Embracing Your Labor: Creating a Nurturing Birth Environment
For many women, labor is the most powerful experience of their lives. Women have described it as the hardest, most intense work they've ever done. There are many things you can do to prepare to meet this challenge.
Surroundings and People
You will feel comfortable and safe with familiar people around you and be better able to relax. Women give birth at home where they are comfortable and free to be themselves. Freestanding birth centers are usually like homes; you can cook your own food, use the living room, and spend time with your children and friends. The presence of others — their reassuring touch, advice and actions, and loving support — provides comfort and strength and makes you happy and confident. You need to surround yourself with people with whom you are comfortable and who are comfortable with you.
The pain was like a hurricane shaking me apart. I yelled a lot and walked around and took showers. I remember looking at Paul and thinking,"What are you so happy about?" This is terrible. Yet I know that the grin on his face sustained me. I needed his touch and his joy, and I needed — very differently — the midwife's words and knowledge and reassurance.
Choose support people who can understand what you want and don't want and whose feelings won't be hurt if you are irritable or demanding or if you need to ask them to leave. Choose people who will listen to you and focus on your needs.
Simple, Effective Ways to Help with the Pain and Intensity of Labor:
Breathing
You already know how to breathe; don't stop! Deep breathing can help you to relax and to get inside your labor and help you stay focused. Imagine your breath carrying oxygen to every part of your body; breathe in whatever way is comfortable. Open your mouth and throat. Smile. Laugh. Sing if it feels good.
I found my own way of breathing. I knew I had to relax into the powerful contractions I was feeling. My midwife suggested I soften around the intensity, the powerful work centered on my womb.
Some women may use the breathing they've practiced and become too controlled, too tense.
One woman was using rigid labor breathing patterns she had learned in a childbirth class. She was tight, exhausted. I said, "You don't have to do that." "What will I do then?" "Just relax and see what happens." She began to relax. When she let go of trying to keep her control, her energy started to flow with the rhythm of her contractions. Over the next few hours she started doing little sighs that became moans at the end. On the floor, kneeling, she breathed into her husband's lap and rocked her pelvis. He started to breathe and rock with her.
Endorphins
You may feel exhilarated during labor, mellow and peaceful between contractions, especially, when your labor is progressing naturally without interventions and outside interruptions. Your body produces its own substances for pain relief, called endorphins. They actually block pain reception. High levels have been found in the placentas of animals and humans after birth. Fear causes you to secrete adrenaline, which tenses you up, slows your labor, and makes it more painful. This inhibits the secretion of endorphins. By relaxing, you enable endorphins to flow again. They don't make labor painless for most women, but they make it bearable, particularly if empathetic and supportive attendants surround a woman.
Activity
Change position; move around. Positions in which you are upright, as when walking or rocking, can help you relax, alleviate pain, and make contractions work more effectively. Being on hands and knees also helps, especially when you have back labor. You can rock back and forth, dance slowly and rhythmically and move in ways you'd never dream you'd move.
Nourishment
When you drink and eat light foods during labor, you keep up your strength and blood sugar level and are able to ride the contractions. Even when you don't feel like eating you will be able to sip juices and tea with honey. Drink, and remember to pee often.
Birth is a time of great energy: no one should be expected to run a marathon or swim the English channel deprived of sustenance and unable to continue to nourish herself from time to time.
Expressing Emotions
Women in labor can run the gamut of emotions; so much is happening in your body and birth is such a transition for you as well as your baby. You need to be free to feel what you are feeling and free to express these feelings. While some women need to retreat within during labor, some find that expressing strong emotions in the moment — anger, fear, pain helps. Groaning, grunting, shouting, moaning, laughing, singing, chanting loosens them up.
Enjoying Water
Baths and showers can relax and soothe us during labor. Some women stay in the shower for hours. When tub water is shallow, someone can pour warm water over your belly during contractions. When the water is deep, your uterus will be lifted up and away from your body, which can reduce the intensity of contractions, especially when felt in the back. Lying mostly underwater you can float slightly and relax deeply.
