Feeling Positive……About Birth

As I’m sure is the case far too often my second thought following “oh my god I’m actually pregnant” was “oh my god how am I possibly going to get it out!”. Several months and numerous series of One Born Every Minute down the line and I was feeling no less anxious about the prospect of pushing a tiny human through a hole that didn’t appear to have been made for such a task. I decided the best way to combat my fears was to face them head on and find out exactly what it was I had let myself in for. I had seen mentions of hypnobirthing in a few of the books I had taken to reading in the bath and I decided this sounded like something I would be decidedly interested in. Having previous in mindfulness and meditation through my yoga practice it wasn’t a topic that was completely alien to me and the theory behind how it could benefit me was arguably sound. Further research into the subject of Hypnobirthing brought the Positive Birth Movement to my attention through a book I had purchased called The Positive Birth Book by Milli Hill. A few chapters in and the logic behind what I was reading was absolutely flawless. By the half way point I had put most of my fears to rest and was now feeling (dare I use the word) excited about giving birth. In the notion that I had a choice in how I gave birth I had found indescribable comfort. The idea of being laid on a hospital  bed with my feet in stirrups while a midwife instructed me repeatedly to push was far too clinical for my liking. Through this realisation I had now come to the decision that I would really like my experience of birth to consist of a mixture of a water birth and as active a birth as was possible mixed in with hypnobirthing once I had read up more on the subject.

Although the writer argues that shows such as One Born Every Minute harm our perception of birth by only showing one very specific kind of example it had certainly served to show me one thing, the women who were the most stressed and anxious seemed to be having the worst time of it. It turned out there was a reason for this which was explained to me in this book and in others that I have eagerly consumed as being down to our fight or flight response to what we perceive to be harmful or frightening situations. I’m certainly no biologist so forgive me if I get this slightly wrong but my understanding of this reflex and how it would affect a labouring woman is that when we are in a situation we fear our bodies send oxygen to the parts of our bodies that would be used if we were to ‘fight’ or to ‘flight’. In the case of birth this takes the oxygen away from where it is needed which is in contracting the uterus to move the baby down and out and makes contractions and the whole process generally more painful. Again I absolutely couldn’t argue with the logic behind this idea. All I needed to do was to stay as calm as possible and although birth was never going to be pleasant it was going to be a hell of a lot better for me than if I was terrified and passive on my back in a completely alien environment. Armed with this new found knowledge I am ready to sit down and write the hell out of a birth plan because as I have also learned, yes birth may be unpredictable but by at least making plans you are more likely to get the birth that you desire. If it doesn’t happen exactly as I have laid out on paper then I hope to be ready and waiting with Plan B and even Plan C if push (see what I did there?) comes to shove. It’s amazing to me how through a series of ideas that make perfect sense and seem so obvious once you are aware of them I now feel as though I am riding into battle in a full set of armour with a freshly polished sword rather than in a cloth sack brandishing a butter knife.