Did anyone use olive oil on the perineum to stop tearing or needing cut?
I took a Hypnobirthing class, and they talked about this. The husband was supposed to do some perineal massage with olive oil. My husband tried to pretend he hadn’t heard them talk about it, he didn’t want to do it. (Of course they only talked about it in class, you do it at home.) Anyway, in my personal experience, had an episiotomy with my first, and didn’t tear or need an episiotomy with my second. Now, maybe the first birth kind of stretched everything out, but I think there were two things that made the difference. First, was with my first, my body just wasn’t quite ready to give birth, my water broke at 37 weeks and I wasn’t dilated or effaced, and wasn’t having contractions, so it was basically a pitocin-induced labor. Then with my second, they induced labor at a couple days past my due date because of toxemia, so even though both labors were induced with pitocin, my body was more ready the second time. The second thing was the hypnobirthing class. I felt much more relaxed about
