birth

Active Pregnancy — the rationale

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Moving into Motherhood

It’s time to hit the main theme again:  Aer­o­bi­cal­ly fit women are at reduced risk for things that go wrong in preg­nan­cy, improve their tol­er­ance for labor and birth, and recov­er more rapid­ly in the post­par­tum peri­od.

Mov­ing into Moth­er­hood

The arrival of the hol­i­days pro­vides a good rea­son to bring this up, yet again! Preg­nan­cy is a gate­way time in women’s lives…we become more aware of our bod­ies, our sen­sa­tions, our feel­ings, our needs, and how ver­sa­tile and amaz­ing our bod­ies are. We can make peo­ple with our bod­ies! Dur­ing preg­nan­cy, we often take precautions…we eat more care­ful­ly, avoid tox­ins, try to avoid stress. When the hol­i­days arrive, we see indul­gent behav­ior in a dif­fer­ent light.

Yet, even with all this focus on behav­ior, we some­times miss the biggest aid to a healthy preg­nan­cy:  phys­i­cal fit­ness. Research clear­ly demon­strates that fit women do bet­ter, are health­i­er and hap­pi­er. More and more in the U.S. we see dis­or­ders of nor­mal organ func­tion that accom­pa­ny seden­tary preg­nan­cy.

Let’s look at this a lit­tle clos­er (yes, I am going to repeat myself some more, but it is an impor­tant con­cept to spread). We live in a body mod­el that rewards an active lifestyle.

Being sedentary causes things to go wrong

Not mov­ing cre­ates bio­chem­i­cal imbal­ances because the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem atro­phies and mol­e­cules cre­at­ed in the brain or brought in through the diges­tion may not get where they need to go for a healthy metab­o­lism.

Your car­dio­vas­cu­la­ture is the high­way that brings usable sub­stances to the place they are used. You have to help it grow and devel­op, use it to pump things around and give it a chance to be healthy. Aer­o­bic fit­ness does all these things.

Advice for young women of childbearing age

If you are think­ing of preg­nan­cy, have recent­ly become preg­nant, or work with women of child­bear­ing age, we encour­age you to open avenues of activ­i­ty for your­self or oth­ers in this pop­u­la­tion. You can learn more from our blog dancingthrupregnancy.wordpress.com. You can seek out local pre/postnatal fit­ness experts on this site. Yoga is nice…we use some of it in our work, along oth­er spe­cif­ic exer­cis­es for which there is a direct health ben­e­fit. But, we also see yoga con­verts who come into our pro­gram in mid preg­nan­cy unable to breathe after walk­ing up a flight of stairs. How will they do in labor? Not as well as those who have been doing aer­o­bic dance or an ellip­ti­cal machine 2 or 3 times a week.

The AHA/ACSM guide­lines for the amount of aer­o­bic exer­cise need­ed to improve car­dio­vas­cu­lar sta­tus hold true for preg­nant women just as they do for the rest of the pop­u­la­tion – a min­i­mum of 150 min­utes of mod­er­ate, or 75 min­utes of vig­or­ous, or a com­bi­na­tion of these lev­els of inten­si­ty, per week. If you are not get­ting this lev­el of activ­i­ty, you are putting your health – and that of your off­spring – at risk.

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New Mom Reports

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“We labored at home for six intense hours, went to the hos­pi­tal, and he was born forty min­utes lat­er. J did such a good job coach­ing the doc­tor asked, “Have you tak­en a birth prepa­ra­tion class?” We got a lot out of your class — thanks a mil­lion!!” — A, J & E

“We both feel we had a beau­ti­ful birth sto­ry that was made up of well edu­cat­ed deci­sions.  From the entire birth team, even though it was not at all what we had envi­sioned. Thanks Ann for your instruc­tion and class that equipped us for such suc­cess!” — O.A .& S.Q.

“We’re hap­py to report our baby was born on Sat­ur­day at 12:31 am…our exer­cise class­es were ESSENTIAL in the lat­er part of labor — the doc­tor and nurse described me as a “nat­ural” at push­ing, but I had to admit I’d been prac­tic­ing my c‑curves twice a week!” — G.S.

“We arrived at the hos­pi­tal at 8pm on Fri­day and I was 6 cm dilated…I deliv­ered by 1 am with­out pain meds.  It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence. You real­ly do focus inward.  I found sit­ting in the show­er hold­ing the sprayer to be help­ful.  Def­i­nitely try dif­fer­ent posi­tions.  I used the bar for when it can time to push.  Just know that there is an end in sight and just hold­ing your baby at the end is the most won­der­ful, amaz­ing feel­ing in the world!”  — P.E.

