Ever watch a kid at a T-ball game swing and miss? Every professional player capable of knocking a 90 mph pitch out of the park first had to learn to hit a slow, careful pitch or to knock a stationary ball from the top of a fixed pillar of plastic.
Human beings can learn. We can train our minds and bodies to adapt to complex tasks. Self consideration and the ability to identify and learn skills is part of what sets us apart from many other animals, even other simians.
A remarkable lack of instinct is another thing that sets us apart. Instead of instinct, we rely on our ability to seek strategies of success and adapt ourselves to their use. For example, being horny may be instinctual, but it is not the same as being a good lover. Being a good lover requires the cultivation of attention to the needs and desires of others, an understanding of technique, and a willingness to practice combining your cultivated awareness and applied technique.
Giving birth is a physical activity, and while there are instinctual components, it is not a given that being pregnant means you’ll make a great birther any more than being horny means you’ll be a great lover.
However, like learning to hit that 90 mph. pitch and learning to please your lover, you can learn to be a champion birther. As a human being, you can learn from the experiences of others and adapt to the activity of birthing. In fact, you can learn the game of birthing so well that you can become the coach of your birthing team. After all, someone else has already won the star player position
Learned skills make all the difference in the quality of your team’s experience during this huge, dynamic life transition.
To get to best experience, both of you must learn and practice essential skills then use them no matter what type of birth unfolds on the big day.
Physically and Mentally Prepare Your Star Player
I can’t think of a single physical endeavor where training the day before the event results in great performance. Imagine a first time marathoner starting to train the week of their race. The pain that person will experience during the race will likely teach them a new scale for pain measurement. Birthing is no different. To get the best physical performance and least discomfort, start training as close to 24 weeks as possible. However, if you are reading this at 40 weeks still do the work. Until your baby is born you can always work on preparing the body for the effort. No matter how much time you have, training results in benefit.
Focus the Training
Your child has been growing inside a living container. Your job is to prepare that living container, your star player’s pregnant body, to open up enough to free the baby. No matter how much you both train, she will experience pain. Pain, of course, makes it hard to relax into the game. So, training is doubly important so that she both knows what to do and how to do it in spite of pain. Training helps make the birthing process more efficient, faster, and safer for your baby’s journey. It also makes the mother’s painful experience manageable. There’s no substitute for training and practice during pregnancy. The earlier you start training, the better things will go for you, your partner, and your baby.
Men already know
- Your doctor or midwife will take care of her and your baby but will not work with her. That’s your job.
- Your body is her body Think about it. We all blink, cough and can tighten up our rectum. Yes, men have more muscles, hair and a ‘outie’ rather than an ‘inney’ … and I don’t mean bellybuttons. Women and men’s bodies are more similar than different. This means you can imagine what a large object must do to come down, through and out your body. With that insight you know that journey will be hindered by internal tension. As you imagine experiencing pain at the same time, you can empathize your role as a ‘birth coach’ … someone who can help her each step of the way and not just stand around. Your job is to help your baby’s mother open and relax inside her body.
Decide to do it
Make preparing your pregnant partner’s body a priority during the last 16 weeks. This doesn’t take much time … between 30 seconds and 20 minutes each day. Some skills are very quick to learn and you can perfect them by thinking or doing them during the day while doing other things. Preparing for a sporting event requires mentally integrating skills … or practicing in the head.
think about the three parts of its container it must open or move through and down and out (the cervix, pelvic tube and vagina).
- The cervix is like the mouth of a balloon. It has a round collar. The outside edges of this round collar attach inside the pelvic tube (think of a clock face inside a frame). Tension inside the pelvic tube can hinder the opening of the cervix. Practice relaxing inside your pelvic tube. Then practice that with your pregnant party.
- If the pelvic tube has tension then your baby can’t make more space. You have a pelvis. It’s made up of separate bones. Cartilage holds the bones together. Pregnancy/birth hormones make the cartilage soft. The bones of this tube can be pushed open from the inside by your baby movement through. Experiment with how you can create more space side-to-side or front to back in your pelvis then share your skills with your pregnant partner.
- If the inside of your baby’s birth canal is tight this can hinder the final part of your baby’s journey. You might feel conflict at this moment. That space inside a woman’s body has been yours and most men like women to be ‘tight’. Becoming a father includes how important preparing this space is. By softening and stretching this tissue from 32 weeks can prevent trauma to this very personal space (for the woman, your baby and you), help your baby open and move through as easily as possible. This helps a woman’s body recover to a pre-pregnant state within 2 months after the birthing hormones wind down.
Now you have an understanding of birth plumbing and the relationship between the object and its container. There is another type of preparation … the skills the woman needs to cope with the pain (sensations) and how to truly relax between the pains. She isn’t playing golf. She isn’t playing soccer. Her activity is experiencing contractions (the pulling out of the cervix) that often pain in the most active period of the activity. The conclusion of this activity is the ‘bearing down’ or ‘pushing’ when your baby is moving down through its birth canal. This culminates with your baby opening up the vaginal opening. You also need to learn breathing, relaxation, the best touch and communication skills as well.
Think about how you use breathing to relax yourself or relax when tense then practice those skills. Talk about and experiment what type of touch the woman would like if she was feeling pain. Just doing that is communicating and finding the right touch is a form of non-verbal communication. Women love to be touched even while experiencing labor pain and working hard as long as the touch is:
- In the right place
- In the right manner
- At the right time
Enjoy getting to know a pregnancy/birthing woman’s body again since you were born. Now you can do it as a mature man and becoming a father and a mature partner. Once your baby is born then you are a father and the next phase begins. Growing skills now is the foundation for the skills you need to learn as a dad. Enjoy, enjoy and enjoy!