Receiving Assistance
Physical support, touch, massage, and holding. Ask your partner, friend, birth attendant or nurse to help you when you squat, stand or kneel; to lean against you; hold you under your arms; let you hang from his/her shoulders; hold you however you want to be held. "Drink in" touch and massage if this is what you need. Companionship and/or contact can make you feel at ease, sustained and loved. You, like many other women, may not want to be touched at all. You may feel supported simply by the presence of others. Your partner or attendant may know exactly what to do without being asked. Or s/he may not. If the touch doesn't feel right, speak up.
I asked my two friends to massage deeply and hard, putting a lot of pressure on my lower back muscles to counter all that force. I liked feeling their hands supporting my belly at the same time.
Imagining
In South India, birth attendants place a flower near the laboring woman; as its petals unfold, her cervix opens and when the flower is in full bloom, they know it is time to push. Opening is a ceremony, a celebration. Imagine being in a place you love the best, where you are most happy. Imagine you are a flower opening, light exploding. Think ever-widening circles, ripples formed by raindrops on a pond. Open your mind to images. Imagine your baby hugged by your uterus, pushing down, opening you, ready to be born. Say to yourself, I feel my muscles letting go; my cervix stretching, opening, open ... open ... OPEN." A woman, in labor after two previous c-sections, dreamed of a donut hole that kept getting bigger and bigger. When she woke her baby was moving down and she was already pushing.
These are all ways that help you cope with the intense sensations of labor.
A Word to Family and Friends
Be present. Be quiet. Be in tune. Focus your attention on the laboring woman. Be joyful, encouraging, positive, uplifting. Be calm. Don't communicate anxiety or fear. Don't focus on time. Leave the room if you feel uncomfortable. Don't expect a laboring woman to be stoic or polite or patient with you. She may not want you to touch her at all or she may not want you to stop, even for a second. If she tells you to go away, don't take it personally. Allow her space to be alone, if that is what she needs. Don't feel sorry for her; show your belief in her strength. If she says, "I can't do this," tell her she can. She is doing it. Change what's happening. Make it better. Suggest a walk, a shower, a bath, or a change of position. Help her concentrate and keep focused on the present. Hold her, sing, chant, laugh, moan, rock with her, is she wants you to. Breathe along with her, if this helps. Provide hot compresses, cool cloths or a hand fan. Let her lean against/on you.
Surroundings and People
You will feel comfortable and safe with familiar people around you and be better able to relax. Women give birth at home where they are comfortable and free to be themselves. Freestanding birth centers are usually like homes; you can cook your own food, use the living room, and spend time with your children and friends. The presence of others — their reassuring touch, advice and actions, and loving support — provides comfort and strength and makes you happy and confident. You need to surround yourself with people with whom you are comfortable and who are comfortable with you.
The pain was like a hurricane shaking me apart. I yelled a lot and walked around and took showers. I remember looking at Paul and thinking,"What are you so happy about?" This is terrible. Yet I know that the grin on his face sustained me. I needed his touch and his joy, and I needed — very differently — the midwife's words and knowledge and reassurance.
Choose support people who can understand what you want and don't want and whose feelings won't be hurt if you are irritable or demanding or if you need to ask them to leave. Choose people who will listen to you and focus on your needs.
Simple, Effective Ways to Help with the Pain and Intensity of Labor:
Breathing
You already know how to breathe; don't stop! Deep breathing can help you to relax and to get inside your labor and help you stay focused. Imagine your breath carrying oxygen to every part of your body; breathe in whatever way is comfortable. Open your mouth and throat. Smile. Laugh. Sing if it feels good.
I found my own way of breathing. I knew I had to relax into the powerful contractions I was feeling. My midwife suggested I soften around the intensity, the powerful work centered on my womb.
Some women may use the breathing they've practiced and become too controlled, too tense.
One woman was using rigid labor breathing patterns she had learned in a childbirth class. She was tight, exhausted. I said, "You don't have to do that." "What will I do then?" "Just relax and see what happens." She began to relax. When she let go of trying to keep her control, her energy started to flow with the rhythm of her contractions. Over the next few hours she started doing little sighs that became moans at the end. On the floor, kneeling, she breathed into her husband's lap and rocked her pelvis. He started to breathe and rock with her.
