I don't have any desire to get pregnant, I can't even think about getting pregnant. Every day and every time I do think about it I just wonder if it's possible for me to give birth.
Am I too small to give birth vaginally? This has become a very big ISSUE for me, and I don't want to discuss this with my elders. Please give advice.
Answer:
Hi Sweety,
You're in luck – most women can give birth vaginally, no matter what their size!
There are tiny women all over the world who give birth naturally and easily. With my first baby I weighed only around 49kg and I had her naturally. She was a good size, too – around 3.6kg!
Aside from my personal experience there are many, many petite or “tiny” women who give birth naturally.
Your body is designed to give birth. One of the wonderful things about pregnancy is all the hormones that are in your body while you are pregnant. These hormones cause many things to happen.
One special one is called relaxin – and it causes all of your joint cartilage to get softer. Your pelvis is not one solid bone. There is cartilage between many parts of it, and this gets softer so that your pelvis actually opens up more when your baby's time to be born arrives.
Your baby is also very good at getting out of the pelvis. The bones in a baby's skull are not all connected together during pregnancy. While your baby is being born, these bones can slide over each other to make the baby's head smaller to fit through your pelvis. After birth the bones will move back very quickly and they will begin to connect as your baby grows up.
If you take care to eat good foods during pregnancy and be as healthy as you can, you can have a good birth. Even if you're petite you'll be able to give birth to good sized babies.
I have had all my babies naturally – 3.6kg daughter, 3.5kg son, 3.9kg son (!), and a 3.7kg son.
I took special care to eat good foods, and I exercised throughout my pregnancy. I also learned a lot about giving birth. You can do these things, too. Read this article to learn more about how birth works:
There are also positions you can use during birth to make your pelvis bigger – being on your hands and knees or squatting can help very much. Standing up and having someone squatting to catch the baby can work very well for a small mother too.
You can give birth to a baby, even though you are small!
I've put my visualization and journaling exercises on letting go of fear together in an easy-to-use workbook. Discover more about how Fearless Birth can help you:
