Top tips for a drug free, natural birth?

[lizzyttc2017]

Exactly that ^^ 37+4 and would love to hear some tips in coping with pain and helping your body labour!

Thanks! :)

Birthing pool.

2 natural births with just gas and air here...

Breathing techniques...you probably don't have time to do a hypnobirthing course but there are lots of really great videos on YouTube. It really does work, just believe that your body is made for this, is capable of birthing your baby, and just breathe through your contractions.

My tip would be to try to not think during your labour, just do. Trust your body, it will know when to push , until that point just breathe breathe breathe.

Go in with an open mind. How a labour starts is nothing whatsoever to do with bearthing techniques. The way the baby is positioned, and then how that interacts with your own personal anatomy is what dictates the kind of labour you get and how much pain you experience.

Breathing / Hypno etc is a great technique to use in straightforward / very minor complication births. It can help you manage normal pain levels and keep you calm and positive. That’s all good.

Just be aware that it’s not enough to guarantee a ‘perfect’ birth - if things were awry from the start, they will be regardless of what you do. Be open minded, positive but aware and be open to the possibility you might want drugs, or you might need intervention. Birth is inherently unpredictable.

Being as fit as you can going into labour and exercise right up to the end if you can

Sleep when you need and can in the last few weeks even if this means daytime naps sometimes

Walk around in early labour

Yoga breathing techniques

Ina May Gaskin

Ju ju sundin birth skills is an amazing book with practical tips

Labour in water

Ask for low lighting in hospital

Birth plan that says the above

I mentioned in my birth plan that I didn’t want to be offered pain relief and I would ask for what I wanted. I had paracetamol in early labour and then had gas and air later

I accidentally had a pain-relief free birth. Spent most of my labour at home marching around, bouncing on my yoga ball and breathing through the contractions until the pain got too much and went to hospital, arriving fully dilated. Got stuck into the gas and air while they stitched me back up again though!

But please manage your expectations - so much is down to luck. I was in my mid-30s, on the plump size of normal and spent most of the last trimester beached on the sofa shovelling down ice cream. On the other hand, my incredibly healthy, clean eating, hypno-birthing young yoga teacher who was determined to have a drug-free birth needed an epidural for a ventouse delivery. Your baby will be wonderful however they come into the world.

During contractions, hang off the nearest door handle!

Stay upright, pace around.

Don't take gas and air until the final, unbearable stages.

Don't jump into the water until the final moments.

I did all of the above with DS2 and he popped out after a couple of pushes. Good luck!

I had 2 back to back births with no pain relief- it's not all about the positioning but i think hypnobabies was the only reason i managed.

Ina May's "let your monkey do it" is great advice - go with your instinct, be a mammal, retreat into yourself
Stay home
Dont participate until you have to (ignore early labour for as long as you can)
Self hypnosis - hypnobabies
Get into water but not until you need to
"One more is one less"
Be supported by someone you trust.
It's what your body is built for so believe in it (but listen if the MW tells you you or the baby need help )

Good luck

Stay at home as long as possible
Walk around, use a giant exercise ball thing
Try to stay calm (!!!)
Water birth, or stay in the water for as long as you are comfortable with.
Try and have a nice calm environment around you with as few people as possible.

As a previous poster said though I think it's partly down to luck. The above things worked for me with me second birth. First birth was a nightmare and I had all the drugs thrown at me...

Try and get your baby in the best position, ie not back to back. All I knew was about baby being head down. I didn’t know about back to back for my first baby, my midwife didn’t tell me (maybe because babies sometimes turn closer to the time I don’t know) but my first labour started with unbearable pain pretty much straight away, no way in hell I could have managed with no drugs. And I though I was pretty hard before hand!

It was all fine but I had to have an emcs because labour didn’t progress as it should due to his position.

Apparently all the lazing around on sofa before he arrived might not have helped!!

Good luck. Just keep an open mind!

Be opened minded that things may change.
Listen to your midwife as well as what your body is telling you to do.
If you don't like your midwife/are not happy with the care you are receiving, ask for a different one.
When you get to the stage of 'that's it, I can't do it, just pull it out or leave it up there, I can't do it', your about to have a baby!

Hypnobirthing I found to be really helpful....especially when combined with gas and air!

Some people hate gas and air though

Just keep an open mind is all I'll say

I know people say be open to anything but for various reasons I absolutely didn't want drugs so I just didn't have them in my mind as an option. My first birth was pretty horrendous as he was back to back and I'm fairly sure if I'd been open to drugs I would have asked for them but I wasn't and didn't and he came out a couple of hours after arriving at hospital. I felt amazing afterwards, absolutely euphoric and that feeling kind of lasted for weeks.
With the second I did hypnobirthing which helped massively and also chose a home birth so there were no drugs available anyway. Birth was better and again I felt wonderful afterwards
If something had gone wrong and I had needed a caesarean that would have been fine but I wanted to reduce that risk as much as possible by letting my hormones do what they needed to do with no interference
Good luck however it ends up going 😊

Was one of he lucky ones with baby in the right position so I just had some paracetemol at the beginning. These things worked for me:

• TENS machine (used sparingly at the beginning, then turned up to the max later on!) *distract yourself in early labour (my best friend called and we chatted about nothing for a few hours until contractions got too much) *breathing and counting (I started slowly counting in time with breaths when contractions started, I knew that by the time I got to 25 the pain would start to fade until the next one!) *birthing pool *have someone you trust to keep you focused on your breathing once you start pushing

Lots of luck!

If you have time, read Juju Sundin’s birth skills book. A lot of different ideas for how to manage the pain other than just breathing/vocalising/hoping you’ll be able to cope.

Just go with it. I had all these ideas of what I wanted (and most options were available to me!!) and in the end I laboured on my back because I just found everything else so much more uncomfortable. I’m obviously the exception to the “keeping moving” rule although I was walking round the hospital at 7cm.

What really helped for me was to have a clear reason why I didn’t want an epidural in my head. I won’t bore you with the details but I found being determined not to have an epidural made me have a real word with myself when I thought I wanted one. I know there’s no medals and all that shit, but I really wanted to be up and about ASAP after which I knew an epidural would have hindered. By the time I got to the point where I decided I really should have had one and I was a silly cow not to have bothered, it was time to push and I got a bit distracted by that haha!

Tens and water. Obviously not together. Breathing. Sort of singing a deep toned ‘aaahhhh’ on the exhale. Now this sounds odd but saying ‘yes! Yes!’ With the contraction. You do sound like a porno. But it helped me cope rather than being frightened and saying ‘no!’