Releasing fears and creating birth affirmations
If you believe your body is meant to give birth efficiently, naturally and without complications and that birth is a joyful event, you are more than halfway to a safe, natural birth.
Our beliefs, thoughts, and emotions play an integral role in our actions and decision-making, they even affect our physiology every moment of the day. What we think and believe about birth matters. A positive image of birth is the cornerstone of a safe, happy birth experience. If you believe your body is meant to give birth efficiently, naturally and without complications and that birth is a joyful event, you are more than halfway to a safe, natural birth.
Echart Tolle writes about the woman and her pain-body in his book The Power of Now, “every woman has her share in what could be described as the collective female pain-body (cultural beliefs)…often a woman is ‘taken over’ by the pain-body…do not let the pain-body use your mind and take over your thinking. Watch it. Feel its energy directly, inside your body. As you know, full attention means full acceptance.”
When you decide to take personal responsibility for your well-being and health your body will replace fear, anxiety, and pain with endorphins that will support and serve you and transform you into a happy relaxed person.
FEAR-TENSION-PAIN theory
The fear-tension-pain theory explains how a mother’s personal beliefs about childbirth can influence her experience of giving birth (Grantly Dick-Read, 1944). If a mother is concerned with the pain of childbirth and filled with fear, then the emotions of fear (adrenaline) prepare the body for flight by diverting the blood from the uterus (400% increase to the arms and legs) and the uterus becomes deficient in the blood creating the experience of pain.
“When fear is absent, then the overruling power of the sympathetic nervous system is absent from the pelvic mechanism. There is a direct relationship between the emotional state and muscular tone. When the muscular tone is reduced then the cervix and lower uterine segment and outlet will offer minimal resistance to the muscle of expulsion in the birth canal” (Grantly Dick-Read).
Fear Releasing techniques practiced in the Pregnancy Active Birth workshop are:
You can help reduce fear and increase the body’s natural opiates by practicing the following techniques on a daily basis. Remember practice makes permanent
Progressive muscle relaxation: The use of progressive relaxation systematically brings attention through the whole body, specifically releasing tension that restricts the optimal release of hormones. Remember what the guide said to the woman going down the rapids “As the water swirls you right into a big rock, just relax. It will swirl you up and over the rock and you won’t get any scrapes or bruises”. Birth is a lot like that river, when you notice yourself tightening around any thought, feeling, image or sensation, simply notice the resistance and let go with the flow. Trust gravity and go with the flow.
Slow rhythmic breathing: When you meditate on your breath during labour, you release endorphins – the body’s natural pain killers. Research shows that when the rate and depth of breathing change the body responds by producing a greater amount of its own opiates (Candice Pert, 2003).
Practicing moment-by-moment awareness: When you concentrate on just the sensation in the moment, noting its qualities, you have reduced the possibility of pain by two-thirds. You have removed both the pain you remember from yesterday and the fear you anticipate for tomorrow.
Creative visualisation: Visualisations can be used to create powerful and positive suggestions to the subconscious.
Acknowledging fear: Acknowledging fears and working with them prior to birth will mean that much less tension will be carried into labour. Learning to recognise, admit, and face your feelings will make your pregnancy a more positive experience. Worrying, rather than dealing with fear, makes the emotion grow totally out of proportion.
Affirmations:
Affirm what you want and not what you don’t want, the subconscious does not understand the word ‘don’t’. Always phrase your affirmation in the present tense and in the most positive way you can.
Here are some affirmations created by a mother a few weeks before birth
The more I trust my body’s innate wisdom, the more my mind relaxes and my body opens
I am willing and open to experiencing the bliss of natural birth
Every breath is filled with love and peace
I am blissfully surprised by the sensations experienced during birth
I am filled with courage and faith
My baby and I trust and surrender to each other
Nature’s way is gentle and I move with the rhythms of nature
You can email Suzanne: info@yogababy.com.au to request a referral list of pregnancy and birth counselors to assist you to explore further any challenges or fears that are coming up in the pregnancy. It is much better to deal with your fears now than in the birth room!
Our Pregnancy Active Birth workshop or Antenatal Private Session is led by advanced childbirth educator and senior yoga teacher, Suzanne Swan. Suzanne has been doing this work for over twenty years and her experience affirms that having the partner involved in the birth process, working hands-on as a team with the mother, promotes a positive birth experience and enhances family bonding.