Millions of women have done it before! My body knows how to give birth naturally and all I need to do is trust my body and my baby to sail through the waves of labour! So, I don't need to prepare for birth, or do I?!
YES to your body and baby knowing how to do their magic! Absolutely! So why is it so important to prepare for your birth anyway?
Benefits of Preparing for Birth
Your body knows how to do it, no doubt! Us humans are so super clever and unlike other mammals have the neo-cortex, also called thinking brain. This part of our body is responsible for the constant chatter, the overthinking, worrying, planning, organising, adding up numbers, etc. Unfortunately, our neo-cortex doesn't know how to naturally relax and stay calm but we can practice how to switch it off and learn how to surrender during birth. Staying in our thinking brain during labour will not aid a relaxed and calm birth as we'd constantly think ahead and probably worry about what's to come. As a result our body would tense up, promote adrenaline and we wouldn't be able to promote enough oxytocin, which is super important for strengthening our contractions & bringing bubba out.
I also believe that it's really important to understand your choices and rights during birth. Sometimes it seems like we 'aren't allowed to......go over 41 weeks, labour on all 4s, decline interventions or question a midwife's / obstetrician's suggestions. But that's simply not true! Learning how you can make informed choices and which questions you should ask will make you feel empowered about your birth.
Although you as the birthing mama instinctively know how to birth your baby, your partner doesn't know. Preparing for birth will educate him/her and equip them with lots of techniques on how they can support you physically and emotionally during birth.
You will also learn lots of active birth postures and useful tips for labour, that will help your baby come down into the birth canal easier.
Preparing for your birth will leave you feeling confident, knowledgeable and empowered to make informed choices should your journey take a different turn.
Benefits of Hypnobirthing
Considering Hypnobirthing as Birth Preparation? My training company the Little Birth Company shares all the wonderful benefits of Hypnobirthing with us here.
