Childbirth class Part II: Pain |
[posted by Nat] |
Brian has beaten me to the punch line, so to speak, about last week's class (I've been such a blogging slacker). And I must admit I prefer how he tells the story to how I would have told it.
As we go to childbirth classes and I read books on childbirth (I'm focusing primarily on the Lamaze method), I am continuously struck by how many different childbirth cultures there are just in the US -- I haven't yet surfed French motherhood sites on the subject, but hope to have time to soon.
Our instructor's reference to Genesis 3:16 is just one example. In thinking about her comment, I wonder how many women refuse drugs during childbirth because they think that they must feel this punishment from God. I must admit that I had never thought of childbirth as an act of penance -- like a hair shirt especially for women. I hope to not have any medical interventions and I hope to not take drugs, but it's certainly not a question of paying for Eve's sin.
Of course, as Brian pointed out to me last night, my own conception of pain and childbirth is rooted in a modern romantic myth of the body. I am very attached to the idea that pain is information, that it will help me know what to do when during childbirth, that my body knows how to give birth and I need to trust it and myself, that my instinct will tell me what to do. This is the core of the Lamaze method (perhaps Bradley too). Listen to your body.
The first three mantras of the Lamaze philosophy are:
In her story a woman explains how she managed to have a VBAC and although she had planned for "natural" childbirth with no interventions, she had to have several. From her story it seems that one of the reasons she had to have several was that she started pushing when it felt right and in fact she was only half way dilated and the pushing caused the cervix to swell shut. Of course, her midwife points out that her whole childbirth process was very slow because her baby had a short umbilical cord and so her body wasn't allowing the baby to move down too fast to protect him.
So the way the story tells it, on the one hand her body didn't give her accurate information, and on the other it knew what it was doing in making the process super slow.
Part of Lamaze is breathing and concentration to help you get through the pain. Mind over body (and I won't get into the relationship between mind and body here). We practiced modified-paced breathing for active labor last night. While staring at a focal point you take a deep "cleansing" breath, then a few slow breaths and then increase the pace of breathing as pain increases and then decrease it as the pain decreases.
Brian squeezed my leg tighter and tighter through this, timing the "contraction" (saying to me "15... 30... 45... 60"). Afterwards he squeezed my leg to show me how hard he had been squeezing. I was amazed: it hadn't felt that hard at all while I was concentrating and breathing. Let's hope this works with the real thing!
(I should point out that though our childbirth class is influenced by Lamaze, it's not a Lamaze class. We're doing Lamaze on our own with a manual.)
As we go to childbirth classes and I read books on childbirth (I'm focusing primarily on the Lamaze method), I am continuously struck by how many different childbirth cultures there are just in the US -- I haven't yet surfed French motherhood sites on the subject, but hope to have time to soon.
Our instructor's reference to Genesis 3:16 is just one example. In thinking about her comment, I wonder how many women refuse drugs during childbirth because they think that they must feel this punishment from God. I must admit that I had never thought of childbirth as an act of penance -- like a hair shirt especially for women. I hope to not have any medical interventions and I hope to not take drugs, but it's certainly not a question of paying for Eve's sin.
Of course, as Brian pointed out to me last night, my own conception of pain and childbirth is rooted in a modern romantic myth of the body. I am very attached to the idea that pain is information, that it will help me know what to do when during childbirth, that my body knows how to give birth and I need to trust it and myself, that my instinct will tell me what to do. This is the core of the Lamaze method (perhaps Bradley too). Listen to your body.
The first three mantras of the Lamaze philosophy are:
- Birth is normal, natural, and healthy.
- The experience of birth profoundly affects women and their families.
- Women's inner wisdom guides them through birth.
In her story a woman explains how she managed to have a VBAC and although she had planned for "natural" childbirth with no interventions, she had to have several. From her story it seems that one of the reasons she had to have several was that she started pushing when it felt right and in fact she was only half way dilated and the pushing caused the cervix to swell shut. Of course, her midwife points out that her whole childbirth process was very slow because her baby had a short umbilical cord and so her body wasn't allowing the baby to move down too fast to protect him.
So the way the story tells it, on the one hand her body didn't give her accurate information, and on the other it knew what it was doing in making the process super slow.
Part of Lamaze is breathing and concentration to help you get through the pain. Mind over body (and I won't get into the relationship between mind and body here). We practiced modified-paced breathing for active labor last night. While staring at a focal point you take a deep "cleansing" breath, then a few slow breaths and then increase the pace of breathing as pain increases and then decrease it as the pain decreases.
Brian squeezed my leg tighter and tighter through this, timing the "contraction" (saying to me "15... 30... 45... 60"). Afterwards he squeezed my leg to show me how hard he had been squeezing. I was amazed: it hadn't felt that hard at all while I was concentrating and breathing. Let's hope this works with the real thing!
(I should point out that though our childbirth class is influenced by Lamaze, it's not a Lamaze class. We're doing Lamaze on our own with a manual.)
-maman
posted by Nat
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