What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of the Leboyer Method?
The advantages of the Leboyer method include a soft delivery that allows the father’s participation, avoidance of pulling the baby’s head, improved mother-to-child bonding, and reduced stress and trauma for the baby. The disadvantages include unsuitability for complicated deliveries, too much pain during delivery, and a longer recovery time for the mother.
The Leboyer method of giving birth is considered a psychological method of delivery that aims at reducing the trauma during birth and safely introducing the baby to the environment outside the womb. The approach has major benefits including a gentle, supervised delivery in a quiet, dim room, an ideal environment for the mother and baby to bond and avoidance of too much stimulation of the child’s sensorium.
Unnecessary interference in the process of giving birth is avoided. After birth, the child is laid gently on the mother’s abdomen. The mother’s back is then massaged while the cord stops its pulsating activity. After unprompted respirations are achieved, the baby is placed gently on a warm water tub by the father. Most birth obstetric services and birth centers have advocated the Leboyer method. Alhough the method is advantageous, it does have a few shortcomings, among them a painfuld delivery and longer recovery period for the mother.
