The Simplicity of Birth

A few weeks ago I went to a seminar where Dr. Michele Odent was speaking.  It was informative and inspirational.  He drew us a mental picture of an ideal childbirth scene;

There is a woman laboring in a quiet room.  In the corner of the room there is one experienced, silent midwife sitting in the corner, knitting.

That's it, so simple, he said, and then he went on to explain how it was really so complex.

If there are too many people in the room with a laboring woman, she feels observed, her neural cortex is stimulated, she is unable to relax and allow her labor to progress.

Because the midwife is experienced, the woman feels safe, and knows that the midwife will know if something is not going the way that is should.  And therefore all she has to do is let her body guide her through her labor.

Knitting is a repetitive task, and repetitive tasks have been scientifically proven to lower the levels of adrenaline.  Adrenaline is contagious, and can therefore be transferred to the laboring woman.  Adrenaline blocks the release of the Endorphin's.  Endorphin's are happy hormones, love hormones, hormones that cause a person to relax.  For a laboring woman, Endorphin's are the essential hormone that she produces that allows her body to relax into the labor process and enable her cervix to open easily and quickly.

We can all imagine how it would be if we were truly able to focus inward in our labor's.  Imagine no interruption, nobody expecting anything from you or doing anything to you.  All that there is left to do is to feel what is happening within.  Imagine reaching into your place of power and feeling the energy flowing through your body, you are so in awe of how powerful and capable your body is.  Feel the rise of a surge, how your uterus draws your cervix open.  You feel so safe, knowing with every ounce of your being that your body was created to do this.  Once you are there, you feel how your labor progresses, you can actually feel the sensation of your cervix opening.  And then you feel your baby descending through the birth path, slowly, yet without resistance, and all you need to do is allow all of this to happen, to observe the miracle of birth taking place within you.

It is our chance to reclaim the feminine power of motherhood.

Yet is all stems from something so simple;  Feeling safe, unobserved, and just allowing our bodies to do what they were created to do.

8 tips for an incredible birth

8 tips for an incredible birth

Incredible is what birth can and should be. I can't tell you how inspiring and enjoyable my births were. I experienced birth the way I could only dream of. I listened to my body, felt myself opening up, I knew what was happening, and enjoyed every wonderfully intense moment of it. If I was to be offered drugs during that process, I would have been upset, why take this incredible experience away from me?  I want to feel every moment of it, I want to truly experience it, and I sure did. If I were to recommend 8 things to keep in mind 

and heart when you go into your own birth, this is what I would recommend;

1) Believe in your body, you are capable of giving birth, and your body knows how to give birth. Birth is an instinctive process. Just like you don't need to instruct your heart to beat, or your digestive system to function, you don't need to learn how to give birth. We often expect doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, or our mothers to know what is going on better than we do, they don't. Doctors may tell us how dilated and effaced we are, our mothers will tell us how it felt when they gave birth, but only our bodies actually know what is going on, so tune into your body, and believe in its ability to just give birth.

2) Be Informed. We listen to so many birth stories, and 'the way it will be' and the 'dangers' of birth, all of which create trepidation and fear.  Taking a natural childbirth class (of course I recommend HypnoBirthing) gives us the chance to know the real story, to understand what birth is, to know our options. To know which interventions are necessary or unnecessary. To learn how to work with our bodies, to learn how to breathe. We take the time to do a tremendous amount of research about buying a car, or a cell phone, how much more important is it to be educated about having a baby.

 

3) Release the Fear. You have two options, stress about what could and should happen, or just let go and enjoy the process. You can stay up many nights worrying about if the baby will be born on time, how will it work out with your schedule, will you be able to handle it, will you need interventions, etc… Or you can just say 'Que Sera Sera', whatever will be will be, and with that attitude, you will probably have a much happier and better experience. There is good reason physiologically to set fear aside. When we are afraid our bodies go into the 'fight or flight' mode. The blood and oxygen flows into our 'defensive' organs such as our arms, legs, eyes, ears, and away from our secondary organs, such as our digestive system and uterus. If we are afraid during labor, our uterus and baby have compromised blood flow and oxygen, and a lot more tension just when we are meant to open up and release.

