Preppers Guide to Child Birth After SHTF

Preppers’ Guide to Child Birth after SHTF by Administrator Ryan

This article is in response to a request made by Laura, a visitor of our site who had read Prepare for an Airborne Ebola Outbreak in America who had concerns about the impending birth of her child. Apparently there’s scarce information available in the prepper community for expecting mothers. While I’m no OBGYN (or even a board certified doctor for that matter), I will attempt to write a proper preppers’ guide to childbirth after SHTF.

In this prepper guide we will review child birthing after SHTF. Here’s the scenario, a viral outbreak has forced you and your wife to shelter in place, your wife is thirty-four weeks pregnant, and expected to pop in just a few weeks. All major broadcasts are saying the same thing, at best you’ll be sheltering in place for at least another six weeks, maybe longer. So what the hell are you about to do about your bouncing ball of joy? Since this is the one problem duct tape won’t fix, you had better prepare. Prepping Birth Control

Before going into prepping to deliver, we are going to discuss birth control. Am I saying we should stop procreating? Absolutely not. However, we shouldn’t bring another life in the world while its burning. Try to keep your hormones under control until we can start rebuilding. That being said we’ll have to practice safe sex.

 prophylactics – I can’t begin to stress the importance of condoms. Condoms have many uses such as; water container, sling shot, keeping fire tinder dry (while being very flammable), the bow part of a bush-crafted bow, as a rubber glove, fishing bobbed, protecting the muzzle of your rifle. Long story short, condoms have many uses aside from keeping your little soldiers from getting to your lady’s eggs. So make sure you buy these in bulk on Amazon who sells them in 32 packs.  female contraceptives – if you’re over 16 years old, sexually active, and don’t want children – you should be on birth control. There are many forms of birth control available for women; IUD, Nuvaring, Depo Provera and etc. For prepping purposes you should pick the birth control that is the easiest to use after SHTF with the longest shelf life. The pill has a shelf life of four years and is easy to procure through free clinics and other health care providers.  natural female contraceptives – there are very few natural female contraceptives aside from magnesium supplements and monitoring fertility levels. However if you run out of the more reliable stuff you can always give it a try. To monitor your LH and estrogen estrogen levels you can buy a fertility monitor.

Prepping for Birth

Lets be realistic, when the shit hits the fan many women will most likely be forced to give birth while sheltering in place, or at their bug out locations. How many of these women are prepared for this possibility? I’m doubtful many are.

Are you prepared? No? Well don’t freak out! Even if you don’t prep you are more than equipped with all the tools you need. Since the dawn of humanity women have been giving birth with no assistance whatsoever (however death rates were a little higher then). That being said you should still prepare yourself for all contingencies; nuclear, biological, chemical, and natural disasters. First, I’ll list some items you should stock up on and explain their purpose afterwards;

 red cross infant medical kit  bottle set with cleaning utensils  infant resuscitation kit  sterile bassinet  infant formula  folic acid supplements  maternity pads  urinalysis test strips  natural birth medication  dermocleanse  birth-heal  diapers  guide to natural birth Prepping for Birth in a Viral Pandemic

Before the shit hits the fan a room in your home should be designated as a delivery room. If you intend on having a water birth you’ll want this to be your bathroom. Should any members of the family be infected or possibly infected they should have already been quarantined at this point.

In your ‘delivery room‘ birth-heal should be stored which will aid in the mother’s healing. Maternity pads should be stored to be used during labor to adsorb blood, feces, placenta, and etc. Dermocleanse should be used to clean the infant after delivery and throughout its time in the clean room. Natural birth medication is no where near as effective as an epidural shot but its better than nothing.

Create a Clean Room

A separate room should be designated for the infant after delivery. Using the sterile bassinet, clear plastic sheeting, and duct tape – create a 6′ x 6′ clean room for your infant ensuring its properly sealed with an oxygen tank reservoir. Cut two holes 2′ apart 4″ in diameter with two NBC gloves inserted through the holes, and sealed with fast drying epoxy or duct tape.

Inside the infant clean room you should store; bottles, bottle warmer, diapers, baby wipes, medical kit, swaddling blankets, hygiene kit, and formula. You may have moral objections to formula feeding your child, but if the mother is exposed to the household her milk has been compromised and should not be given to the infant. Urinalysis test strips can be used to monitor the health of the infant throughout its stay in the clean room and should the infants oxygen levels get too low you can use the resuscitator until O2 levels normalize.

Birth after SHTF

When it comes to delivering your child with no assistance from medical professionals I won’t pretend to know what to do. When my wife (now x-wife) had our second daughter, we had waited too long to get to the hospital, there was no time for an epidural, and my wife was forced to have our second born naturally. Half way through labor I was convinced I had married a woman possessed by Abalam about to give birth to the second level of hell. She screamed, cursed in foreign languages, and damn near levitated off the bed.

Reality is there’s plenty of natural birthing articles and guides available online. Ordering a hard copy guide to childbirth and keeping it close by would be a good idea.

What I will tell you is anyone who could possibly be infected or contaminated due to an NBC event should not assist with the delivery. All waste from the birth should be discarded in bio-hazard bags. The infant should have no direct contact with any member of the family if the possibility of contamination exists.