by Courtney Kelly

Created on: September 26, 2009   Last Updated: October 02, 2009

Many women today have veered away from the medically assisted birth in hopes to have a more natural experience during labour. Reasons may be to avoid the risks that medical pain relievers carry for the mother and the baby, or just wanting to feel the powerful experience that is labour in all of its natural glory. Whatever your desire, pain medications during labour can be minimal or completely replaced with natural coping techniques you can practice before even feeling your first contraction.

When we think of natural birthing techniques, we often thing of water based methods, massage, and various positioning to help the contractions move along. While these methods are very helpful during labour, I'd like to touch on some techniques that are recognized coping methods but are very rarely taught. These methods are ritual, rhythm, and relaxation.

Rituals are easy to relate to. If you've ever taken a prenatal class, or a specific breathing class, than you will recognize the rituals in what you've learned. Rituals help women cope with contractions because they understand there is a beginning, middle, and thankfully an end to the contraction. However, it isn't necessary to stick to the breathing ritual you've learned in prenatal class. In fact, many women find that while the breathing exercises are helpful in early labour, they are hard to maintain when labour progresses. When a woman is induced medically, it becomes even more difficult to practice the breathing techniques when contractions are almost on top of each other.

Whether medical inducement or progression in labour is causing more intense contractions, women often spontaneously come up with their own rituals to help cope with the pain. Much like a trained athlete visualizing his goal before the big race, you can come up with ritual ideas and practice them at home before your big race. Sometimes they will work during labour; most of the time they will evolve during labour with each contraction. My personal favourite for myself was one I actually came up with during adolescence. I had debilitating menstrual cramps and normal over the counter pain medications did not help. I found that I pictured myself as an outline of blue and the pain flared in red, and I would mentally drag a horizontal line from the tip of my head slowly downward, visualizing the pain moving through my legs and out of my toes. I would imagine this, several times, until finally it relaxed me enough to no longer find the pain debilitating

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>