As a midwife, I am often asked about the keys to a healthy and joyous childbirth experience. Of course, anything that enhances the well-being of mom will benefit her pregnancy and birth—such as healthy, wholesome nutrition, good hydration, plenty of exercise, rest and activities that minimize stress, avoiding smoking, alcohol, drugs and other toxic substances, and loving support from family and friends.
It is essential during labor and birth to have the continuous presence of a skilled midwife and other support persons, such as one’s partner, mother, sister, friend, or doula—people who are calm, positive, encouraging, reassuring, nurturing, and patient. These people must guard and protect the natural process of childbirth without unnecessary interference when it is working well, and have complete trust and confidence in a woman’s ability to birth and a baby’s ability to be born.
It is crucial to totally accept and even embrace the entire process, the bodily secretions, the pain and possible loss of control; to surrender and let go, to give in to the normal physiologic unfolding of childbirth with flexibility to its sometimes unpredictable nature. It helps to make a sacred, private, undisturbed, bubble-like atmosphere around the laboring woman, enabling her to go deep within and drop into an altered state of consciousness that midwife Pam England calls ‘laborland.’ The laboring woman will become instinctual and spontaneous, so that her body can do what it was perfectly designed to do.
Another must is the freedom to vocalize, move about, change position, and be active and upright, using gravity and the widest dimensions of the birth canal. A laboring woman should know that she will be pushed to the edge and beyond, forced to draw upon inner reserves and strengths she did not know she had, and as it gets even harder, she will rise to the occasion to meet the challenge with success.
And it is this process of completing something of utmost difficulty, allowing herself to be pushed past her perceived limits, finding herself more capable than ever imagined, where lies the beauty and deep joy, the powerful transformation of this life-changing event called childbirth.