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New Breastfeeding Research: More Baby Protections

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We have long known that vagi­nal birth and breast­feed­ing are key fac­tors in the devel­op­ment of a healthy immune sys­tem in infants. Pass­ing through the vagi­na expos­es the baby to an array of bac­te­ria that help stim­u­late its unchal­lenged immune sys­tem. Breast-fed babies receive anti-bod­ies, pro­teins and oth­er mol­e­cules that pro­tect it from infec­tion and teach the immune sys­tem to defend the infant.

Breast­feed­ing is key for long-term health.

Recent research at UC Davis has shown that a strain of the bifi­do bac­te­ria — acquired from the moth­er — thrives on com­plex sug­ars (large­ly lac­tose) that were pre­vi­ous­ly thought to be indi­gestible. The bac­teri­um coats the lin­ing of the imma­ture diges­tive tract and pro­tects it from nox­ious bac­te­ria.

This com­bi­na­tion of inter­ac­tions affects the com­po­si­tion of bac­te­ria in the infant gut as it matures. Anoth­er exam­ple of how evo­lu­tion has “invent­ed” the per­fect nutri­tion for infants, this research con­tributes to the notion that evo­lu­tion has select­ed for many genes that serve nor­mal birth and breast­feed­ing by pro­tect­ing the new­born. Inter­ven­ing with the nor­mal pro­gres­sion of birth and breast­feed­ing — while occa­sion­al­ly nec­es­sary — inter­rupts these ben­e­fi­cial adap­ta­tions and con­tributes to aller­gies and autoim­mune dis­or­ders.

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Safe Birth — Who’s in Charge?

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Who Controls Birth? Defining the Argument.

Peri­od­i­cal­ly, argu­ments arise in the birthing field over who con­trols the way we give birth. Often this hap­pens at times when birthing women change their behav­ior trends, putting finan­cial pres­sure on pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in this field. The major play­ers in this argu­ment are med­ical doc­tors (obste­tri­cians), cer­ti­fied nurse mid­wives and pro­fes­sion­al home birth mid­wives.

Cur­rent­ly we are see­ing women leave the tra­di­tion­al hos­pi­tal set­ting for birth in larg­er and larg­er numbers…and tak­ing their dol­lars with them in the process. While the ques­tion of home birth safe­ty aris­es every time this con­trol argu­ment comes around, the ques­tion of whether it is safe to inter­vene in a labor that is pro­gress­ing nor­mal­ly is a new com­po­nent of the dis­cus­sion. This time the argu­ment is: The safe­ty of home birth vs. the safe­ty of using hos­pi­tal tech­nol­o­gy to inter­vene in nor­mal birth.

How Money Affects this Issue

As with all com­mer­cial ven­tures, con­trol­ling access to safe birth requires con­trol­ling the infor­ma­tion in the mar­ket place. This infor­ma­tion needs to address the per­ceived wants of the tar­get audi­ence. For a long time the main mes­sage has been: Safe birth is only avail­able in a hos­pi­tal.

The finan­cial pres­sure of giv­ing women (con­sumers) what they want — a nor­mal expe­ri­ence of birth in a safe set­ting where med­ical help can be quick­ly avail­able — has pow­ered the birth-cen­ter indus­try. Free-stand­ing and in-hos­pi­tal birth cen­ters have grown in num­bers, and are large­ly enabled by cer­ti­fied nurse-mid­wives. Mean­while, pro­fes­sion­al home birth mid­wives have increased both their cre­den­tials and prac­tice stan­dards, as well as their vis­i­bil­i­ty.

Both of these options, birth cen­ters and home birth, threat­en the liveli­hood of tra­di­tion­al obstet­ri­cal prac­tices. Low risk births (about 70% of births) have the poten­tial to be nor­mal births, requir­ing lit­tle or no inter­ven­tion. But, giv­ing birth in the hos­pi­tal means par­tic­i­pat­ing in mea­sure­ment pro­ce­dures that inter­vene in the labor process.

So, to con­vince women they need to be in a hos­pi­tal to be safe, med­i­cine has main­tained the argu­ment that home birth or out of hos­pi­tal birth is not safe. How­ev­er, research does not indi­cate this is true. The nature of this ongo­ing argu­ment is dis­cussed in a 2002 arti­cle from Mid­wifery Today.

What’s New? The Counter Argument.

