thedoulabell3 Tips to Achieve Your Best Birth
Is it a secret recipe?! NO! No secrets here. I want you ALL to have your best birth, so here are my top three tips...
1. 💻Research your options.
The saying is true. “If you don’t know your options, you don’t have any.” Take time to look up evidence based info on situations that may present themselves during labor and delivery! If a doctor rushes in and says “I want to add pitocin to pick up your contraction pattern” or “let’s just break your waters to move this kid down” what will you do? Have you researched some pros and cons? And we’re talking about up to date, EVIDENCE based information here. Not opinion based. Not majority-of-people based. Not convenience based... a great source of scientifically researched, evidence based info on all things pregnancy and birth is @ebbirth or evidencebasedbirth.com
2. 👭🏽👩🏼🤝👨🏽Choose your birth team carefully.
Who are you choosing to support you during this transformative event called birth? Mother, husband, sister, partner, doula... whoever it is needs to be 100% on board with what you want for your birth. They need to attend a birth class with you, do some reading, and have some kind of instruction on how best to support a laboring person. Personal birth experience is very valid, but does not necessarily mean that person is fully prepared to support you in YOUR unique birth. If you’re looking for a doula who is local to you, check out doulamatch.com and search your zip code to find some amazing support options.
3. 🧠🤰🏻Flood your mind with positive birth stories and birth affirmations.
Unfortunately, we often only see scary/horror stories of birth experiences. In Hollywood depictions of labor, everything is always emergent and dramatic because that’s what people cling to in entertainment. They’re trying to evoke an emotional response from you so it has to make you FEEL a certain way.
Similarly, with friends and acquaintances, we often only hear the negative stories of birth. And by listening and dwelling on these stories we accidentally TRAIN OUR MINDS to be afraid of birth!
Thankfully if we put in the effort to seek out positive stories of powerful and joyful births, we can train our minds to accept labor as a natural and intense, but safe and manageable event that we are prepared for! By saying and thinking positive statements about our bodies, about our babies, and about our births, we can restructure our minds perception of birth and seriously shift our ability to manage labor well! Check out the book “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth” by midwife Ina May Gaskin and start retraining your mind for your best birth.
What was the #1 BEST tip you got before you went into labor? Or if you didn’t get many great tips, what is your #1 best tip that you would give a soon-to-be-laboring person?
Let’s chit-chat! I want to hear your answers below! ⬇️