4) Breathe. Of course we know how to breathe, but we need to learn how to breathe properly in order to nourish the uterus and baby with loads of healthy blood and oxygen. Breathing properly is also the key to relaxation. A relaxed cervix can open easily and quickly, so breathing is one of the most important aspects of birthing.

5) Practice makes perfect. We can know the theories of breathing, relaxing, visualizing etc. (if we learn HypnoBirthing, of course) but we need it to become instinctive, the way to do that is to practice. The more you practice, the more your body comes to recognize and enjoy the relaxation and slips into it more easily. When you practice, your body will respond to labor with relaxation. When you practice, you feel more empowered and believe in yourself more.

6) Take it one surge (contraction) at a time. Sometimes we look at labor as this big, frightening, long event, and tend to get drugs because of fear of what is to come, not what is now. Decide that you will focus, breathe, relax and enjoy just one surge, that is not too much to ask of yourself. When you see how successful you are at breathing through that one surge, you will be encouraged to do it again for the next surge, and as the surges come, it will get easier and easier, before you know it, you made it through labor and had a marvelous time of it!

7) Love your Perineum. Did you ever hear of core muscles?  The core of your body holds up the rest of your body, and the main core muscle is your perineum. When you think about it like that, you will do anything to protect your perineum. So step one, perineal massage, not the most comfortable topic to speak about J. But take five minutes every day for the last month of your pregnancy to do it. Statistics show that women who do perineal massage are much less likely to tear. Another thing, don't push! I know that sounds absolutely impossible, but pushing is an unnecessary, exhausting, and counter-effective activity. Breathe down (learn how in a HypnoBirthing class) and allow your Natural Expulsive Reflex to bring your baby out over a healthy and intact perineum.

8) Your tired, your back hurts, you need to pee every three and a half minutes. Your sick and tired of being pregnant, and don't feel at all ready for labor. We tend to get so entangled in concerns, worries, discomforts, etc. that we forget to get Exited. Your dream is coming true, your baby is being born, your body is doing an incredible job, feel the joy, love the moments!

 Wishing you a joyful and happy birthing! 

A Royal HypnoBirthing

I was in London on Monday, July 22. Headlines were plastered with ‘the Royal Baby is finally arriving’. I was in London when Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, was in labor, and gave birth to the young heir, George Alexander Louis. As a HypnoBirthing practitioner, it was thrilling for me to be in the same city that the first Royal HypnoBirth was taking place.
It is interesting to see how Royalty has changed birth fads in the past. Queen Victoria, the Queen’s great-great- grandmother, had Chloroform in two of her births, and was the one to popularize the use of chloroform, and later on other pain relief, in labor. She took control in her birth in a way that women just didn’t do back then. Pain is a part of labor, it is prescribed by G-d, or so it was thought.
Now, many years and changes to the birth scene later, Kate Middleton, the current childbearing Royalty, has produced an heir in a new fashion, that is becoming increasingly widespread and popular throughout Britain and the rest of the world; HypnoBirthing.
While Queen Victoria sought freedom through pain relief, although she later stated that, “too much fuss is made out of a very natural and usual thing”. The Duchess of Cambridge, mother to the heir 3rd in line to the throne of England, chose a different type of freedom in birth; freedom to connect with her innate ability to birth easily, comfortably, and naturally; HypnoBirthing.

Birth like a Righteous Woman!

When the midwife Yocheved, the mother of Moshe Rabbeinu gave birth, it says, 'she conceived and gave birth to a son'. The Gemara in Sotah says that the reason that the conception and birth were mentioned in the same sentence is to tell us that 'Just like she did not conceive in pain, she did not birth in pain'. The Gemara goes on to say that, 'Righteous women are free from the curse of Eve'.



