Hope you, as a pregnant woman or expectant father-to-be will agree with this. No woman is never pregnant forever and aren’t you glad of that. Yes, unfortunately, some pregnancies end with a miscarriage and some pregnant women choose to have an abortion. The operative part of the title of this post is actually ‘one way or another.’
You are unique. Your life is full of your life. No one is the same. Everyone is different. Is that accurate? Not exactly although our modern society is ‘choice-based’. You hear it all the time and when you shop you are flooded with choices. You hear ‘you should have a choice, shouldn’t you?’ Choice, choice, choice … what baby stroller, what birth provider, where you birth … so many choices. But choice and individuality is not the whole picture.
Don’t all humans blink, cough, have one head, breathe in our nose and put food in our mouth? In fact, we have much more in common than differences. During pregnancy, no woman stores her baby behind her shoulder blades. In birth, no pregnant woman gives birth out her big toe. Every pregnant woman carries her baby inside her body and inside her uterus no matter who she is or who you are! You and every pregnant woman in the whole wide world is having the same things happen to her during pregnancy.
Birth has changed
There are now two ways to give birth: surgical delivery (a very new invention) and out from ‘down there’ (the historic way). Birth has changed. Around the world, there are still millions of pregnant women who have no access to surgical Cesareans. This means all pregnant women who labor and have a vaginal birth all have contractions … bar none. Labor contractions might be very painful or not but every woman who labors will have contractions and eventually the baby will move down, through and out the vagina. We share a commonality more fundamental than our individuality. How we raise our baby is our individuality but pregnancy and birth are our commonalities.
Whichever way you give birth, your body is preparing for birth from 24 weeks onward. Doesn’t it make incredible common sense that we prepare our pregnant body for birth and learn good birthing skills? Well, this should make commonsense. There are two reasons.
First, you can totally enjoy preparing for birth. It doesn’t happen frequently and it’s such a special time. Enjoy, enjoy and enjoy. This also brings you closer to your baby and partner and brings your partner closer to your pregnancy. What’s neat is that men have the same body so it’s easy for him to help you prepare your body for birth.
Secondly, birth is such an important and big event in life that you really should be working with your baby’s efforts during the birth whether it’s the new or historic way. Birth is birth.
Birth is full of excitement
Birth is a process for both the woman and the baby. At first, the woman provides a space for the baby to grow and then the baby is working to come out of the woman’s body and the woman’s body is responding to the baby’s work.
This is a wonderful time to use birth skills such as Directed Breathing, the Pelvic Clock or Deep Touch Relaxation. When these skills are learned by you and your partner, you work together as a family which is about to become a larger family. Enjoy your time together. You can use your birth skills and side by side coaching skills at every moment of each contraction or during the surgery and recovery if you have a cesarean delivery.
By using your birth skills you get to impress in your memory what you have done for yourself in whatever birth you have. The birth memories you create have less to do with what happens to you than what you do for yourself. We can embrace what we share as human beings which is very neat. This means we can appreciate our uniqueness and yet feel connected to the backward and forward longevity of our species.
When you use your birth skills you will have a positive birth experience. You’ll feel competent, capable and confident about your role in the birth of your baby. That’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling no one can take away from you.
All Birthing Better online birth classes full of great skills have been developed by hundreds of fathers and mothers and housed in Common Knowledge Trust.