In many childbirth preparation books you will read about the benefits of:
- Natural birth (‘No one told me how to birth, I just did it’).
- A woman’s ability to instinctively know how to give birth (‘You’ll know what to do on the day’)
- Letting the primal brain take over and not using our more complex brain (‘Cats aren’t taught how to birth, we don’t need to be’ or ‘you breathe all the time, you will in labour’)
- Of not telling a woman what to do during childbirth (‘Mother knows best’)
Rarely are childbirth skills mentioned, taught or elevated as ‘essential’. Somehow these subjective qualities of intuition and instinct are supposed to rise up inside us and lead us to the ‘orgasmic birth’ that is put before us as the iconic birth experience.
All humans have a neo-cortical part of their brain. This is the more complex ‘thinking, perceiving and choosing’. We share this part of the brain with whales, dolphins and primates. We use this part of our brain to create skills and most of our skills that relate to other natural physiological bodily processes we have as humans: hunger, sex, voiding.
In other words, do we intuitively know (to have ‘immediate knowledge of something’… Encarta®) which plants are poisonous or safe? No, we have to be taught. Do we intuitively know how to cook when we’re hungry? No, these are learned skills. We need to value knowing how-to give birth and how to help as much as we value knowing how to cook a reasonable meal.
Although sexuality is such a complex societal issue now, we do place unspoken value on both women and men ‘learning’ how to be a good lover. We don’t assume we intuitively or instinctively know how to satisfy each other.
Often the words ‘intuitively’ and ‘instinctive’ are used as though they mean the same thing. Yet, labour contractions are often very painful. When any person experiences pain it is quite instinctive (‘a powerful impulse that feels natural rather than reasoned’ … Encarta®) to tense up. We don’t ‘intuit’ that there are ways to relax instead.
Yet in childbirth tensing up is counterproductive to the baby’s efforts to come out. In fact, learning how to ‘relax’ and ‘let go’ in childbirth is a highly admired capability but shown most often by women who have previously given birth and who have learned how to do so … even when they are experiencing the pain. ‘In my second birth, I knew I had to relax more’.
The above statement is one of applying skills by exercising our use of ‘choice that resides in our neo-cortex. This is a learned skill.
We can now use our wonderful human mind to consciously work with our body so that our body can help our baby come out. This is the origin and basis for feeling empowered in childbirth.
You also have skills in other areas of your life and probably know by now that the greater your level of skill, the more intuitive you become. In other words, you can refine your ability to do something. Skills enhance our intuition and instincts.
STORY
On the Oprah show there was a fire fighter who went into a building with his crew. He suddenly demanded that his crew immediately evacuate. Since he was the captain, they followed orders and got out. The building exploded but they were all safe because of their captain’s order.
Oprah commented that he used his ‘instinct and intuition’. He thought for a short time and said: ‘No, actually afterwards I realized I had recognized very subtle signs but wasn’t so consciously aware that was happening.’ In other words, he could make that quick decision because skills led his response.’
Yes, yes, yes. Use your skills!
Now you know why practice makes a positive childbirth experience and doesn’t have to make a ‘perfect’ birth.
The Acute Mind Of Childbirth
As much as people like to believe women don’t think in labour … particularly during the most intense parts of labour … that’s inaccurate:
- The Mind in labour is very active (‘I was thinking what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get my thoughts out of my mouth’)
- Senses are sharpened (“I could hear the pen scratch on the paper when our midwife took notes’).
- Awareness is heightened (‘I was so aware that I could actually ease my baby out of my body’).
One skill you’ll learn is about the Negative and Management Voice in The Negative Voice can say things inside your head like:
- ‘I can’t, it’s too painful’
- OWW! Oh no, another contraction
- I can’t bare this’
- ‘Don’t touch me’
- ‘I don’t like that person (staff)
- ‘I’m going to die’
Then there’s the Management Voice that says things like:
- ‘I have to relax as I exhale’
- ‘I have to soften inside my sacrum’
- ‘open, open, open’
- ‘I can do this’
- ‘After the contraction’s over I’ve got to relax more’
- ‘I don’t like this but I know I’m managing well’
Your Management voice leads you to your Positive Birthing Behaviors. Your Negative Voice can lead to many of the Stressful or Negative Birthing Behaviors. (SEE BIRTHING BEHAVIORS eBook). All of us are familiar with these two voices.
