Class Three March 28th

Great class on Saturday. It was wonderful to experience everyone's willingness in sharing their knowledge, questions, thoughts and experiences (of all shades and colors). Pregnancy and birthing are transformative processes and there are so many narratives for each person throughout them, it's important to honor each one.

This week we talked about birthing in the squatting position and second and third stages of labor. To recap a little, the labor postures common to traditional women's cultures all over the world include sitting, kneeling, standing, squatting, or the hands-and-knees position. These postures might require various kinds of supports for mother to pull on, like chairs, bars, the embrace of a birthing partner, a wall, and even a tree (if you happen to be outdoors). Birthing in these upright positions have a list of benefits including:

• better use of gravity
• maximum circulation between mother and baby (no compression caused by the baby's weight on the mother's major blood vessels)
• better alignment of the baby to pass through the pelvis
• stronger rushes
• increased pelvic diameters when squatting or kneeling

Another interesting tid-bit is that the first recorded instance of a woman lying on her back during labor was of Louis de la Valliere, a mistress of King Louis XIV of France in 1663 and the position was requested due to Louis' desire to see the baby being born from his position (sitting behind a curtain). (Gaskin, 2003)

Ina May Gaskin, in her book, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth writes about trusting you "inner primate" and "letting your monkey do it". She says, "don't let your over-busy mind interfere with the ancient wisdom of your body". The following list is an excerpt from the book about things that women might tend to do in labor that can get in the way of the body accessing its more primitive nature:

• thinking about technology as necessary to birth-giving
• obsesing about their bodies being inadequate
• blaming their condition on others
• doing math about dialation to speculate the length of labor
• getting into a labor position that one is told to rather than what feels right
• being self-conscious about making noise, farting, pooping in labor

She continues by saying that learning to love your inner primate or horse, lion, dog etc. is a great way to get in touch with the animal instinct that is alive during birthing. Emulating an animal can allow you to access a power that you might rely on during the birth process.

So...you might think about your relationship to your primitive self and dig around a bit to see if anything there might be preventing you from imagining your ideal birth and if there is anything that you can use to guide you in having the birth experience that you truly want.

See you next Saturday!