The warm water gives the woman greater comfort and mobility, reduces labor pain, relaxes the pelvic floor muscles and helps speed labor - all the things a woman in labor could wish for. It's a good way to provide pain relief during labor without medication. Women across the United States and Europe are sitting, rocking and laying on large, inflatable balls, known as birthing balls, to help relieve pain and pressure throughout their pregnancy and while in labor. Benefits of using a birthing ball include relieving back pain and back labor, allowing freedom to shift weight for greater comfort, helping with the descent of the baby through the birth canal and, possibly, even speeding labor. In our classes, we primarily use the ball for back labor.
Women learn how to sway, to move their hips to help relieve pressure.
It's a very comfortable position. For someone who has had an epidural in the past, this might seem impossible. But you can stop imagining - if you will be having your baby at Summa. Summa's director of obstetric anesthesia, Nancy Ray, M.D., says that physicians and their patients have been thrilled with the effects of the walking epidural, especially those who have experienced traditional epidurals with previous births. Patients that have had a walking epidural and have been able to compare it to the traditional epidural are delighted.