Why does all this matter? It’s quite simple. Skills are more likely to lead you to use your Management Voice even though your Negative Voice is competing for mental space. Women who feel empowered by childbirth do so because they rose above their negative thoughts and actions. Choose this … not as a ‘wish list’ but rather through the actions you take throughout this incredible experience of childbirth. This is ‘one way’.
The ‘other way’ is to have your Negative Voice and stressful behaviors to predominate and this can lead to a very old perception of childbirth … suffering.
Face to face with suffering.
Suffer …’to feel pain or great discomfort in body or mind; to experience or undergo something unpleasant or undesirable; to endure or put up with something painful or unpleasant OR to be adversely affected by something’. Encarta®
In every culture there will be a word that couples, ‘suffering’ to childbirth. Although this might not be a topic you want to learn about, stick with this so you can move out the other side and know that neither you nor your baby has to suffer.
Throughout all your BirthingBetter resources you will learn practical, usable and important birth skills that grow your Management Voice and Positive Birthing Behaviors.
- Some of these skills have to do with increasing your awareness or understanding. Increasing awareness and understanding is all about skills. Think about when you were young and your mother or father taught you to say ‘sorry’ if you hurt another child … even if it was by accident. In order to mean what you say, you have to develop the skill of empathy and develop the awareness that you have hurt someone else. Awareness grows through evolving and improving your skills.
- Other skills are specific ‘how-to’ actions that you need to do in order to prepare your pregnant body for childbirth and to use during whatever birth you have.
Achieving Positive Birthing Behaviors is simpler when your awareness matches your skills. In other words, skills must be truly owned by you … even if they are in areas such as cooking, carpentry, using specific computer software programs or driving a car. If you do not couple skills with your awareness then skills devolve down to mere techniques. Techniques are fine unless they don’t adapt and you need them to. Skills adapt. This is why childbirth ‘techniques’ often fail.
BIRTH STORY
“My husband and I practiced breathing techniques taught in our childbirth classes. We were rigorous in practicing but at the birth I had to be induced. The pains {contractions} were so intense so quickly. The breathing just went out the window. After the birth I called the childbirth teacher and told her about my experience. She answered: ‘Oh, the breathing doesn’t work so well during inductions’. I was SO angry. She should have informed us.
This woman felt as though she suffered.
When you learn your BirthingBetter skills deep within your mind and body connection then you’ll feel less consciously or even unconsciously anxious about childbirth. You’ll recognize and acknowledge that you have a nice level of expertise suited for what will eventually happening … The Birth … even if this is your first birth, had a traumatic previous birth or want to improve on a previous good birth.
Your skills will help you reduce any concept or perception you might hold that you must or will suffer in childbirth.
In reality, it is the naturally occurring and often very intense pain of labour contractions that is connected to ‘suffering’. In traditional cultures, the suffering of childbirth pains is considered ‘normal’, unpreventable and a part of accepting the new role of parenthood. The suffering of childbirth is considered to be the badge of woman’s honour. However, no culture wants their women to suffer in childbirth.
Suffering in childbirth comes directly from a sense of feeling out of control.
In modern societies, women are given medical pain relief to circumvent the natural occurring pain of childbirth. This means that modern women are often numbed during the activity of childbirth while traditional women are expected to get through the experience accepting the pain.
You are not a traditional woman and you might choose to have medical pain relief or may be given it. Yes, you can still use your birth skills … why not? However, with birth skills you are less likely to suffer and more likely to feel empowered by your efforts.
When you think of the word ‘suffer’ it’s important that you do not confuse the discomfort or pain you are likely to have, no matter how great, as a ‘problem’.
If the concept of ‘suffering’ actually were to mean that the naturally occurring pain of giving birth is a ‘problem’ that would threaten the mother or baby, then childbirth would be much more dangerous. Since childbirth has existed for our species for as long as we’ve existed, if childbirth pain were always connected to a ‘problem’ then women would have crossed their legs long ago and said ‘nope’.
Yes, your birth skills may prevent some ‘problems’ that come from reacting to the pain of childbirth, but more important, your skills are there to help you really cope, handle and manage the natural occurring pain that comes from letting a big object out of your body without ‘suffering’.