The phys­i­ol­o­gy of nor­mal labor is dom­i­nat­ed by parasym­pa­thet­ic, med­i­ta­tive, gonadal ener­gy sys­tems. Mea­sure­ment is a sym­pa­thet­ic, ratio­nal, adren­al ener­gy dynam­ic. Only when it is time to expel the baby does the under­ly­ing ener­gy sys­tem make a tran­si­tion (tran­si­tion, get it?) to an adren­al impe­tus for the strength activ­i­ty of push­ing. Imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing nor­mal birth, mater­nal phys­i­ol­o­gy is again dom­i­nat­ed by gonad-dri­ven ener­gy along with a rush of endor­phins.

“Inter­vene enough and things will go awry. You can eas­i­ly end up being cut and/or sep­a­rat­ed from your baby at birth.” These ideas have gone viral. With the arrival of the inter­net, women have found a very quick way to do what we have always done: Share infor­ma­tion.

Thus, in my exer­cise pro­gram and in my child­birth prepa­ra­tion class­es, I have more and more fre­quent­ly been field­ing the fol­low­ing ques­tion from women who want a nor­mal birth and want to be safe: “How can I avoid inter­ven­tions while I am in the hos­pi­tal?”

So, I ask them what leads them to ask this ques­tion. And, they say: “I read on the inter­net and/or heard from my friends that inter­ven­tions make birth less nor­mal and less safe. I want to pro­tect myself.”

Women them­selves are enter­ing the argu­ment in a much more con­scious way than in the past. Some pro­fes­sion­als would like to keep women out of the argu­ment. But, like with many things in our 21st cen­tu­ry world, we have already past the point of no return. As they say, the horse has already left the barn!

Word has got­ten around. More and more, as a pre­na­tal fit­ness expert who strives to lis­ten to my clients, my job has become edu­cat­ing and phys­i­cal­ly train­ing women to cope with a stren­u­ous and prim­i­tive process in a tech­no­log­i­cal world.

Hope­ful­ly, we can all keep our eye on the ball here. Pre­vent­ing trau­ma should be one key goal. Just as we have learned to hold our new­borns skin to skin so they can smell and taste us, lis­ten to our heart beat and voice, and main­tain their core tem­per­a­ture, let us learn to com­fort and nur­ture our new moth­ers, while we steel them for the rig­ors of birth.

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Beyond Yoga

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Beyond Yoga

I love Yoga. But…Power Yoga, Hot Yoga, Fast Yoga, Pilates-Yoga, Fresh Yoga, Baby Yoga and even Pre­na­tal Yoga…not so much. I find these phe­nom­e­na strange.

Why? Well, 40 years ago – when I first learned Yoga – it was a priv­i­lege. A per­son came to Yoga in the search for a mean­ing­ful life path. It was a blend of the spir­i­tu­al and the phys­i­cal, and it required a com­mit­ment to what was revealed with­in the prac­tice. Before being allowed to take my first class, I had to demon­strate that I already prac­ticed med­i­ta­tion. It was not exer­cise per se.

It was not adapt­able like it is today. Depend­ing on the teacher, you learned an ancient sys­tem – Hatha, Vinyasa, Ash­tan­ga, Iyen­gar, or Kun­dali­ni. Those were the major meth­ods that have Hin­du roots, and those who prac­ticed these art forms knew what they were doing. The teach­ers them­selves had worked on their craft for decades. Today, I know only a few teach­ers who have a pro­found grasp of each of these meth­ods.

Why is Yoga so popular?

Is there some­thing with­in the work itself – even in the dilut­ed forms, hybrid ver­sions and the celebrity/competitive stu­dios – that allows it to thrive in the self-cen­tered, free-wheel­ing, brand­ing-crazy mar­ket­place of the ear­ly 21st cen­tu­ry devel­oped world?

I find the answer to this in a strange place:  Zen prac­tice, Bhud­dism. One of my favorite notions is from Suzuki’s text Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. “When you feel dis­agree­able, it is best to sit.” This is an ele­ment of nin – con­stan­cy – or being present in the moment. Not patience, which requires a rejec­tion of impa­tience and there­fore can­not accept the present as it is. When you sit – just sit peri­od, that’s it – all that is real is the moment. This is at the heart of all spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence.

