What does labour feel like 1260x542
22 Nov 2011

Can anyone tell me what labour feels like?

2 mins to read
To accurately describe what it feels like to labour and birth requires descriptions that words will fail. The body, the mind, the intellect, the child about to come thru will all play an equal role in this story.


Our guest blogger, Yolande Hyde, is a prenatal yoga instructor, a qualified doula, and runs Avalon Yoga studio. She teaches holistic childbirth preparation courses and helps women to achieve trust and confidence through yoga and breath work. She is also a guest blogger on Miranda Kerr’s KORA website.

To accurately describe what it feels like to labour and birth requires descriptions that words will fail. The body, the mind, the intellect, the child about to come thru will all play an equal role in this story. To focus only on the physical journey would be underwhelming indeed and would leave you very short changed of the meaningful nature of this wonderful experience.

Contractions have this wonderful building nature, rarely (but of course not always) is a women dumped in at the deep end. Beginning slowly and gently, they feel like period cramps in the lower belly or an ache across the back of the waist in the kidney area. As you progress they build in intensity and frequency and a complex communication within you will ensure that natural pain killers are active in your blood stream and that dilation is occurring in direct relation to the intensity and efficiency of these contractions. The natural endorphins present and the internal focus now required of you, will make you close your eyes and move slowly and rhythmically deeper into this birth trance. The primary sensations at this stage are the contraction of the uterine muscles themselves and at times pressure in the lower back.

As the labour progresses the dance will spiral us deeper, the sensations change to pressure on the bowel and bladder and the soft tissues of the birth canal. The feeling of fullness in the rectum tells us that the baby’s head is low, pressing on the bowels, and that delivery is possibly only a few hours away (for a first time mumma, often faster for subsequent births). This fullness will initially be felt only at the peak of the contraction but will build into an uncontrollable urge to push. As a mother nears this fulcrum in her labour, the place between holding a child in and letting it go, there is often an intricate emotional unfolding taking place. Here in the labour we can tremble, cry, experience heat fluctuation, even tell everybody that we are going home. This shift often culminates with the mother coming to the realisation that she must let her baby go from her body. This is less a conscious decision making process and more a true act of surrender and love.

This is where the labour will pivot forever, if you were tired you now feel alert and energized, if you were filled with doubt and fear you now know you will do this.

The fullness of the rectum will remain and with it will come a stretching of the tissues of the birth canal, although not painful there is a richness that defies description here and seems to some to be more of a spiritual experience of opening rather than a physical one. As the baby’s head nears the vaginal opening we meet the ‘ring of fire’. This burning sensation (much like eating an orange when you have a little cut on the side of your lips) tells you that the head is now stretching your perineum. This is nature saying ‘slow down now girl’. It is natural for us to not want to push into that sting – so follow your body and breathe your baby down. Contractions will still be accompanied by the pushing urge so softening your mouth and dissolving the sensation with an out breath will help you control this final descent. The slower your baby descends the more chance of a gentle birth for your little one and the better the chance that your perineum will remain intact.

As your baby leaves your body it will do so in a final rush of relief, remaining fluid, a little blood sometimes and a whole lot of love. You have given much to be here and now it is your turn to receive richly. As you pick up your baby for the first time you will be turning your back on your Maiden nature, surrendered in the act and effort of birth, you have reinvented yourself for you are now a Mother.


 



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