Your Body Can Do It!: Prepping the Rest of You

I think a very disempowering message that our society sends to women today about birth is, "You can't do it."

I totally don't believe that.

Today I want to send this message: "YES, YOU CAN!!!!"

Whether our society is blatantly and directly giving that message or not, it's definitely a subconscious message that many women receive. Today birth is often seen as a medical emergency- something you need to rush to a professional to get help with. Kind of like when someone breaks an arm and we rush them to the hospital. This view makes the mother seem like a victim. It makes her seem completely helpless unless there is a professional to treat her.

The difference here is that breaking an arm is not natural. Your arm was not meant to break like that! It's a huge blessing that we have doctors, surgeons, medical technologies, medicines, etc. to help in that kind of situation. I am very grateful for modern medicine. 

But now let's talk about birth. Is a mother's uterus contracting an emergency? Is her cervix effacing an emergency? Is her body dilating an emergency? Is a mother birthing a baby an emergency? Nope:) Your body was made to do these things! Now, there are real emergency situations in labor and birth (although they are much less common than you would think. I'll write more in a different post). We are SO BLESSED to have modern medicine to help with real emergencies- like premature labor and birth. Mothers' and babies' lives are saved by modern medicine. But a healthy pregnancy, labor, and birth are not emergencies, and I think our society has made them out to be. I feel like whenever birth is on TV, labor suddenly hits, someone calls 911, and the mother has to be immediately wheeled to the emergency room. This is not a real or accurate portrayal of birth.

I think society gives women a lot of doubts and fears about birth, but birth is something women are extremely capable of doing. Their bodies were designed to give birth to beautiful babies! 

I believe that creating all this fear and doubt concerning birth has created a disconnect between what a woman believes she is capable of doing, and what she is actually capable of doing. 

When a woman doesn't believe she is capable, she may end up relying on someone else to "deliver" (see post about Vocabulary Choices) her baby. For example, she might think, "There's no way I can do it, so I'll just go to the hospital and whatever they do, I'll just be happy to have my baby." If this is the case, and she is uninformed about her capabilities, she might have her baby with an epidural and a doctor telling her what to do, and then never really know that she can do it! 

I'm not saying it is bad to have an epidural, if that is what the mother decides. What I mean by all this is that a mother needs to know she is capable. Even if she gives birth with pain medication, her body is still doing the work! Her body is still giving birth! 

But because she does not understand the process of labor (all that her body is doing), and she only sees what the doctor/nurses are doing, she might have her baby and think that she was incapable of birthing, and that she couldn't have had a baby if it wasn't for the doctor or nurse. But her body gave birth!

Birth might feel like an emergency. If it is your first time giving birth, you will be experiencing a lot of new things! Things that you have never felt before may seem frightening if you don't know what is going on with your body. Even if you have given birth multiple times, there is typically a point during labor in which the mother feels like she is losing control and cannot go any further (this is very normal, and not dangerous).

Labor can be very intense, and I think this is where the big disconnect happens. If a woman's body is capable, but she doesn't know or believe that, then labor will be much harder and might even seem impossible. My labor was difficult, but I knew that my body was capable, that everything my body was doing was normal, and that my body was not in danger. I knew it was not an emergency. There were times that the things my body were experiencing were so overwhelming, that if I had not known the natural process of labor, I would have thought my body was in an emergency situation and that I needed medical help! It was a completely new experience with new feelings and sensations that I had never experienced before. There was a point that it became so intense and overwhelming, that I didn't see how it would be possible for me to keep going. But I thought back on my birth education and remembered that almost every woman comes to a moment like that during labor. Knowing how normal what I was experiencing was gave me confidence and helped me relax. I was able to remind myself that I didn't need to panic or worry. I just needed to relax and let everything happen naturally.

*So here's a big step in fixing this disconnect: Your body can do it- it was designed to do it, but your mind needs to know that.

The more you prepare your mind, the easier it will be for your mind to let your body do what it already knows how to do extremely well! I'll write more later in another post about how your mind and body are connected (for example: the fear, tension, pain cycle).

I believe that the first step to having a better birth experience (regardless of which path you choose to give birth) is to know that you can do it! Take whatever steps are necessary to really believe and understand that.

Some things that helped me to find confidence in my ability to give birth (I'll write more specifically about these things in different posts):

-becoming educated about the processes of birth (what your body will be doing)

-read birth stories! Positive birth stories! Stories from people who knew they could do it, and did! Not stories from people filled with fears and doubts, who ended up having birth experiences that they were dissatisfied with.

-take a Childbirth Education class.

-learn techniques of how to handle and work through the intensity of labor. Having tools (music, relaxation techniques, a doula, breathing techniques, a plan for how you'd like to birth, someone to encourage and support you during labor, different labor positions, etc.) can really help you feel prepared and help you to have a more positive experience!