I’m not an expert in Yoga. I don’t teach Yoga, although I have inte­grat­ed Yoga-based skills into my work. I have prac­ticed Hatha and Vinyasa over the years enough to learn how cer­tain skills are treated…belly breath­ing, slow deep breath­ing, main­tain­ing posi­tion and lis­ten­ing to the wis­dom of the body, and iso­met­ric strength­en­ing in prepa­ra­tion for more expan­sive shapes or motions. Long ago, I inte­grat­ed these skills from my Yoga expe­ri­ence into my teach­ing style because these skills are effec­tive for the pop­u­la­tions with which I work. But, I do not teach Yoga.

Can Research Help Us?

Researchers find Yoga a night­mare. There is so much vari­ance now in the prac­tice that find­ings from any one study can­not be trans­ferred to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. One of the most reveal­ing exper­i­men­tal-design stud­ies found that none of the claims of Yoga improv­ing metab­o­lism could be demon­strat­ed. When asked why they thought this out­come had occurred, the teach­ers who were used in the study said they thought the par­tic­i­pants in the study were not fit enough to do Yoga!

One of the most suc­cess­ful Yoga teach­ers in my area, and one of my favorites, has for decades used a bicy­cle for her pri­ma­ry mode of trans­porta­tion. She cred­its her longevi­ty and suc­cess to Yoga. I attribute it to bicy­cling. Dr. Coop­er is right…fitness (which means aer­o­bic fit­ness) is the biggest bang for the buck. Unless you are fit, it is hard to exe­cute some of the more sub­tle demands of many exer­cise reg­i­mens.

Some Yoga teach­ers will say that you can make Yoga aer­o­bic or that some forms are aer­o­bic. OK, then it’s aer­o­bics, not Yoga. When­ev­er I see “aer­o­bic Yoga” it reminds me of aer­o­bic danc­ing. It’s help­ful to remem­ber that Yoga devel­oped in a time and place where sur­vival was depen­dent upon fit­ness. Peo­ple didn’t need to do more aer­o­bics to find enlight­en­ment. They need­ed reflec­tion and to be present in the moment.

So, I insist on aer­o­bic fit­ness as the first goal of a fit­ness reg­i­men. In the pre/postnatal field, this is the only con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed fac­tor in improved out­comes. As a birth prepa­ra­tion there are Yoga-based fac­tors that will help in labor and birth IF THE WOMAN IS FIT ENOUGH. It is the fact that some Yoga-based skills help fit peo­ple find nin that is my jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for con­tin­u­ing to use them in con­junc­tion with aer­o­bics and spe­cial pre/postnatal prepa­ra­tion and recov­ery exer­cis­es.

But, there are cau­tions. Not all Yoga assanas (posi­tions) are safe for preg­nan­cy. Down-dog, in par­tic­u­lar, scares me because of inci­dents report­ed in obstet­ri­cal lit­er­a­ture in the 1980s and 1990s that indi­cate such a posi­tion is impli­cat­ed in fatal embolisms. Some shapes are just not doable and oth­ers become less com­fort­able over time. The ones that work have been iden­ti­fied since the 1940s and 1950s and inte­grat­ed into birth prepa­ra­tion cours­es.

What’s Next?

All exer­cise com­po­nents -

  • Mind/Body
  • Strength
  • Flex­i­bil­i­ty
  • Aer­o­bic or Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Fit­ness

- are nec­es­sary for a bal­anced fit­ness rou­tine. Too much empha­sis on any one fac­tor often results in injury. Aer­o­bics is where the great­est health ben­e­fits reside. Recent research has demon­strat­ed that it is phys­i­cal “fit­ness” (which we can mea­sure) as opposed to just spend­ing time in phys­i­cal activ­i­ty (which can be a wide range of inten­si­ties) that is respon­si­ble for improved health out­comes. Strength and flex­i­bil­i­ty train­ing need to be pur­po­sive. There are things we don’t need to do unless we are going to play pro foot­ball or dance Swan Lake! Mind/Body skills help us recov­er and pre­pare.

I for one will be glad when we get beyond yoga and back to cross train­ing!

Filed under: Aer­o­bics, Yoga, birth, exer­cise, labor | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Com­ment »

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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth — Birth Mode

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The Sec­ond Stage of Birth is dif­fer­ent from the First Stage. The actu­al expul­sion of the baby requires a change in ener­gy axis. Dur­ing dila­tion (first stage), oxy­tocin is most eas­i­ly released from the pitu­itary gland dur­ing relax­ation (see pre­vi­ous post), but dur­ing tran­si­tion, a change occurs so that the ergotrop­ic response takes over and adren­a­line is key in help­ing oxy­tocin to spike.

