Written by Desiree Dougherty | b-earth-mama
For many families preparing to welcome new additions, the prospect of giving birth is full of mystery and wonder, an awe at what the human body is capable of and the miracle that life can appear like magic where moments before, there was nothing. It also comes with anticipation, trepidation, and a lot of times, a heavy dose of fear. And while I could go on and on about how our society perpetuates fear of childbirth, and erodes our connection to this beautiful event that is possibly the most natural and human thing you could ever experience, that is not what this blog post is about. This blog post is about how to eliminate fear as a roadblock in your pregnancy and your labor, so that you can prepare for birth with a sense of joy and excitement rather than a sense of dread.
Part of this is about reframing your relationship with fear. Because, while fear is uncomfortable, and a lot of times counterproductive to what we are trying to accomplish in birth, fear can also give you some very valuable clues about how to be working with your mind and body as you move through the emotional journey of birthing your baby.
The other part of this is about strategy, meaning finding concrete ways to be addressing your fears and neutralizing them. Because, yes, there is so much about birth that is unknown, and the outcome of your birth journey is largely out of your control, but that doesn't mean that you are out of control within your experience of the event. You can control the way you show up for yourself, the way you process the ebb and flow of your progress, and you can control your responses to the various scenarios you encounter along the way, whether that it is positive or negative response or simply indifferent. You get to choose, you approach these moments from a calm and grounded place, or you can approach them from a place of fear. How you prepare yourself for these moments will give you a greater spectrum of options when it comes to responding. So, while I can't promise that these strategies will have any influence over how things unfold in your birth, I can promise that the way you prepare your heart and your mind for your birth will have a profound effect on the way you experience your birth. And the way you experience your birth can change your life.
So I am going to share the simple and effective framework that I created for myself when I was having my HBAC (home birth after cesarean) baby to turn my fears into pillars of strength. Because fear had no place in my birth plan, and there is no reason for it to have a place in yours.
Birth is about finding your power. It is about accepting the challenges and the intensity, and embracing your animal nature. And if allow yourself to be open to the possibility, birth is about awakening a fierceness in yourself that you can carry into your life as a parent.
So what are your fears?
The first step in this process is to start identifying your fears, beyond just asking yourself "What am I afraid of". You really want to dig into what your fears are signaling to you, and how those fears are manifesting in your body. Journaling or meditation is a great way to start breaking these things down.
So here are some prompts I recommend spending some time with:
When I envision my ideal birth, what are the defining moments in that storyline? What might derail those moments?
When I imagine myself feeling challenged in my birth, what am I feeling? Pain? Helplessness? Frustration? Are there other actors involved, like my doctor, my partner, or other family members?
When I think about things going wrong in my birth, how does my body respond? Are there any instinctual coping techniques that I deploy when this happens or do I simply stop thinking about those things?
Your answers to these questions are going to give you some ideas about what specifically you need to be working to address when you are preparing for your birth, and may even give you some concrete ways to begin addressing them.
For example, if you go through this exercise and notice themes around fear of pain coming up in your journaling or meditation, you know you will need to come up with a plan for how to address pain management in labor. And this is great! But, you can also start to pay attention to the emotions that come up when you imagine yourself in pain. Are you feeling vulnerable because you are so focused on the pain and cannot focus on anything else? Are you feeling out of control and unable to find a grounded headspace? Do you feel overwhelmed because, in your vision, you see yourself in the middle of a group of people who are all scrambling to do things but no one is actually addressing your pain? All of these details start to give you an idea of what you actually may be afraid of, whether that is feeling emotionally abandoned by your partner, or feeling helpless, or out of control. Pain in labor is something that is easily addressed, either through hands on comfort measures, other non-medicinal coping techniques, or through medicinal pain management, however the emotional fears you have require a lot more work, and can actually have a larger impact on how your birth unfolds, so addressing them before labor begins can go a long way in giving you the opportunity to have a positive birth experience.
Exploring your fears in this way may be an ongoing process, something that you continue to check in with yourself on as your vision for your birth comes together and your due date draws closer. You could make it into its own practice in addition to the others in this post, setting time aside weekly or maybe on schedule with your prenatal visits, to journal or meditate on these questions. And as you begin to identify your own personal fears, you can start working to address them.
