How Can I Have an Easier Labor?

Hey! Glad you found your way here. Chances are, you're pregnant and looking for ways to ease your worried mind as you prepare for your upcoming birth. Amiright? The good news is, most of what you need you already have within you. But sometimes there is more to it. There really are a few things you can do now, to help ease your journey later.

First, of course, hire your doula. Your doula is your best birth friend, your bbf. If she's good, she'll reserve all judgment and guide you towards your own answers. It's awesome to have someone on your team who has done this birth thing loads of times and who can ease your mind and answer your questions. In this day of digital wisdom, I actually adore chatting with my mama clients on text or messenger in between our in-person visits. It's a quick way to offer some mind-chatter relief and point out resources. It keeps us connected and in communication, and we are able to build up trust in each other on a daily basis! Aside from this digital wisdom, your doula has years of experience in your local birth culture, providers, birthing places as well as in practical birthing matters like getting baby into position and navigating breastfeeding, to name just a couple.

To ease your labor you might want to look into baby positioning. Some call it Optimal Fetal Positioning; others call it Optimal Maternal Positioning, because after all, you'll be the one changing positions! We cannot control baby's position, we can only encourage their best position via our own position changes and exercises. The idea is to not only encourage your baby into the head-down position, but also the more favorable anterior position. This helps prevent back labor, generally provides a more straightforward labor pattern (think shorter, which of course is a relative term when it comes to childbirth), and can prevent some labor stalls associated with a wonky baby position. You can get started by looking into www.spinningbabies.com and you can take my childbirth class for a more in-depth education into Optimal Maternal Positioning and what you can do (starting now) to encourage a more favorable position come labor. We cover positioning in class #1!

One last idea for now is to learn about the Rebozo. What's that? It's basically a longer, skinny piece of fabric that was used by indigenous women and Mexican midwives, made popular in more recent times by doulas and childbirth educators here in the states. It's used for so many different things in pregnancy and labor it would be impossible to name them all here! It can be used to "lift and sift" a mother's belly to help encourage baby's positioning as well as relieve mom's back pain during pregnancy; it can be used during labor to pull on as leverage when it comes time to push; it can be used for comfort after baby is born and the mother-baby dyad cocoons up together for nursing. You can check locally for classes on the rebozo, or head online to look for some resources and ideas, or find a doula who has some experience in using the rebozo prenatally or in labor. (I cover the rebozo in class #1 as well!)

There really are just countless things you can do to ease your labor. The first step is finding individuals around you who can help you unlock what can sometimes feel like a maze of options (or lack of options, in some cases!). A doula, positioning tips, and comfort measures like the rebozo are just the tip of the iceburg.

If you're ready for more, give me a call or an email and we can meet up to talk about your birth and how to ease your labor.