What does this mean as far as prepa­ra­tion is con­cerned? While it is impor­tant to learn to relax or main­tain posi­tions such as one does in yoga, the abil­i­ty to sprint, or turn on an aggres­sive action at the end, is crit­i­cal. You need  good aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing. Begin exer­cise with easy breath­ing and move­ment, then prac­tice aer­o­bic endurance and pow­er moves at the end of your work­out! Fin­ish up with cool down and stretch­ing.

The con­trac­tions them­selves change. They remain intense for a longer stretch, but the time between them increas­es. Push­ing involves not only the uterus con­tract­ing, but the pres­sure exert­ed by the trans­verse abdom­i­nal (TrA) mus­cle. Sim­i­lar to squeez­ing a tube of tooth­paste, TrA pres­sure helps press the baby toward the exit — yes, that is the vagi­nal open­ing. If the labor­ing moth­er is not able to apply ade­quate pres­sure, labor assis­tants some­times apply pres­sure man­u­al­ly to the top of the uterus or — if need be — for­ceps or a vac­u­um extrac­tion may be nec­es­sary.

How can a mom best pre­pare so that the TrA can pro­vide the need­ed pres­sure? Strength train­ing the TrA! Like any oth­er motion requir­ing pow­er strength, this mus­cle can be strength­ened to do its job! Here’s how:

pic­ture 1:  sit upright, inhale

pic­ture 2:  exhale, com­press abdomen and curl down

Return to upright and repeat 8 times. Rest. Repeat 8 more times.

What if some­thing goes awry? Cesare­an, or sur­gi­cal birth is an alter­na­tive. Major com­pli­ca­tions before labor include a pla­cen­ta pre­via, infec­tion or unde­liv­er­able breech posi­tion. Dur­ing labor, the most com­mon prob­lem is dys­to­cia — stalled progress through dila­tion (first stage) or push­ing (sec­ond stage). In the push­ing stage, head to large for pelvis is the most com­mon dif­fi­cul­ty.

What hap­pens next? If the birth is nat­ur­al, you will feel a tremen­dous eupho­ria. Bring the baby right up onto your chest for skin-to-skin con­tact. If you have had med­ica­tions, your response may be slight­ly blunt­ed, but you will def­i­nite­ly be over­whelmed by the emo­tions of birth.

Third Stage is expul­sion of the pla­cen­ta, which can no long remain con­nect­ed to the shrink­ing uterus. When it detach­es, the nurs­es or mid­wives will ask you to push and !plop! out it comes. It can be inter­est­ing to see what has nour­ished your baby for so long!

CONGRATULATIONS!  YOU’RE A MOM!

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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth — Labor

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The First Stage of Child­birth is the long, hard labor. It is the slow process that pro­duces dila­tion, or open­ing, of the cervix — the “neck” or out­let at the bot­tom of the uterus. Once the baby’s head can fit through the open cervix, it is time for the Sec­ond Stage, but that is anoth­er top­ic for anoth­er post.

Labor is generally a long, slow process...there is no "enter" button for dilation!

Labor is gen­er­al­ly a long, slow process…there is no “enter” but­ton for dila­tion!

Before the baby can leave the moth­er’s body, s/he must leave the uterus. The open­ing of the cervix to let the baby out of the uterus gen­er­al­ly takes up the most time. For a first time mom it can be 10 or 12 hours…or, yes, a cou­ple of days. Of course, for some moms, this time is dif­fi­cult and for oth­ers it only becomes dif­fi­cult in the last few hours.

But, you know all this, right? What you want to know is:  Why do I have to go through this? And, if I must, how can I make it the least painful?

Why labor is impor­tant. Let’s go to anoth­er ques­tion:  How impor­tant would your off­spring be if it was no big deal to drop one out? If you were walk­ing along the side­walk and you could sim­ply drop a new­born on the pave­ment, would you even stop to pick it up if you could do it again in a few days, when, of course, it will be much more con­ve­nient?

Frankly, preg­nan­cy and labor remind us to pay atten­tion. A new­born can­not sur­vive on its own for at least two years. If we don’t pay atten­tion, it will die.

Okay, now that labor has your atten­tion, what else does it do that is ben­e­fi­cial? It stim­u­lates the baby’s stress response and teach­es the new­born to be alert dur­ing sit­u­a­tions of duress. Each con­trac­tion is pulling the cervix, help­ing it slow­ly open. If you are upright, each con­trac­tion is also alert­ing the baby to the influ­ence of grav­i­ty.

