All parents expecting a child, dream of experiencing a positive birth. However, many women, especially first time mums, have the impression that there is one way to go through pregnancy and birth. Television, film and media often present one image of a normal birth.
The NHS also have a very structured approach to guiding women through pregnancy and birth. While this does offer some options and is based on what they believe is best for most people, it can be a bit one size fits all and can leave out many possibilities that could actually give you the perfect experience when bringing your children into the world.
As well as taking these things on board and listening to your healthcare professionals, there are many other resources you can use to make sure you get what is right for you and your family.
There are no hard and fast rules but hopefully some of these will help you achieve the positive and empowering birth we all dream of!
Be Informed.
Knowing what options you have for YOUR birth can be all important. It’s absolutely fine to go with the advice your health care professional says is best as long as you know your options.
NICE ( The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guidelines are a great place to start. Their guidelines are given across all healthcare fields, working with the latest studies and research to develop quality standards and provide a range of evidenced based information for practitioners.
Knowing it’s up to you and being able to make an informed choice can make such a difference with how empowered you feel before, during and after your birth, even when things don’t go exactly according to plan. Your body, your choice.
Know Your Body and What to Expect.
Another way to plan for a positive birth experience is to learn exactly what to expect and what a normal physiological birth can actually look and feel like.
This can include how many women experience a long ‘latent’ phase. This is the bit at the beginning, sometimes days before ‘active’ labour happens and you finally meet your bundle of joy. The bit that can take days and start and stop. The bit that we are advised to stay at home for (if we are planning to go into a birth centre or hospital).
It can also look like a very quick birth which can happen with very little warning, where we don’t even manage to fill the pool we’d been hoping to birth in.
It can look like an elective Cesarean birth. Chosen because you know your body best and know that’s how you will cope best.
It can even look like a unmedicated vaginal breech birth.
With experienced and trusted attendants, all these and so many more are all variants on normal births. Knowing all the different ways your body can birth can help you to manage your expectations and increase the chances for a positive experience.
Knowing the specifics of exactly how the body works during labour can be very useful too.
Understanding the impact of Oxytocin, the love hormone, and Cortisol, the stress hormone, can have on labour can help set you at ease. Our hormonal reactions to our environment can have a direct impact on how we birth.
This can be things like the type and brightness of the lighting while you transition to the birthing space and how relaxing the sounds around you are.
Have you chosen the music being played or others chatting over you about unrelated matters?
Both of these things and others can really affect our hormone levels. We need intimacy, safety and privacy to elevate our oxytocin levels and lower cortisol response.
Take a Class or Two.
One thing I hear over and over relates to learning ways to cope with birth, effective ways to cope with the different things that come up during birth.
There are a range of different birth preparation classes available in Portsmouth and the surrounding areas from or Daisy Birthing Classes, to hypnobirthing classes, to yoga based birthing preparation.
If you are not local to Portsmouth, searching for birth preparation classes, looking at your local NCT chapter or asking your local mums group on Facebook can bring a wealth and variety of information.
Your midwife or other health care professional may also have come across classes or courses locally.
Surround Yourself with Positive People.
When you plan for labour, plan to have people who will be positive influences on your experience.
In most birth centres and hospitals you are permitted to have 2 birthing partners with you. Most mamas to be choose to have their partner in with them but don’t always realise they can have someone else too. The picking of people can have a big effect on how relaxed you feel in your birth environment which in turn can have a positive influence on your hormones and therefore the progression of your birth.
This can be a very useful way of avoiding interventions if that is something you want to do as hormones play a leading roll in all manner of physical aspects of birth such as dilation.
The flip side of this is knowing who isn’t going to cause the opposite hormones to flood your system which can cause labour to slow. So if you know your mum will sit and worry and ask you why you don’t want to try all the pain meds but BFF is cool, calm and collected and will tell you how amazing you are then always go for the person making you feel strong!
Read Positive Birth Stories of ALL types.
Sometimes birth goes exactly to plan. This is wonderful.
Sometimes unpredictable things happen and birth can go down an unexpected path. This doesn’t have to mean you lose the positive experience.
Before birth, reading positive stories of all different kinds of birth from unplanned unassisted homebirths to emergency Cesarean births can help put your mind at ease if things do go off plan.
Tell me a good birth story is a wonderful online resource for reading and sharing positive stories. The other thing to look for is your local Positive Birth Movement group (often to be found on Facebook). These groups often have active Facebook pages that are filled with different types of birth professionals and other mums sharing information, wisdom and support. They also often have regular meet ups which can be incredibly helpful and friendly.
