How building biology principles can help labour and birthing
Pregnancy is a great runway for the new role of motherhood and birthing a new little one in the world. Emotional and mental challenges are often discussed. But did you know that the physical aspects of our environment — or your own home — can help us prepare for the transition of labour and birth?
No place else is more potent and intimate than the home for these preparations, as this is where our daily actions become habits for our mind and body. It also provides the new physical environmental and feedback look for baby.
There are many reasons why I believe in the importance of a biological, health home, including the science of a non-toxic lifestyle at home for healthy mothers having healthy pregnancies. But in addition to these, there are many extremely simple, practical reasons to prepare your home during pregnancy. In no particular order, here are just a few of them. In this post, I share how I am preparing this time around for a natural labour.
Natural Movement
Deep set squatting helps your baby engage and stay in a head down position. You can tell the position of baby with belly mapping (which I first heard about at a birth class in my first pregnancy). I love squatting and stretching anyway, so this was really easy to incorporate daily whether I’m pregnant or not. But now in the third trimester, it feels really good to get into a good deep squat while out at the garden or just folding laundry on the floor. This can be 15 minutes daily or a few minutes at a time throughout the day. I find what helps more is the regular daily routine of it so you feel it is natural position to get into.
Stretching helps you keep loose and mobile. It sounds so basic, but it is one of the best things you can do to prepare for labour. It helps you become capable of the work of labour, so you don’t feel stiff, sore, and tired when birth finally rolls around. Rather, you will be getting limber and getting into the flow of positions that you may need to birth the baby. Stretches can help baby get down the birth canal further and quicker. Getting into a variety of stretching also helps calm the mind and relax the body — so vital for an easier labour!
I tend to get pelvic pain right around when the 31-week mark every time I’m pregnant, when my hips just feel creaky and loose. These stretches really help relieve my back soreness and balance out any tension in my lower back and hips… Releasing any tension is one of the best things you can do preparing for labour, when your body will be experiencing “contracting” or tensing already.
That includes leaning forward…
We can get so used to leaning back, and it feels good taking a break to relax on the back, especially after months of not , or feeling wary about, sleeping on the back.
However, in pregnancy during the lead up to labour, we want to lean forward to encourage baby to be in optimal position for birthing. Keeping a good posture and leaning forward, instead of slouching onto the tailbone, helps baby get into the Left Occiput Anterior (LOA) position, commonly called the best fetal position. The LOA baby has his or her back on the mother’s left side. The baby faces towards the mother’s back between the right hip and the spine of his or her mother. (You can learn more about how to help baby stay in the favoured LOA position at the spinning babies website.)
This also means you will be in a better position for labour. My first birth included an intense back labour for 20 hours, which is motivation enough for me keeping off my tailbone.
At home, this means staying off the recline on the couch. While in the car though, you will need a prop at your back to keep yourself out of the the natural backward slump that we tend to do in cars. I simply use a rolled up towel or our soft bag stuffed with clothes.
2. Using the power of water — baths, showers, pools
A good long bath (or shower) is such a luxury for any mother, with or without baby in belly. It relieves any aches and pain, relaxes the muscles, and calms the mind. Water is a potent medium for refreshing the body’s electrostatic field.
Now with toddlers around, it’s hard to have time alone in the bathtub. However, it is always a bonding experience to simply have them in the tub with me. Feeling the itch and tautness of a growing belly 24/7 is uncomfortable at best and painful at times, but I personally hate getting slicked up in creams in the humid heat. So I like moisturising in a bath with an oil and salt rub. The clean-up is also easier.
Water itself can actually be drying. But another bonus is that moisturising while in baths and showers helps keep your vaginal area nice and moist. For my first birth, even though it was a natural water birth, I felt tense and unable to get into fully relaxed positions, and had tears with stitches. The next birth had none, and the difference in post partum recovery was like, as they say, day and night…with night being the dark, slow, painful lonely journey of trying to heal tears in the most sensitive areas of your body. Therefore, I am relying on these two factors to help my body remain loose and limber for labour.
3. Tidying the kitchen
Tidying the kitchen in a biological supportive home is more than a clean-up of surfaces. It is a complete declutter of anything that toxifies, and could impede, your goals of an easy, smooth labour. Good, clean, whole foods was something Tiiu taught me much about, and has helped me improve what’s on the pantry shelf (as opposed to the material or form of the shelf itself). You can check out her website on food sensitivities and awareness.
Aside from checking ingredients, during pregnancy, my “tea station” becomes a sacred place where I start my daily routine. From around mid pregnancy to third trimester, I steep red raspberry leaf and/or rose hips daily. It reminds me to affirm why I nourish myself for a busy day ahead with the little ones and is a small connection to a lot of the home-work we now do at home, where the children learn about natural aspects of the world around them.
4. Identify locations at home for a calm and safe labour
If you have birthed before, you know the power of a physical space to make you feel at ease and comfortable, or tense and agitated. A badly organised, unfamiliar birth ward with sounds, smells, and lights that assault rather than assuage can really impede the flow and ease of birthing. Your brain enters a primal reflex during birth, when your senses become hyper aware of every detail around you, which is how fears and anxieties can seem magnified (to others).
Likewise at home, you want to ensure you have at least one space set up that supports your biological needs for safety and comfort.
The rational reasons can be varied, but most women prefer to spend at least the earlier stages of labour at home in a familiar environment where they can feel safe and enjoy an undisturbed, productive labour.
4. Utilise, and respect, your natural senses
In my first birth, I experienced what many call a hyper awareness that correlated to a start/stop of my labour process. That was literally one moment when I saw the light, which I share here. Since then, I have been especially intrigued by the impact of light on our biological processes.
I enjoy the calmness of a naturally ventilated and cool dark room, so I would keep the bedrooms freshly ventilated with spaces for natural light and lighting, instead of overly cold or stuffy rooms and artificial LED cold lighting.
Water is a powerful reliever for me, so the bathroom would be a labour location for me. This means I’m spending extra time cleaning and preparing the toilets!
5. And prepare non toxic supplies for labour and postpartum
Whether you labour and or birth at home, once baby arrives, the mess piles up quickly. During the hectic first several weeks, I stock up on cleaning supplies that are non toxic. This offers a peace of mind that your baby’s first hom Environment is completely non toxic and safe.
This also helps reduces variables for when issues arise, such as skin rashes, stuffed sinuses, tummy problems, etc…
What are your favourite principles for a biological birth?
That is mostly it. Focusing on core principles is helping me focus and prepare my body and mind for the task of labour ahead. It keeps me from feeling overwhelmed when it seems there are still a couple hundred things on the checklist to tick off, and it assures me that I have all I need for my baby to arrive in this world safely and calmly.
It is simple and basic, but I think my past experiences have taught me that having an understanding of what labour and birth is, a very natural, biological event, goes a long way to ensuring a healthy birth. Knowledge is power, mamas and papas.