33 weeks pregnant is just another week closer to your birth. Over the next few weeks, your baby will put on weight very quickly. Both Baby Center and What To Expect have good posts about your body and your baby.
Once again, they are very light on The Birth … either labor/vaginal birth or discussing From labor to unplanned Caesarean (download your free eBook) or preparing for an elective Caesarean. In the Baby Center post, there is a video of a woman receiving an epidural and a ‘pain-free’ labor. Some Birthing Better families had used medical pain relief prior to learning these skills. Some did use medical pain relief after learning Birthing Better skills, however, many more felt they could easily manage the intensity of contraction pains with their skills.
Birthing Better families want to add at 33 weeks pregnant:
Medical pain relief vs ‘natural’ birth
We’ve got to reinforce that it’s your choice to use medical pain relief. That’s the bottom line. Given that, consider these thoughts:
- Natural birth… The implication and innuendo of the word ‘natural’ is … easy, safe, capable and has a good outcome. In reality, natural birth means ‘anything that could happen, might happen’. This includes a woman’s’ inability to cope with the ‘natural’ occurring pain of contractions.
Natural birth advocates tell you specifically that you don’t need skills! They also say that you’ll intuitively know how to cope because women have always given birth. These ideas are nonsense.
If you might choose an epidural, please also choose to learn skills so you can cope, manage, and stay in control of, the natural occurring pain. The woman in the Baby Center video LACKS SKILLS! She is choosing to have an epidural from an unskilled viewpoint.
This means she is choosing based on a fundamental lack of being able to ‘do’ something to help herself. And her partner lacks birth-coaching skills!
- Medical pain relief … An epidural is used to stop YOU from suffering. In other words, no-one wants you to be overwhelmed with the natural occurring pain of contractions. :
No-one has told you to become skilled. No one is encouraging you and your partner to use the skills you should have!
Birthing Better families are NOT anti-medical or anti-epidural/other. They just CHOSE to become skilled and test their own ability to cope when the pain of contractions became more intense, stronger and longer. Some used medical pain relief and many found that the skills were sufficient. Having a skilled birth-coach (Mp3) is important but not essential. You can choose at every moment to use one or more of your Birthing Better skills.
- Being connected
For many women, the reality of using medical pain relief means they feel disconnected from the birthing process. When Birthing Better families developed these skills they did so to reduce or prevent ‘issues’ from becoming problems AND to be able to stay on top of the natural occurring pain of contractions.
Women do want to feel connected, but not overwhelmed, by labor. No-one wants a woman to suffer from the natural occurring pain of contractions. At the same time, skills are missing and therefore women are using more medical pain relief.
LESSON TEN contains fundamental skills that help you cope and manage with discomfort, pain or even anxiety and fear. These are life skills used by Birthing Better mothers and fathers in many situations, not only in childbirth. Sometimes the Directed Breathing exercises help when you are feeling anxious or unsettled.
WATCH and READ: Three great Birthing Better skill-sets (breathing, communication, and touch). If you’ve learned breathing skills for birth, take some time to compare what you’ll learn. Communication is much more complex than you even think or know. And as for touch, well this is one of the Lifeskills you’ll use heaps with your partner as well as with sick kids.
- Video: Work with your Breath – 6:20
- Video: Right Touch –10:07
- Video: Massage – 1:16
- PDF: Sustainable, Adaptable and Usable Breathing – 30 pages
- PDF: Directed Breathing –15 pages
- PDF: Right Touch –31 pages
- PDF: Verbal and Non-verbal Communication –44 pages
- PDF: Positive and Negative Voice –21 pages
Birthing Better skills were developed by moms and dads in the early 1970s in the US and used by many thousands globally in all types of birth. Birthing Better online birthing classes are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.