‘Do I know how to birth my baby’? That’s really the question all pregnant women ask of themselves. As a woman, I’ll tell you I certainly wondered when I was pregnant for the first time. Happily, I gave birth when there was a societal expectation that all pregnant families learn birth and birth skills … Lamaze or The Bradley Method. Even with these skills, I still didn’t feel I knew how to birth my first child. Twelve years later I had worked with hundreds of families and developed Birthing Better online birth classes that are full of great birth skills. Finally, I knew exactly how to birth my last child.
When Birthing Better families developed these skills they did so in response to trying to answer that original question … ‘Do I know how to birth my baby?’ (woman) or ‘Do I really know how to help my partner?’ (father/other)
Everyone wants to know how to birth their baby no matter where they birth, with whom they birth and no matter what is happening to or around them. Sure there’s a focus on ‘natural birth’ but Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation skills are for ALL births without exceptions!
As pregnant women, we have a huge urge to know how to birth our baby. You want to know. Your partner wants to know how to help you birth your baby.
What do you need to know to birth your baby?
First you, like 100% of pregnant women, will have one of the 3 types of births.
- Labour and then a vaginal delivery.
- Labour and then an ‘emergency, unplanned or unexpected Caesarean’.
- A non-laboring planned or elective Caesarean.
And then there’s a VBAC … vaginal delivery after a previous Caesarean. You will still end up with one of the above three births.
This means you need to know how to birth your baby no matter what type of birth you and your baby experience.
This is what you and every other woman need to know
It’s quite simple … every birth is an activity. You have to do it. If you want to learn how-to birth your baby well then learn birth and birth-coaching skills.
First do this
Learn really effective skills to prepare your pregnant body to become a birthing body. Just doing this over the last 16 weeks or so will give you the confidence to know that you can birth your baby with confidence. Your partner shares the exact same body so learning together is fun and will give you lots of WOW moments. You’ll feel WOW about how similar our human body is. You’ll feel WOW because you’ll feel these skills in your body and realize how essential it is to open up, create space and stay soft inside to help your 3-dimensional baby out of your birthing body. WOW!
Next do this
This concept is straightforward. Birth begins, has a middle and ends. Every moment of that time can be filled with wonderful skills that you and your partner use together to birth your baby. Wow! How neat is that? Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation skills are a complete method, full of the very best skills to work through your baby’s birth journey. Preparing your pregnant body to give birth and having skills to work through the activity of giving birth is a one, two steps toward an incredibly powerful, positive and empowering birth experience.
How can I use these skills in all 3 births?
What a great question! Let’s look at each of the 3 types of births.
- Labor and vaginal birth
Skills can be used in any labour! It may matter to you whether you have or don’t have medical care, interventions but using skills works whether you have no, little or heaps of medical care. Being a skilled laboring woman and skilled coaching father/other means you can cope, manage, work with and deal with labor contractions all the way from the beginning of labour, through the hard and painful contractions and through the birth of your baby. You’re much less likely to experience trauma, feel out of control or overwhelmed or end up with a delayed 1st stage of labor.
By preparing your baby’s birth canal means your body and baby are much less likely to experience trauma or delay in 2nd stage or delivery.
If you’re planning to labor and have a vaginal birth then learn skills so you can birth your baby with confidence in a conscious manner. This concept is not rocket science but no one is telling you you need skills.
Can skills prevent interventions you might not want? Sure. Many interventions come when women don’t cope well with painful contractions or delays in 1st and 2nd stages. The more skilled you are, the more likely you can birth your baby with no or few interventions.
Can skills work with lots of medical interventions? Sure. Why would any medical care stop you from using skills? No birth provider will stop you from using great breathing and relaxation skills. No birth provider will stop your partner from helping you skillfully work through the labor and birth with and around all the medical care. You don’t have to see medical care as ‘interventions’. You can just use their common words: medical assessments, monitoring, and procedures.
Bottom line for labor and vaginal birth: Use skills!
- Labor and emergency Caesarean
The first thing you need to know is that if you prepare your body to become a birthing body that you might prevent that emergency Caesarean. Why? Because many of them are done because of delayed labors.
The second thing you need to know is that if you learn birth and birth coaching skills then you’ll handle labor better and may be able to avoid that emergency Caesarean. Why? Because many cesareans are done because women don’t have the skills to cope with the natural occurring pain of contractions.
So prepare your pregnant body to become a birthing body and learn birth/birth coaching skills so you can cope and manage the natural occurring pain of contractions with and around all forms of medical care.
If there is a reason you end up with an emergency Caesarean just continue to use your skills while being prepped and during surgery.
Bottom line for labour and unplanned cesarean: No matter how your baby is born, you can use your skills to stay connected, focused and participating in your baby’s birth.
- Non-labouring Caesarean
Most pregnant women who are planning, facing, need, want or pressured to have a non-labouring Caesarean wonder how, why and if there is anything they can, should, could do to prepare for a Cesarean.
Birthing Better families come in all forms … that means Birthing Better families had all sorts of births within these 3 types. Because families developed Birthing Better skills, they did so for one reason … they wanted to participate in their baby’s birth. This is how families prepared for their coming non-laboring Caesarean.
They loved preparing their pregnant body to become a birthing body. They realized that they mentally knew they would have a surgical birth but their pregnant body is just preparing to labor and have a vaginal birth. This means all the hormones and changes are just the same so are all the emotions. Just enjoy preparing for your baby’s birth. You’ll love preparing your body, getting closer together, having giggles while you learn and feel closer to your baby.
They loved learning the birth and birth coaching skills because they used their skills on the way to hospital (that’s labor), while being prepped (that’s transition) and during surgery (that’s the birth).
Bottom line for elective or planned Cesarean: It’s simple really. You birth your baby no matter what. Skills give you the ability to stay fully involved, help you relax, reduce anxiety, keep you calm and working together throughout your journey through your non-laboring Caesarean.
- VBAC
You’re the group that needs the most boot up your bum! Whatever the reason for your Caesarean, you are planning and hoping to achieve a vaginal birth after a previous caesarean.
Think about it. YOU HAVE TO GET THROUGH THE LABOR TO GET TO THE VAGINAL PART. Using the phrase VBAC focuses too much on the vaginal part and not the work you have to do to get there. 99.9% of all Caesareans are done during the labour part and not the vaginal part! Yours was one of that 99.9 % in all likelihood.
Many Birthing Better families were in your situation and it is because of them Birthing Better developed with such a depth and breadth of skills. And they absolutely know how essential it is to prepare your pregnant body to birth your baby.
What do Birthing Better families say? Simple … usually those ‘non-essential’ Caesareans occurred because women did not cope well with labor and they had a delay in the 1st stage! This can be prevented by preparing your body to open up, create and soften inside your 3-dimensional body to let out a 3-dimensional baby!
And if you’re entirely focused on ‘choice’ then think about this. You may not have choices but you can always have skills. Your choices may change but you’ll always have skills. The unexpected might happen but you’ll always have skills.
Bottom line for VBAC: Your skills can have a HUGE, POSITIVE impact on your ability to achieve a labor and then a vaginal birth!
Birthing Better online birthing classes are housed in Common Knowledge Trust