RESOURCING THROUGHOUT YOUR PREGNANCY
In the last blog post, I wrote about what resourcing is. So in this blog post, I am going to write about ways in which you can resource yourself throughout your pregnancy.
1. Have calm, grounded and supportive people present with you throughout your childbearing year. It is so important to have a team of supportive and grounded people who can hold space for you and allow you to express your truest and authentic self, without any barriers. Your supportive team may be made up of a doula, midwife, nurse, OB, family members and friends. Ensure that your team can support you in letting go and do things that society, family and friends think that you shouldn’t be doing.
2. Self-touch in a way that is soothing and nourishing for you. Also if you have a partner, doula, family or friends who can provide you with soothing touch that is also great. Touch is so important for us. Bodies crave it and allows us to feel more present, calm and grounding. Touch can be so healing.
3. Have plants and fragrances in your environment that enliven your sense of smell and make you feel good such as essential oils and candles. Certain smells not only enable us to feel good, but also allows us to become more present within each moment. Also if you have a bath, Commit to having herbal baths more often. It allows our bodies and muscles to feel more relaxed, whilst allowing us the opportunity to connect with ourselves for a period of time.
4. Practice pain-coping techniques. This will enable you to use these practices throughout your labor and birth to cope and respond to the inevitable pain that will come up.
5. Practice candle breathing and making audible sounds. Candle breathing is a simple somatic practice you can do where you breath deeply through your nose, expanding your belly and chest, then breathing out slowly through your mouth, like you are blowing out a candle. Not only does this allow you to become more present, it will support you in coming into a regulated state if and when you go into a dysregulated state. Also, allowing yourself to breath and make any audible sound that your body naturally wants to make in those moments is super relaxing. Allow yourself to practice this. It can be a bit uncomfortable to do this initially, however as times goes on with practice, it is very freeing and liberating, as making sounds allows stuck energy to be liberated from your body. It feels fucking amazing.
6. Vuing and making any type of humming noise. This activates your vagus nerve in your throat, which sends a signal to your brain that you are safe within this space and in your body right now. Breath in deeply through your noise, and as you breath out make a VU sound.
7. Recite words of affirmations and practice other mindfulness practices that allow you to shift your mindset from problems into solutions
8. Stretch and/or practice any other types of light movement that your body is feeling called to do. Movement is so important to prepare you for labor and birth. It is also important in getting your baby into an optimal position for birth. Dancing, yoga, pilates and walking are great ways to get your body moving.
9. Use a yoga or peanut ball to do hip circles. This allows relief of any pressure that is placed on your hips by opening them up.
10. Integration is key. If you have not integrated practices within your routine by the time you go into labor and birth, your body is not going to easily and naturally respond to challenges as they arise in comparison to being integrated and embodied. Practicing pain coping practices, somatic and mindfulness practices and comfort measures and being aware of the different positions that you can get into throughout labor and birth, will allow you to listen to your body more and respond when moments come up with resilience and perseverance.
I hope these will help you along your journey throughout your pregnancy. If you would like to schedule in a one hour free consultation with me to see if we are aligned with each other as your doula or childbirth educator, contact me by using the online form in the Contact Me section.
RESOURCING
Resourcing is the invitation to tune into yourself, asking yourself “How am I feeling and what will make me feel good or better right now?” It ensures you feel good, safe within your body, present and intimate with the direct experience you are having, with all the sensations and emotions that arise and fall at any given moment.
Ask yourself any one of the following questions:
What type of pleasure can I bring into my experience right now?
What can I do right now to feel good?
What can I do to help support myself to feel safe and within capacity?
By being able to resource and create pleasure and comfort for yourself throughout labor and birth, you are also more likely to stimulate relaxation, increase the release of oxytocin levels and create less tension within your body. Relaxed muscles and oxytocin allows your contractions to progress and therefore allows your baby to come into earthside more easily with less interventions and as natural as possible. When the body is feeling safe, more resourced, and the birthing process is undisturbed, the body’s intelligence system is able do what it does best.
Resourcing can be used anytime and in any situation. Stretching, going for a walk in nature, dancing, savoring a cup of tea/coffee/cocoa are some examples. I will share with you other ways to resource yourselves throughout your pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum period in the next few blog posts.
THE BENEFITS OF HAVING A BIRTHKEEPER
There have been several studies done throughout the world acknowledging the multiple benefits for both the mother and baby, when a doula is present throughout the pregnancy, labor and birth.
When a doula is able to help cultivate a calming and grounding energy that slows down the pace of the room and creates safety, you are able to be with how you feel and listen to what your body needs from you as each moment unfolds. Parents have more capacity to make informed and instinctual decisions that go a long way in ensuring better experiences and health outcomes.
A doula provides support during pregnancy, labor and birth through emotional, informational and physical support. I also incorporate spiritual support within my services through mindfulness practices, meditations, somatic education and tools as well as rituals and ceremonies.
Informational support
⦁ Sharing topics, resources, and what you need to know.
⦁ Keeping you informed about what is going on throughout each milestone.
⦁ Informing you about the different topics that can be brought up during prenatal appointments with your providers and give you all important information around these topics.
⦁ Understanding the phases and stages of labor.
⦁ Help you to find evidence-based information about different options in pregnancy and childbirth.
Emotional support
⦁ Making sure you feel cared for by being a calming and grounding, continuous presence.
⦁ Reassurance and encouragement
⦁ Helping you see yourself and your situation more positively.
⦁ Showing a caring, empathetic attitude and holding a non-judgmental and safe space. Support in empowering you.
⦁ Accepting what you desire without bias.
⦁ Helping you to work through any fears and self-doubt you and your partner may hold.
⦁ Debriefing after the birth to process what happened, holding space and actively listening.