Well, I ask, what makes a woman righteous, and what in the world does it have to do with birth?!

It is important to look back at Yocheved and understand what her major righteous act was. Pharaoh told her to kill all of the Jewish baby boys as soon as they were born. In the next verse, it says, 'The midwives feared G-d and did not do what Pharaoh commanded them to do'. Yocheved feared G-d, he was more present in her life then Pharaoh, what he wanted from her mattered more!

A righteous woman is one who is aware of G-d, who has faith in G-d. Alone, we have much to fear of childbirth; how can I control when my baby is due, how my baby is born, and if my baby will be born healthy?

It takes deep faith to trust that our bodies are created to birth. It is something that women need to feel with every fiber of their being, not just theoretically. G-d created us in His image, and His image is the image of a Creator. As women, we have been given the power of procreation, G-d's power. Do we trust that our birthing body, the quintessential creation in G-d's image, is healthy and able to birth?
If we do, we will not experience pain. We will birth with great joy and comfort with the knowledge that we were created to do this!



Visit my website to learn more about HypnoBirthing; Eliminate fear, tension and pain and experience birth with joy, comfort and self-confidence!

Birth Messages

If you could write your birthing story before giving birth ... What would you write?

Before soul searching, many of us would think that we would write a simple, straight forward, and uncomplicated birth story.

But what about that women in us who has been waiting for nine months to be the star player in a most exciting performance, would we want our story to be run of the mill? Would it be more exciting to write a story filled with danger and surprises, that leaves your audience holding their breath for you, crying for you, and then sighing with relief for you?

Would it be more out there to write a story that makes you unique from every other birthing women you have spoken to? Would you want your story to be like a lullaby that makes every women want to have another baby no matter how many she has already?

We do write our own birth stories, and we have the choice to write them just the way we want them before we give birth. The mother who KNOWS that her hips are too narrow to birth any size baby, let alone a big baby... She will not be able to get the baby out. The mother who's entire extended family of women have had long and treacherous ordeals, and KNOWS that she will have that too... will have a long and treacherous ordeal.

Let me tell you a story of a woman. Her mother had 36 hour labors with all of her children. Her sister had a 36 hour labor. She was in labor and called her midwife, said that she was in labor. When the midwife arrived she asked the woman how she was doing, the woman answered, 'I am doing alright, but I know that this show is just getting started, my mother and sister have 36 hour labors, and that's just how it is in my family', the midwife looked at her watch, and thought to herself, well, 30 hours to go. Sure enough, 30 exhausting and harrowing hours later, her baby was born. Why? Is it genetic? The answer is that its all in her mind, she wrote her birth story based on her mothers birth story, based on her sisters birth story. She could have written it differently.

It was my oldest son's first birthday, I was 38 weeks pregnant with my second. I had a midwife appointment. I was 2 centimeters dilated and experiencing surges (contractions), just like I had been having since 35 weeks. My midwife was part of a group of midwives in UCLA hospital. She was my favorite, but whoever is on call is the one who attends your birth. She looked at me, then looked at my swollen uterus and said, 'I am on call tomorrow afternoon'. Okay said my preborn baby, and together we decided that tomorrow afternoon is a good time to give birth. Sure enough, my precious Motti was born at 3:15 PM the next afternoon, with my favorite midwife present, in a dimly lit room in UCLA hospital.

A woman I spoke with told me that she really wanted a home birth but her husband was uncomfortable with it. She was in good strong labor at home, and decided that it was time to go to the hospital, sure enough, when they arrived at the hospital, her labor slowed down. She wanted a home birth.

Be careful, you do write your own birth story. Think about it carefully, create art that defines how you want to birth, journal about your dream birth. Take a HypnoBirthing course , and prepare your mind and body for the most beautiful, natural, and peaceful birth you can imagine.