Why is labor painful? So, you need to go through this because it is the bridge from preg­nan­cy to par­ent­hood. Why does it have to be painful?

The first thing to keep in mind about pain is that pain is a com­bi­na­tion of sen­sa­tions and emo­tion, main­ly fear. Fear makes you tense; ten­sion reduces blood flow. Reduced blood flow to the uterus makes the con­trac­tions less effec­tive. In addi­tion, cor­ti­sol is released, mak­ing sen­sa­tions stronger and evok­ing greater fear.

Fear is the emo­tion of fight or flight. Inter­est­ing­ly, the oppo­site response, the relax­ation response, is very effec­tive in pro­mot­ing labor. So, relax. Breathe deeply and slow­ly, focus, move through the cen­ter of your expe­ri­ence. You don’t have to be in fear if you know what is hap­pen­ing and if you are phys­i­cal­ly fit and pre­pared. Both child­birth edu­ca­tion and phys­i­cal fit­ness teach your body to work with dis­com­fort. By includ­ing them in your prepa­ra­tion, you give your­self a tremen­dous advan­tage.

Does this mean you will nev­er feel like you want to stop in the mid­dle of labor? No, but it does mean you can do it. It is finite. The notion that the baby will not do well is also tied to your phys­i­cal fit­ness…babies of fit moth­ers less often expe­ri­ence fetal dis­tress. Your care providers will let you know if there is some fac­tor beyond your con­trol that requires med­ical inter­ven­tion.

Birth is an empow­er­ing event. But, before the baby can be born, it must escape the uterus. It is a clas­sic con­flict and the moth­er’s body is the venue. Give your­self over; go with it. Only women can do this.

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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth

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There is no birth of con­scious­ness with­out pain.

Birth is a process with two major components

Birth is a life process with two major com­po­nents

Okay, be here now:  This is about a real­ly major experience…bringing human con­scious­ness into the world…opening a door to a room of love in your heart that you can only know by giv­ing birth to this person…changing your iden­ti­ty for­ev­er.

Get­ting your mind around the image: If you have not tak­en the time yet to get your mind around this, take a moment. Breathe in deeply. Gen­tly blow the air out. Repeat. Repeat. Let go of any resis­tance. Slow your heart. Slow your mind. Con­sid­er:  Your body has the pow­er to cre­ate a per­son. Your body has the pow­er to expel this per­son when the rent is up.

Your brain, glands and organs are hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with the baby’s brains, glands and organs. At some point, this dis­cus­sion reach­es a place where it is time to end this arrange­ment of two peo­ple shar­ing one body. It is true that occa­sion­al­ly the pas­sen­ger does­n’t want to leave, but that is rare. And, we have a rem­e­dy for that. Let’s just focus now on the what hap­pens when it’s time to go.

Labor starts how? Well, it depends. Some­times con­trac­tions start in fits and spurts and take a while to get orga­nized. Some­times they start strong­ly from the get go, and for oth­ers the process of get­ting rolling can take a few days. Some­times it starts ear­ly, and some­times has to be helped to start. Once in a while, the water breaks and labor starts…or not. So, the first les­son of hav­ing a child come to live with you is that you need to be flex­i­ble in your expec­ta­tions.

In the next two posts, we’ll cov­er Labor and then the Birth Mode. Each of these process­es is unique. They involve dif­fer­ent ener­gy sys­tems. They require dif­fer­ent mind-sets from the moth­er and her sup­port team. The out­comes are dif­fer­ent. Going through the cen­ter of these process­es helps you deal with them, helps you recov­er from their stren­u­ous nature and helps you move on to being a par­ent.

Remem­ber: Breathe in deeply. Gen­tly blow the air out. Repeat. Repeat. Let go of any resis­tance. Slow your heart. Slow your mind. Con­sid­er:  Your body has the pow­er to cre­ate a per­son. Your body has the pow­er to expel this per­son when the rent is up.

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Pregnancy Pathway — Review and Labor begins!

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Just to let read­ers know where we are on the preg­nan­cy path­way, here is the large graph­ic. We have just fin­ished Preg­nan­cy and are get­ting ready for Birth. Labor is beginning…are you tim­ing those con­trac­tions?!! If you have want to review any of the con­tent pri­or to Birth, you can scroll down and find an entry for each bub­ble. Or, use the Search Top­ics tool on the right side bar for a faster find.

So far, the blog has covered through Pregnancy; next Birth (purple)

So far, the blog has cov­ered through Preg­nan­cy; next Birth (pur­ple)

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