Our local Positive Birth Movement group can be found here. If you are not local to Portsmouth, this is a great place to start
Reading about birth from a positive woman-centred approach can be a big plus too. Some of us can’t bear the thought of knowing what is going to happen because we have been taught to fear it. To prepare for vulnerability and pain. While birth is undoubtedly hard, physical work, it doesn’t have to be the torturous the media and TV would have us believe.
Remember, calm births don’t make for very good drama!
Try reading something like Ina May Gaskins’ Guide to Childbirth, Grantly Dick Read’s Childbirth Without Fear or Becky Reed’s Birth in Focus.
Knowledge is power, remember!
Hire a Birth Doula or Advocate.
Sometimes we have very particular ideas about the care we receive. This could be for many reasons; religion, previous birth trauma or just a simple desire to do things in a particular way.
These things can be achieved by being able to stand your ground and listening to your body and understanding your circumstances. Or you can get your birthing partners to do these things for you. A good thing to remember is B.R.A.I.N.
B- Benefits, what are the benefits to doing this procedure?
R- Risks; What are the risks involved in doing this procedure?
A- Alternatives; What are the alternatives?
I- Intuition; Can I see the sense in this procedure? What is my gut telling me?
N- Nothing; What happens if we wait or do nothing?
However, sometimes we feel too vulnerable or in the moment to fully advocate for ourselves.
We also might want our supporting people to be free to do exactly that; support us. This is one of the many ways a birth doula or advocate can support you. And believe me, many birthing women will profess they are worth their weight in gold. They are professionals with much experience in different births how are there to support you and your choices.
Even if things go completely to plan it can still be incredibly empowering to know you have someone in your corner who understands the process of birth who can help and support you when you need it.
Stay Active.
During pregnancy there are lots and lots of pregnancy specific classes you can attend from antenatal aquarobics to pregnancy yoga . These can both help your body to prepare for birth but also surround you with other women who are all going through similar things to you which can really help to put you in a positive place for birth.
During birth, evidence suggests, that keeping upright and active can really help too. Of course you are not likely to want to go for a sprint, although you know your body best, so if you do, do it! But, by staying upright and doing things like squats and bouncing on a birthing ball can help get your baby into optimum position and help you labour progress.
While some women do find the comfiest position to be on their back, many, many women find allowing gravity to assist really helps. There is also evidence to suggest that your pelvic opening can increase by up to 30% while upright!
Positive Affirmations.
These words and phrases, which can be used throughout pregnancy and birth can help trigger feelings of positivity in birthing women. The idea is that our words and language can and do directly influence our emotions and outlook. It can help us see that we are in charge of our bodies and help us listen to what our bodies are telling us. To be in tune with ourselves as it were. It can help remind us of our strength while we feel vulnerable. Head over to Instagram and Pinterest for some ideas.
Address any Physical and Emotional Issues You Have.
Even when you’ve planned things to perfection and you try your best to be positive,to plan for a positive birth there may be things niggling away in the back of your mind.
Physical or emotional things can have a big influence on our whole outlook. These things could be worries, back pain or unresolved trauma. They can have a big impact even without us realising they do. Getting these worries and niggles seen to, whether that means getting a back massage or talking to an impartial therapist about a past trauma, can be very useful.
It’s certainly better to work out these issues before you go into one of the biggest, most intimate and life changing events of our lives so that you can have exactly the experience you deserve!
Don’t Pin All you Hopes on your EDD.
Your estimated day of delivery is exactly that. Estimated. However, in the excitement and build up to meeting this new wonderful human you’ve created, through the positive birth you’ve prepared, we can get a bit fixated on THAT day. Some figures put the percentage of births arriving on the due date as low as 5%!
It can be hard as the day approaches and you and all your well wishers want news and a lot o the time there is simply none to give…Yet. Don’t worry the day will be upon you before you even realise it!
A wise person once said, “The days are long, but the years are short.” And it’s truer than we believe!
and finally…
Hire a Birth Photographer!
OK so let’s be really honest here, hands up, it would be mad of me to write this list and not include hiring a birth photographer!
You’ve been to all the effort of making your birth positively, absolutely dreamy! You’ve told yourself positive affirmations until you feel like the superhero you are! You rock! You’ve had the back massage and done the weekly yoga.
Now, ask another mama how many details they remember about the business of actually giving birth. I bet they tell you its all a bit hazy. Well, worry not! Hiring a birth photographer can mean you have a tangible keepsake of your strongest, most superhero-ish moments to look back on for years and years to come!
And don’t just take my word for it, read this blog and this blog about how great it is from my mama’s themselves! I didn’t even have to bribe them ;0)
Was your birth experience positive? What are your top tips? We’d love to hear your experiences or if you offer services that can enhance someones birth experience please leave a comment on the form below! We can’t wait to hear from you!
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