Gentle Birth Choices
June 4, 2011
Dr. Sarah Buckley, family practitioner in Australia has four children. She birthed all of them at home. She has become a strong advocate for creating a birth environment where the mother unequivocably feels safe and secure. The following in an excerpt from her website. She explains in the text below briefly why’where you birth can influence your birth process. I follow her text with a how practicing yoga can influence a women’s experience of birth.
”Although a gentle birth can happen anywhere, the chances of a natural, drug-free labour and birth are much, much greater at home. For example, the 2002 ‘Listening to Mothers ‘ survey found “virtually no natural childbirth” among the 1500-odd US mothers who responded to their detailed questionnaire. In contrast, in homebirth studies, at least 70% of mothers and babies enjoy a natural birth at home.”
“One reason why intervention is less often needed at home is that you feel private, safe and unobserved when in your own space. These are the basic requirements for birth in all mammals, and are associated with low levels of fight-or-flight hormones, giving an efficient and safe birth for you and your baby.”
“Conversely, when fight-or-flight hormone levels are high, labour will slow to some extent, and blood and oxygen will be diverted to the muscles, heart and lungs — those organs needed for fight or flight — and away from your uterus and baby. This may cause not only a prolonged labour, but can also compromise blood and oxygen supply to your baby, leading to ‘fetal distress’. Prolonged labour and fetal distress are the most common reasons for intervention in hospital birth.”
Women who attend my yoga classes throughout their pregnancy become more familiar with her own unique experience of pregnancy. She learns to trust in the inate wisdom and power of her birth body. The more a mama to be knows who she is as a birthing woman, the more she will fearlessly ride the waves of her birth process Practicing yoga prepares the mama to feel and breathe into the sensations that arise as the birth of her baby nears. Relaxed breathing through the birth process keeps the mama out of the flight-fight mode. The strong contracting sensations of her birthing uterus are unfamiliar to first time mamas. When the birth mama is relaxed , at ease with these sensations she will find that she CAN move through the process allowing for the natural release of the birth hormones that elevate her capacity to birth her baby. The birth mama learns to turn inward and focus her attention in a way that diminishes her awareness of external activity that may disrupt the birth process. Practicing yoga and meditation during pregnancy can influence how a woman experiences her birth whether at home, birth center or hospital.
