Today we’re going to answer another question Dad’s have about their job as a birth coach, How do I help?
Just like the last question there’s more than one answer. Two of the solutions to this question are in the areas of communication and language and our ability to touch, so we’ll spend the next few weeks discussing both of those.
Now imagine a woman during an intense contraction, she’s holding onto you or the wall standing on her toes with her shoulders up around her ears and her bum is as tight as, what do you want to say to her? Everyone wants to say the same thing ‘relax’, but the woman turns around and says ‘shut up! you try I’m trying’.
No woman wants to be tense in labour, we do that because it hurts and we naturally tense up. we know we shouldn’t tense up but it hurts. Part of good communication in labour is what we as women tell ourselves when we’re feeling pain.
In the BirthingBetter we call this the negative voice, this is what we do when we tell ourselves ‘I can’t do this, it hurts too much, I’m too tired, I’m gonna die’. A negative voice in labour is very common; in fact we can have both a negative and positive voice talking to us at the same time. With good childbirth skills we’ll use our positive voice to help ourselves use our willpower, determination and capability to override our natural reaction to pain.
Without good skills many women succumb to their negative voice and feel terrible after the birth. We don’t have to like labour one bit to know we used good birthing skills, coped and managed ourselves well. Women want to use their positive internal voice and skills and men want to know how to communicate well to the woman in the throes of an intense contraction.
Remember the image of the woman standing on her toes, telling her to relax turned out not to be the best communication. We all know, the woman included, that relaxation would be better, she would if she could. The reason that word doesn’t work is that the word relax is just too general. Aha…seeing the image again in your mind you notice she’s got her shoulders up by her ears, so you tell her to relax her shoulders and are more specific.
Sorry wrong answer, babies don’t come out the shoulders, so you look again and see she’s standing up on her toes, so you tell her to relax her knees, bend them or get down off her toes.
Sorry wrong again, babies don’t come out the toes. At last you see she has a tight bottom, finally you tell her to relax her bottom. Babies come out down there.
You need to notice tension anywhere in the pelvic area and then tell her specifically where to relax. Make a list of ten individual names of places around the pelvis, upper legs and lower back; it’s a list you can read in labour as a cue.
Don’t use general terms like back, it’s better to say lower back. As women we can talk to ourselves during or between contractions and remember to relax in each of those places as well. These are shared tools between Mother’s and Father’s.
Next week we’ll talk about another way to use language effectively. You’re now beginning to bring your observation and seeing skills together with language and communication.
If you’ve gone through the last three weeks, your woman now knows that you will know how to pay attention in labour, and when a woman knows, her partner can really help, she goes into labour more relaxed and so do you.