Labor is an intense time for a mother no matter if it’s her first child or her fifth. You want to have an uncomplicated labor and delivery to avoid any potential for birth trauma effects on baby. It’s important to take proactive steps during your pregnancy and make decisions that will help your body relax when active labor begins. Don’t shrug off well-meaning pregnancy advice from other seasoned moms, even if those pregnancy hormones are convincing you otherwise.
Follow these 5 tips and tricks that help make your labor and delivery easy and give your baby an awesome start to their life.
Maintain an Exercise Routine During the Pregnancy
Don’t let the fact you’re pregnant stop you from engaging in exercise routines. Instead, alter the routines to adapt to your changing body or participate in pre-natal exercise classes. Many gyms offer prenatal yoga, water exercises, Pilates, and strength-building classes. These classes are designed to accommodate the limitations of your body at all stages of your pregnancy and help you develop your muscles in preparation for birth. The stronger your abdominal muscles are during your pregnancy, the easier the push due to the fact stronger muscles enable you to exert less effort and energy.
Take a Childbirth Class
A childbirth class gives you education and mental tools you can use during labor to help you feel confident with what’s about to happen. The act of giving birth can be a rollercoaster of emotions as the moment you’ve been waiting for has arrived. Having prior knowledge of the actions your body will take as it prepares to give birth works to relieve you of most anxieties.
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“As a lawyer who specializes in birth injury laws, I highly recommend taking a childbirth class. Not only does it provide valuable knowledge and tools for a smoother labor, but it also empowers parents to advocate for themselves and their child’s well-being.” – Charles Gilman, lawyer at Gilman & Bedigian
Childbirth classes are also a place for you to ask questions about your fears. The teacher can help you resolve them during the class, but also show you how to deal with the unexpected during labor. Other expectant mothers are also given the opportunity to speak up which gives you the opportunity to learn that others share your fears and that you’re not alone. Being able to discuss these fears in the open can make them less scary and not so prominent when labor begins.
Keep Breathing
The shock of labor may make you want to slow or stop your breathing in anticipation of the next wave. It’s an instinctive reaction to the onset of parturition and you may not be aware that your breathing has become irregular and shallow. You may notice that your breathing has changed when you have a moment to think, or there’s someone reminding you to breathe. Engage conscious control of your breath and engage the patterns you learned during childbirth classes.
There’s the argument as to the overall effect of patterned breathing during labor, but the fact is, you need oxygen flowing freely through your cardiovascular system. The more you breathe, the more the blood moves through your veins, and the better your body works to push and deliver the baby. It also helps combat any feelings of panic you might experience during the event and lets you relax as much as you can.
Get Out of Bed and Move
You don’t have to stay in bed during the entirety of your labor. Research has shown that labor is shortened, pain is lessened, and gravity provides help with getting the baby’s head into the pelvis. It’s recommended even for women with high-risk pregnancies as monitoring technologies enable medical professionals to keep an eye on the baby while the mother moves. There are other health benefits of movement in the form of more oxygen flow to the baby, uterine contractions are more effective at getting the baby into position, and the odds of a good birth outcome are increased.
Moving around during labor has various physical benefits that are known to shorten labor. The uterus is a muscle and moving around during labor allows it to work efficiently. Being upright and/or squatting makes the pelvis widen and frees up room for the baby’s head to enter into the birth canal. If you’re experiencing a lot of discomfort, you can move yourself into various positions that alleviate discomfort caused by the body or the baby during labor.
Consider Waterbirth to Help Your Body Perform Better
Sometimes it happens that your body resists all of your efforts to relax during labor. It’s not a failure of your ability to give natural birth so much as it’s a sign that your body isn’t afraid to send out pain signals at the highest level. When you’re in pain, your stress levels increase and you can’t always get them to go back down through mental or physical exercise. Experiencing high levels of stress during labor can make it harder for you to make it through labor and delivery because it’s harder to relax and let the body do as it needs to.
Waterbirth makes labor and delivery much more tolerable by allowing your body to relax. Water births are just as safe as non-water births and can help you relax and makes it easier for you to push the baby out without tearing. If you choose to have a homebirth, you can get a Birth Pool In A Box Eco Mini Plus from www.waterbirthsolutions.com.
Going into labor is an exciting time, but it can be stressful as your body starts to prepare for the moment. These tips and tricks can help you have an easier time with labor and delivery so you can give birth as uneventfully as possible and enjoy your newborn with less pain during your recovery.
