3 reasons why hypnobirthing breathing techniques can improve your labour…
I guess at some point, in whatever context, we have all heard ‘deep breath’ when a person is in labour.. maybe through TV or perhaps in our own experience of labour, or watching someone else in labour. But what does this really mean?! I remember telling people when I was pregnant that I was just going to breath my baby out - majority of people laughed at this. So why are we told to breath?!
Where does this come from, and is it really that important? Yes, 100% - hypnobirthing breathing techniques are a MASSIVE tool in the hypnobirthing tool kit. Why is this? Keep reading to discover the gold…
1. Reduces the risk of tearing.
When we are taking nice deep breaths, this gets good levels of oxygen into the body. This helps us to feel more relaxed. When we are relaxed our bodies are able to do as they were designed to do and allow labour to progress naturally, fuelled by natural hormones. When we feel relaxed it allows for the vagina and perineum to relax and stretch gradually. When relaxed, you are able to listen more closely to your body to feel guided on when is best to ‘bear down’ or ‘push’ so baby can come through the birth canal. In a natural labour baby naturally moves down, and then goes back up slightly again - whilst this can feel like no progress is being made, this is really great because it is allowing your body to stretch to accommodate baby being born and in turn this reduces the risk of tearing.
2. Reduction of pain during labour.
Really, you say?! How so?! The birthing system within the human body is made up with lots of different muscles. Oxygen is absolutely critical to supporting muscle performance and getting the best out of our muscles. When we can control our breathing and take deep breaths of air this helps to oxygenate our bodies. When hypnobirthing breathing techniques are used they oxygenate the body which helps the release in endorphines. This is a hormone that naturally reduces pain within the body. It also helps to suppress the release of stress hormones in the body. Word on the street is that endorphines are 200x better than morphine! Wow!
When there is a lot of maternal stress during labour, this can increase the stress hormones - cortisol and adrenalin. This SLOWS down labour. This can also make labour feel more painful. When we the birther feels worried, scared or stressed they are more likely to take small shallow breaths. This means the reproductive organ muscles aren’t getting the oxygen they need to work to maximum capacity which causes pain. The higher levels of maternal stress and flush of stress hormones also has a negative impact on the birth, breast feeding and bonding between birther and baby.
3. Reduces the duration of labour.
There has been various bits of research into whether or not using hypnobirthing breathing techniques and how these actually impact labour. The research has come back to show that it can reduce the length of the second phase of labour. When working with the body and giving it all the resources (oxygen and feeling calm/relaxed) allows it to do what is was designed to do. It allows the natural bodily function to do its thing!
There is various methods of controlling breathing for labour. There is also different types of breathing that suit the different stages of labour better, to be able to get the most our out your bodies natural function. To find about more on these, join me on one of my hypnobirthing courses for this and more!