Physical support
⦁ Using soothing touch as well as other techniques such as massage, counter pressure and acupressure throughout pregnancy, labor and birth.
⦁ Assisting with getting a TENS machine if you are interested.
⦁ Helping to create a calm environment, such as dimming the lights, arranging curtains and utilizing music.
⦁ Assisting with water therapy (shower, tub)
⦁ Applying warmth, cold washcloths or fanning.
⦁ Assisting the birthing person in walking during labor.
⦁ Assisting with your chosen, instinctual positions throughout labor and birth.
⦁ Giving ice chips and making sure the birthing person is very well hydrated and nourished.
Rituals will be weaved into sessions with the birthing parent such as a relaxing flower and herbal birth
So what is the evidence around doula support? A scoping review that was published in 2023 concluded that being guided by a doula in perinatal care was associated with positive delivery outcomes such as reduced cesareans and premature deliveries. Furthermore, the length of labor was shown to be statistically shorter, there was a decreased need for an epidural and other pain medication with increased confidence and autonomy. Babies were also more likely to have higher Apgar scores.
The review also showed that the emotional support provided was seen to reduce anxiety and stress with lower rates of postpartum depression. With regards to low-income women, doula support was shown to improve breastfeeding success with quicker initiation and continued breastfeeding weeks after childbirth. Mothers had better birth outcomes when compared to those without doula support in regard to low birth weight and complications experienced during birth and delivery. Women were also more likely to attend prenatal education courses. All women and their partners had positive opinions regarding the presence of a doula during labor and delivery.
In 2017, Bohren et al. published an updated Cochrane review on continuous support in childbirth. They combined the results of 26 trials with more than 15,000 people across 17 countries including North and South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Oceania within high and low income settings. Overall, birthing people who received continuous support were more likely to have spontaneous vaginal births and less likely to also have any pain medication, epidurals, negative feelings about childbirth, vacuum or forceps-assisted births, cesareans, long labors, and their babies were less likely to have low Apgar scores at birth.
Again there was some evidence that also showed lowered rates of postpartum depression. Below there is further statistical evidence showing that continuous support either from doula or someone else you trust is a safe and beneficial way to increase the likelihood of better outcomes for the birthing person and baby.
25% decrease in the risk of Cesarean
8% increase in the likelihood of a spontaneous vaginal birth
10% decrease in the use of any medications for pain relief
Shorter labors by 41 minutes on average
38% decrease in the baby’s risk of a low five-minute Apgar score
31% decrease in the risk of being dissatisfied with the birth experience
There could be so many reasons to these statistics. One reason includes ever since birth has moved out of the home and into hospital settings, people in labor are submitted to institutional routines, high intervention rates, staff who are strangers, lack of privacy, bright lighting and needles. Having a doula buffers this type of environment. Helping you to regain clarity and focus, providing encouragement and trust and promoting empowerment. Additionally, doulas are considered to be pain relievers themselves. When doulas are present, who are calm and grounded themselves, slowing the pace of the room right down, that is likely to prevent a cascade of medical interventions including an epidural and Pitocin (which is a synthetic oxytocin). Soothing touch may also help a birthing person’s body to feel safe and more relaxed, contributing to a smoother delivery. A baby will struggle to come out of a tense body. Lastly, having a doula present can lead to a natural release in oxytocin, a hormone promoting labor contractions. Swedish oxytocin researcher Kristin Uvnas Moberg writes that the doula enhances oxytocin release, decreasing stress reactions, fear, and anxiety, and increases contraction strength and effectiveness. The calming effect of the doula’s presence increases the release of natural pain coping hormones (beta-endorphins), making labor feel less painful.
A study that was taken place in Iran, compared first time parent’s anxiety and pain levels with doula support to those without doula support (Ravangard et al. 2017). They randomly assigned 150 first time births to either doula support or no support and used standard questionnaires to measure anxiety and pain levels. They found that on average, those who did receive support had less anxiety and lower average pain scores during labor. They recommend that all hospitals in Iran provide access to doulas since having a safe and calm delivery is considered a human right.
I am currently located in Brazil, where it has one of the highest rates of cesarean births in the world with 56%. A 2016 study found that cesarean births accounted for all deaths from anesthesia complications, and was associated with a significant increase in death due to postpartum hemorrhage. To improve the quality of the birth experience, Brazil enacted a national law in 2005 to ensure that birthing parents have the right to have and choose a companion to be present throughout their labor and birth. A survey in 2012 showed only 18% of women had continuous companionship whereas in 2017 it had increased to 163%. Women who attended the Senses of Birth health education intervention and received doula support (26%) during childbirth, were more likely to have a vaginal birth, have freedom of mobility throughout labor, receive midwife care, use non-pharmacological pain-relief methods, deliver in a non-lithotomy position, deliver in a public hospital and have higher knowledge of evidence based practice. What is interesting is that women who had doula support were more likely to be within the low and mid-level income bracket in comparison to high income women who were more likely to deliver in private hospitals where interventions take place more commonly. The results supports the hypothesis that doula support decreases the frequency of unnecessary medical use of cesareans. The study also suggests that education may change the norms and normalize birth in a country that normalizes cesarean birth.
Investing in yourself and your family is the best gift that you can provide for yourself. Your physical and emotional wellbeing are high priorities. You gain so much wisdom and value when you invest in education, mentors, coaches, support and resources. You will never regret investing in a doula or any other support for that matter, unless they are not aligned with you. I saw a post recently that stated people spend so much money on a wedding, why not invest a small amount of money for a supportive doula. Pregnancy and birth is more important than a wedding. Heck its probably the most important thing that you will ever experience in your life.
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10292163/
https://evidencebasedbirth.com/the-evidence-for-doulas/
https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-022-05069-0
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(22)00261-9/fulltext#seccesectitle0014