Ultimately, the goal isn't necessarily to eliminate your fears entirely. That is unrealistic. The goal with this approach is to find ways of coping with those fears so they don't become a hinderance to your ability to be connecting with your body, your intuition, and your logical brain as you are working through labor. So with this in mind, here are three strategies to have in your toolkit for fighting fear as you prepare to begin your birth journey:
1: Strengthen your Mindset with a Positive Affirmations Collection
Mindset is such an important part of finding peace with the intensity of the birth process. Because gathering the the courage to face what you know will be one of the hardest and most intense experiences of your life with acceptance and determination without knowing what exactly you are in for can take some mental fortitude! Especially if you're knee deep in it and the intensity is starting to pick up! Courage can sometimes make the difference between suffering in anxiety, wondering what's next and if you can handle it, and melting calming into your surges, accepting the intensity and giving into the journey that your body has embarked upon. Having a collection of affirmations can be a simple way of training your mind to stay positive, reinforcing of themes and strengths that you want to remind yourself of in your birth space, while also fighting those tricky feelings of insecurity that you might be feeling as you prepare for your big day.
You can look around for pre-written affirmations that resonate with you, or you can write your own! Some of my personal favorites are:
I trust my body and my baby. I chose to surround myself and my baby with peace and serenity.
I surrender myself to the process of birth and trust that my body will keep both me and my baby safe.
My body is strong and capable. It was designed specifically to accomplish the miraculous task of growing and birthing this baby.
I breath in love and acceptance, I breath out fear and tension.
You want to go with words or phrases that feel authentic to you, because you want to believe them down to your core. You want the words "I am strong" to feel like saying the words "the sky is blue".
Once you have a good list, and it really only takes a couple, try to build them into a practice. Recite them to yourself while you are driving to work. Post them over your sink or your stove so you can read them while making meals. Incorporate them into your breathing practice, and start saying them to yourself when you experience those moments of trepidation. Consistency is key here!
2. Practice Breathing into Intensity
The experience of labor will be one of the most intense experiences you will ever go through. And there is always a moment, usually when early labor is transitioning into active labor, that the intensity in your body kicks up a notch. This uptick can shock a lot of people if it happens unexpectedly, and can launch them into a spiral of panic, which can make labor longer and more painful. This is something called the Fear-Tension-Pain cycle, where you feel a sense of fear in response to level of sensation in your body. That fear triggers your body to tense up, which causes a higher level of pain because it is counteracting your body's natural pain inhibitors (called endorphins) and because now your body is fighting itself through your surges.
The good news is that you can hack this cycle and work backwards to reduce the tension in your body, which will in turn soften your experience of the intensity of your surges, with strategies that can calm your nervous system, which can then help fight those feelings of fear. And you can do this with one simple action - breathing. Your breath is incredibly powerful tool for slowing your heart rate, for releasing tension, and setting up a rhythm within your surges that make them more predictable and more manageable.
Investing in a solid breathing practice is one of the best way you can prepare yourself for intensity of labor. There are many breathing techniques out there (box breathing, up breathing, down breathing, just to name a few), and you want to find one that works for you. Once you have. a technique that feels good, you want to start augmenting your practice with active relaxation techniques. This could simply be adding in some body scans with your breathing and identifying areas where you may be holding tension in your body. You could explore the tension to see if it is a result of physical causes, or if it from emotional stress. You could make your practice more involved and add in sensory triggers to help build muscle memory as you train your body to relax on demand. You can do this by appealing to your senses - scent, sound, sight, touch.
For example, you could choose a scent to include in your practice, either an essential oil, a lotion, or your favorite candle (although if you are planning a hospital birth, be prepared that you probably will not be allowed to light your candle in your hospital room) and have that going as you go through your breathing and active relaxation practice. You could pick a soundtrack, a song or white noise track, to have playing. You could give yourself a visual focal item, like your baby's ultrasound photo or an image of someplace peaceful. You could choose an object to hold onto, something tactile that is pleasant to touch. All of these sensory triggers can be used to create an atmosphere of calm and safety, naturally reducing the urge to panic as your surges intensify.
And just like with your affirmations, consistency is your friend!
