Who Says Childbirth Has to Hurt?
By: Kelley Stead
Tags: Birth, Hypnobirthing, Childbirth, Moms, Pregnancy

“When you change the way you view birth, the way you birth will change.” ~Marie Mongan

Have you ever watched a cat give birth? A cow? A dog? Paws in stirrups. Laying on its back. Waiting for Dr. Spot to bark the order, “PUSH!” Screaming and crying as little puppies come through that open door to another universe.

Yeah, no.

When animals have their young, they do it quietly. They find a nice, safe place. Maybe your closet. Maybe that corner of pasture under the apple tree. They lay down, comfortable. And when the miracle happens, they don’t cry out in pain and agony. They don’t scream and thrash about.

There’s something that’s happened to human women. We’ve been told that childbirth hurts. We’ve been told that if we tried it naturally, away from germ-infested hospital rooms- we’d certainly die. We’ve been told that needles in our spines are our saviors and our bodies are our hells.

And save the unlucky few who have complications arising from nature alone, this is a lie.

I had a baby. In a home. In a tub.

No one stuck a needle in my back. There was no IV hanging out of my arm. No doctor telling me when to push. No pitocin confusing my body.

And guess what, it didn’t hurt.

(Save that one second of head coming through. But once you’re there, you’re there anyway.)

“According to physiological law, all natural, normal functions of the body are achieved without peril or pain. Birth is a natural, normal physiological function for normal, healthy women and their healthy babies. It can, therefore, be inferred that healthy women, carrying healthy babies, can safely birth without peril or pain.” — Dr. Jonathan Dye, 1891

The mind is a powerful thing.

I don’t have the mind power of a Buddhist monk or a the discipline of a world famous athlete. I’m not even that great of a writer in the grand scheme of things.

But I am a woman. And my mind was meant for childbirth.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” — Marcus Aurelius

My main focus for birth was to learn to control my mind during labor. I took Hypnobirthing classes that basically taught meditation for birthing.

I learned the stages of labor and what I was going to feel during them. In the classes they refrain from using words like “pain” to describe the feelings of labor. To tell yourself you’re feeling pain is to create pain for yourself. Your body can only react to what your mind is telling it. If you’re in fear, your body will release stress hormones- your muscles will tense, your blood pressure will rise. None of these reactions are good for a woman in labor.

You want relaxed muscles, steady heart rate and a mind free of fear.

Even as I got close to delivering, my contractions were never what I would describe as “painful”. In movies, women scream and clutch their husbands’ hands off.

A contraction for me was a tightening, crampy feeling like a bad period. It lasted only a minute and then my body would flood with endorphins and I would feel a sense of ecstasy like I’d never felt before. Time was non-existent. My twenty hour labor seemed like four.

It sounds crazy.

My mother has a video of me in intense labor, smiling and rocking back and forth on the couch. Breathing and focusing. No crying or yelling. I was able to walk around, sit down, roll around on a birthing ball without IVs or doctors monitoring me. I was free to focus on letting my body work for me.

And once you’ve let go of the fear that it’ll hurt, you realize it doesn’t hurt at all.

I hired a lady to scratch my back.

A doula, actually. She did more than just scratch my back, of course, but the act of running your fingers over someone’s skin releases a host of feel-good hormones into your body, blocking pain better than the world’s strongest morphine.

You don’t have to hire someone. If you have a nice partner or relative, they can become your personal back scratcher. Never underestimate the power of human touch and your own body’s chemical reactions.

I meditated.

A little bit. I must admit I’m not good at this skill. Sitting down and being alone in my head is never number one on my priority list.

But I did pay for Hypnobirthing class and so I sat down a few nights a week and practiced being in the moment.

In labor there’s nothing to be done except labor. Thinking about anything else is pointless. Thinking about pain is pointless.

In meditation you just feel. I felt every contraction and every movement my baby made to get ready to be born. I felt every wave of tension and every release of endorphins. I felt soft sheets between my fingers and my doula’s gentle touch.

I realized having a baby wasn’t an experience I wanted to just get through and be done with. It was a weird, psychedelic journey where at the end I would pull a new person from a portal between my legs and into the world. The same experience of every mother that has ever lived- a testimony to God or evolutionary forces or whatever pushes life forward into existence.

And I might never ever do it again.

So I learned to be in the moment. To appreciate that twenty hours of experience as something sacred and special. And when you embrace something instead of fight it, it becomes something completely unexpected.

Do whatever you want.

Maybe your goal is just to have a baby. And maybe for you, it’s not about the experience. Maybe it’s just to get that healthy little child into your arms as quickly as possible.

But here’s the thing- it’s going to be an insane experience no matter what. Nothing else you do will compare to the day you become a mother.

Take control of your birth. Research things. Know your options. Talk to other moms.

And whatever you choose, know that birth is a natural occurence your mind and body was made for. You don’t have to dread it and most importantly, it doesn’t have to hurt.