– Child Birth-

No one can tell you what it will be like when you go into labour. You need to trust your body and tell yourself it’s capable. Have confidence that you will be able to cope the best you can.

A lot can change a situation depending on how you think about it.

OK, with birth, you won’t know what will happen until you reach the time and see how things will pan out. Medical things can happen unexpectedly like – high or low blood pressure, difficulties getting baby out, waters not breaking naturally, baby may have pooed inside you and once waters break you may need medical attention, etc. If any of these happen, you have to put full trust in your medical team helping you and try and do what ever is best for you and baby to stay safe. All these unexpected things aside, there are a lot of things you can control.

Control what you can control, and be guided by the midwives and medical staff with the things you have less control over.

Things you can control:

• What you take to hospital to assist you in being as comfortable as possible
• Who you take to hospital
• How much information you know about possibilities of things happening
• What drugs you may use for pain relief if needed
• What positions you would like to try to birth your baby

In the final weeks of your pregnancy, start teaching yourself to take control and to trust your body. In the final weeks of my pregnancy I educated myself about possibilities, read a few birth stories, watched some births on you-tube and learnt about different possibilities that could happen. This helped me to look at it with more of an open mind and to become more relaxed about it.

Prior to doing any of the above things I was feeling very under prepared and therefore had NO idea of what to expect. I think if I had not have done my research within my comfort zone and prepared myself for the unknown the best I could, I would have had a very different birth story. At first I found birth stories confronting. I was shocked by some things that I had no clue would even be a possibility during birth. After reading the stories and watching a couple of births I felt as though I was more open minded about it and had a better picture of what it may be like. Still in saying all this, until your time comes you won’t understand exactly what you are in for.

With my massage therapy knowledge and background I used that to my advantage. From experience while massaging people when they tense up and say I can use harder pressure I can feel the muscles tightening up under my hands which is telling me the muscles are not relaxed, therefore my massage is not very effective. Muscles work most effectively when they are relaxed, so telling myself the more relaxed I was during labour the more effective my body was going to be in birthing my child.

I had 100% trust in my midwife and my body. My midwife was amazing. She guided me from the minute I walked into the birth unit and did everything possible to make me as comfortable as I could be. I was really lucky and felt that she was there when I needed her support and she gave me space when I didn’t need her as much.

What are some things you did to help you feel more relaxed leading up to birth?

By Clare at Relaxed Parenting