I recently sat down with a friend from high school who is now working as a Women's Services Nurse Educator. The hospital she is working for is beginning to offer a natural childbirth session as an add-on to their prepared childbirth class and she was wanting to a little help in coming up with some content for this class. It was an honor to work with her!

And that meeting produced an idea for this blog post. Our time to talk was short and she only has two hours to give her students the best information she can. So, I tried to focus on what I believe are the biggest keys to being successful in one's desire for an unmedicated birth. And with that I give you:

Keys to a Successful Unmedicated Birth:

1. Committment.

What is the secret to a long marriage? Committment. It is that commitment that a man and woman make to love and honor eachother through “sickness and health, good times and bad” that keeps them going when times may get rough. And once they are through the rough times, they are glad they held on to that commitment. They seek counsel and help when needed. They read books, possibly attend seminars and conferences, they work to stay together. The same holds true for birth. If you think you may want an unmedicated birth, do some research. Learn a bit about the pros and cons of both medicated and unmedicated births. If you decide that you would like to go forward with an unmedicated birth, commit to it. And just like your commitment with your marriage, do the work necessary to stay with it. Be sure your provider is supportive of your wishes.Take a good quality childbirth education class. Hire a doula. Stay active and eat nourishing foods. Practice relaxation. Read, read, read. And when you enter the transition phase of your labor, the roughest, hardest part of labor that may make you question your decision to have an unmedicated birth (or to have a baby at all!), grab hold of your husband's hand and stick to your commitment. Know that what you are enduring will not last forever, that you are strong and designed for birth. And most importantly, know that when you come through on the other side, IT WILL BE WORTH IT. 


     2.   Surrender
Every mother who has an unmedicated birth has to find that place in which she is able to relax, let go, and surrender control to this beautiful process. This is pretty big. Absolutely essential, actually. No amount of reading or breathing techniques or squatting will override the inability to do this. And that can be hard for many reasons. Some don't learn how until they've labored for many hours. The earlier you are able to do this, the better it will be. If mom is fearful or anxious or is trying to control her labor, her body will be tense and working against itself. I wish that I could write out some simple steps to learning how to do this, but I can't. It's not that easy. This is something that I have worked through with so many clients. And it's something I'm only able to do in-peson, individulally as each mom's emotions and circumstances and reasons for being unable to surrender are unique. But, I can tell you that it is helpful to practice any and every relaxation technique you are able to throughout your pregnancy. There are many to choose from. Don't learn just one, try a few. It's also helpful to work through anxieties and fears with your spouse, a friend, your mom, a counselor, etc so that when labor begins you are more easily able to surrender.


Something that falls under this category that I've noticed is helpful is mom's ability to ignore her contractions in early labor. I tell my clients over and over and over again: whatever you would normally be doing at the time labor starts (middle of the night=sleeping, noon=make some lunch, do a load of laundry, etc), do it. And ignore the contractions until you absolutely can't any longer. The moms that are able to do this during the early phases of labor, are typically in better spirits and much less exhuasted than those that watched the clock, analyzing duration and frequecy of every contraction and/or tried tricks to make labor faster during early labor. You can not control or predict your labor and birth. No amount of analyzing will allow you to predict who your labor will progress and what the outcome will be. No combination of activities or techniques or tricks will enable you to control your labor and birth. You need to educate yourself and surround yourself with a supportive birth team so that you are able to control how you are cared for during your labor and birth, but you will not be able to control the process itself. 

That's it. Two keys. Sounds simple enough, right? It is. But it really isn't. 

I quickly learned that I had already missed her first three births of the year. But, I was able to attend 15 with her and I visited many families in their homes during prenatal visits where she proudly displayed my contents and demonstrated in what ways they may be useful during childbirth.

My doula attended 18 total births this year; 9 beautiful girls and 9 precious boys were born. Of those 18 births, 8 were VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Cesaren). My doula talks all the time about how much she loves VBAC births because she had two of them herself. And of those VBAC births, one mom had had 3 previous cesareans, two moms had had 2 previous cesareans (and one of those had had a traumatic car accidnet which shattered her pelvis 2 years before!), and the last five VBAC moms had had one previous cesarean. Seven of those 18 babies born are the first/oldest in their families while the remaining 11 had sibling(s) eagerly anticipating their arrivals.

There were 3 births this year for which my doula never even unzipped one of my zippers. She always says her most important tools are her hands, her heart, and her head. And I don't carry those, obviously! There was one birth this year for which I wasn't even taken out of the car. That tiny boy gave us all a surprise by arriving 7 weeks early at home just 10 minutes after my doula was called...what excitement that was!

Two of the births we attended this year were ones we didn't have on the calendar, as we served as backup for doula friends. And then we had to call in those favors later in the year as we had three moms laboring at once this summer and then a few weeks later, two moms labored at the same time. Those weekends were long and a lot of work, but so very much fun!
During the weekend in which there were three births at once, two of the moms were laboring in hospital rooms next-door to each other and we called in a back-up. During those births, I was in one room and the back-up doula's bag was in the other room and both doulas used both bags. My contents were practically strung all over the hospital at the end of that weekend!