That’s a million-dollar question, isn’t it? Back-labour has become the scary labor. It’s portrayed as the nightmare birth experience. You’re desperate to know how to reduce back-labor, how to cope with back-labor pain and how to manage contractions that have back-labour. It’s like the mantra … back-labour OH! You want to know how to reduce back-labor.
What causes back-labor?
Back-labour is caused by a baby pressing on the nerves that run through the holes in your sacrum. Do you know where your sacrum is?
There’s more. Your baby is a 3-dimensional object with a head the size of a grapefruit when full term. That 3-dimensional object has to pass through the container of your 3-dimensional body. If you have tension inside your body or your baby is relatively big to the inside of your body then your baby needs to make space inside your body.
The best way your baby tries to make space inside your body is to move your sacrum out and back and that pressure from the inside can pinch the nerves that run through the holes in your sacrum and this causes the back labor pain … whether during pregnancy or in labour.
Can you do anything about your sacrum?
This is where Birthing Better online birth classes comes into our conversation. When these skills were developed by hundreds of families in the early 1970s back-labor was experienced by women who are now your mother or grandmother.
This means families wanted to know exactly what to do … just like you. Is there any way to prepare the pregnant body so there is a less likely chance of having back-labor and if back-labor occurs are their ways to manage, cope and reduce back-labor pains?
All the skills in the video segments in Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation resource focus entirely on preparing your body for giving birth. These skills will help you create space, open up and remain soft inside so this 3-dimensional object can move through your 3-dimensional body. This is not rocket science.
The skills available to you are The Hip Lift … create side-to-side space; The Sacral Manoeuvre … create space front-to-back; The Pelvic Clock … to create a softening inside your pelvis.
So the answer is YES you can do something about your sacrum! Learn to mobilize your sacrum and keep it mobile as you create space inside. Creating space and staying soft reduces internal tension. Reducing tightness and tension inside your sacrum means you can reduce or prevent back-labor to begin with.
Perhaps you’ve been trying to turn your baby. Go ahead. You still might have back-labor. Back-labor is not only experienced when a baby is back to back or posterior. Whether your baby turns or not, Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation skills will show you exactly how to open your pregnant body to become more flexible so your baby doesn’t press so much on the inside of your sacrum. But there’s more … what to do if you have back-labor.
Can you do anything about managing back-labor during birth?
Yes. You can learn the birth and birth coaching skills in Birthing Better online birth classes so you can manage and cope with labour pains whether uterine pain or back-labor pains.
With a mobile sacrum you’ve developed during pregnancy and the skills like Directed Breathing, Deep Touch Relaxation, Teamwork, Working with the 5 Phases of Contractions, learning about the Bell Shape of each contraction then you can do two things:
- Keep your sacrum mobile and cope with the pain of back-labour
- Follow your baby downward through your body and continually reduce specific tension in areas of your sacrum.
What’s amazing is that you can actually keep reducing tension in your sacrum and follow your baby down through the tight places. Once your baby passes those tense areas the back-labor stops! You can do this!
Join tens of thousands of Birthing Better families. Learn the skills from 24 weeks onward, practice and then use the skills throughout your baby’s birth.
Back-labour is very manageable. With more skills, you’ll be able to reduce back-labor, cope with back-labor, and manage back-labor very well.
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.