Endorphins
You may feel exhilarated during labor, mellow and peaceful between contractions, especially, when your labor is progressing naturally without interventions and outside interruptions. Your body produces its own substances for pain relief, called endorphins. They actually block pain reception. High levels have been found in the placentas of animals and humans after birth. Fear causes you to secrete adrenaline, which tenses you up, slows your labor, and makes it more painful. This inhibits the secretion of endorphins. By relaxing, you enable endorphins to flow again. They don't make labor painless for most women, but they make it bearable, particularly if empathetic and supportive attendants surround a woman.
Activity
Change position; move around. Positions in which you are upright, as when walking or rocking, can help you relax, alleviate pain, and make contractions work more effectively. Being on hands and knees also helps, especially when you have back labor. You can rock back and forth, dance slowly and rhythmically and move in ways you'd never dream you'd move.
Nourishment
When you drink and eat light foods during labor, you keep up your strength and blood sugar level and are able to ride the contractions. Even when you don't feel like eating you will be able to sip juices and tea with honey. Drink, and remember to pee often.
Birth is a time of great energy: no one should be expected to run a marathon or swim the English channel deprived of sustenance and unable to continue to nourish herself from time to time.
Expressing Emotions
Women in labor can run the gamut of emotions; so much is happening in your body and birth is such a transition for you as well as your baby. You need to be free to feel what you are feeling and free to express these feelings. While some women need to retreat within during labor, some find that expressing strong emotions in the moment — anger, fear, pain helps. Groaning, grunting, shouting, moaning, laughing, singing, chanting loosens them up.
Enjoying Water
Baths and showers can relax and soothe us during labor. Some women stay in the shower for hours. When tub water is shallow, someone can pour warm water over your belly during contractions. When the water is deep, your uterus will be lifted up and away from your body, which can reduce the intensity of contractions, especially when felt in the back. Lying mostly underwater you can float slightly and relax deeply.
Receiving Assistance
Physical support, touch, massage, and holding. Ask your partner, friend, birth attendant or nurse to help you when you squat, stand or kneel; to lean against you; hold you under your arms; let you hang from his/her shoulders; hold you however you want to be held. "Drink in" touch and massage if this is what you need. Companionship and/or contact can make you feel at ease, sustained and loved. You, like many other women, may not want to be touched at all. You may feel supported simply by the presence of others. Your partner or attendant may know exactly what to do without being asked. Or s/he may not. If the touch doesn't feel right, speak up.
I asked my two friends to massage deeply and hard, putting a lot of pressure on my lower back muscles to counter all that force. I liked feeling their hands supporting my belly at the same time.
Imagining
In South India, birth attendants place a flower near the laboring woman; as its petals unfold, her cervix opens and when the flower is in full bloom, they know it is time to push. Opening is a ceremony, a celebration. Imagine being in a place you love the best, where you are most happy. Imagine you are a flower opening, light exploding. Think ever-widening circles, ripples formed by raindrops on a pond. Open your mind to images. Imagine your baby hugged by your uterus, pushing down, opening you, ready to be born. Say to yourself, I feel my muscles letting go; my cervix stretching, opening, open ... open ... OPEN." A woman, in labor after two previous c-sections, dreamed of a donut hole that kept getting bigger and bigger. When she woke her baby was moving down and she was already pushing.
These are all ways that help you cope with the intense sensations of labor.
A Word to Family and Friends
Be present. Be quiet. Be in tune. Focus your attention on the laboring woman. Be joyful, encouraging, positive, uplifting. Be calm. Don't communicate anxiety or fear. Don't focus on time. Leave the room if you feel uncomfortable. Don't expect a laboring woman to be stoic or polite or patient with you. She may not want you to touch her at all or she may not want you to stop, even for a second. If she tells you to go away, don't take it personally. Allow her space to be alone, if that is what she needs. Don't feel sorry for her; show your belief in her strength. If she says, "I can't do this," tell her she can. She is doing it. Change what's happening. Make it better. Suggest a walk, a shower, a bath, or a change of position. Help her concentrate and keep focused on the present. Hold her, sing, chant, laugh, moan, rock with her, is she wants you to. Breathe along with her, if this helps. Provide hot compresses, cool cloths or a hand fan. Let her lean against/on you.