3: Role playing scenarios that give you anxiety
Something that lends to the sense of mystery around birth, besides the fact that it just isn't talked about, is that there is no way of knowing exactly what is going to come up for you in your birth. This is often a big contributor to people's fears going into the birth space. And unfortunately, there isn't some magic crystal ball that can tell you what exactly is going to happen. Honestly, part of the beauty of birth is that you have to accept the possibilities, no matter what they are.
What you can do is give yourself to the tools to be able to assess and respond to scenarios that might arise in way that allows you to make informed and intentional decisions that supports your overall vision for your birth. This is partly about learning to apply your knowledge about the birth process, and partly about being able to navigate communicating with your birth team so that your decision-making process is respected.
A great way to practice going through the steps of assessing and responding to different situations is to role play. This would be a great exercise to tag onto your fear journaling practice. Once you have identified a scenario you are feeling some anxiety around, ask yourself the following questions:
What does this show me about what my body is trying to do?
What can I do to support the work my body is doing?
What steps are the next steps I can take if my body continues to tell me it needs support?
How will communicate my needs with my care team?
This last one can be tricky, especially for folks who know that their care team may want to respond to situations in a way that is not in alignment with their preferences. If this is the case for you, make sure you are incorporating scenarios where you can practice saying the words "no" in response to questions about your care. If saying the word "no" is too direct, brainstorm some other ways you can decline or ask questions about your care teams' recommendations that feel easier for you to say. Some of my favorites are:
Thank you for the recommendation, but that isn't a part of our plan.
Can we try ___ instead/first?
Can we wait X amount of time and talk about it again at that point
Can you explain why that's necessary?
By practicing going through the mental steps of identifying problems and their solutions, you are giving yourself a strategy for how to approach difficult situations. It is kind of like studying for an exam. You may not know what questions will come up, but you can least be familiar with the formula - for staying calm and rational, for gathering the information you need to make the decisions that feel right for you, and the confidence to assert your autonomy in the process.
As a planner with a type-A personality, this practice was essential for me as I prepared for my birth. And I wasn't a doula, yet, so I did not have the same experience I have now. But practicing these exercises with my partner helped make me feel more at ease with surrendering to the unknowns of birth, because it gave me confidence in my abilities to make decisions if things starting going off plan, as they very often do. For this reason, this is some I do extensively in my childbirth education classes. Because what good is knowledge if you don't know how to apply it?!
So, now you have a framework to be working with your fears, rather than against them. With these three practices, you have some concrete ways to be addressing your fears in real time so that they don't become just another thing you have to deal with in labor. And hopefully, these strategies will actually give you tools for coping in labor, both physically and mentally.
Make these fun! Make them decadent! Yes, these are strategies for breaking down fear and anxiety around birth, but they can also be a way to be building a habit of self care for your physical and mental well-being once you have your baby. This is about caring for yourself, your whole self, which is so important as you prepare for birth, and for parenthood.
What about education?
Outside of these practices, the most important thing you can do for yourself is get educated! If something is a mystery, then it is natural to have some fear around it. If you take the mystery out of it, if you learn about what is happening, what is the process, and what is in the realm of normal, then you can take the fear out of it, too.
So be intentional about the information you are consuming when it comes to birth. There is a lot of misinformation and fear mongering out in the wide world of the internet. You want to be making sure that the education you are getting is evidence based, unbiased, and fact-driven, and that aligns with your philosophy around birth. And ultimately, if you are taking a childbirth education class, you want it to be giving you tools and strategies for implementing the information in a way that empowers you in your birth space, and in your life as a parent.
And so the final item on your task list, while not a exactly practice but should be at the top of your list anyways, is to find a good childbirth preparation class, one that is going to give you evidence based, unbiased information, and tools to implement that knowledge in simple, practice, intuitive ways that is going to allow you stay connected to your body, connected to the process, and present in each moment.
If you are interested in learning with me, you can check out the list of my current class offerings: https://www.b-earth-mama.com/childbirtheducation. I teach comprehensive birth preparation intensives, as well as focused workshops. If private instruction or birth coaching is more in line with your needs, I have options available for you as well. Give yourself the best possible chance to have the birth experience of a lifetime. Both you, and your baby, deserve it.