Getting From Here To There in Labor

Getting from Here to There in Labor
Published by Common Knowledge Trust

P.O. Box 892
Nelson, New Zealand
www.commonknowledgetrust.com
Editor: Kayla D. Rau
2001, Common Knowledge Trust
ISBN 978-1-927144-32-9
Common Knowledge Trust has asserted rights under Copyright And Trademark laws to be identified as
the creator of all the work known as Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, teaching, or other, without prior
written permission from the copyright owners.
Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method
www.birthingbetter.com
Disclaimer
The information in Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method is not intended to be used for the
diagnosis, treatment, or prescription for any medical disorder. Please consult with your medical care
provider before beginning this program.
Table of Contents
THE JOURNEY ................................................................... 1
THREE TIMEFRAMES ............................................... 2
WHAT IS LABOR? ...................................................... 3
AN IMPORTANT FACTOR
ABOUT PROGRESSIVE LABOR................................ 4
WHEN TO USE WHAT PINK KIT SKILLS? ........................ 9
PRACTICE DURING PREGNANCY ........................... 9
PRE-LABOR .............................................................. 10
1ST STAGE................................................................ 11
2ND STAGE ............................................................... 13
3RD STAGE ............................................................... 17
END OF THE ROAD: MAKING MEMORIES ..................... 17
http://www.birthingbetter.com
The Journey
Birth is a journey. Like any other journey, if you look toward the end, it can seem too
far away. Progression is how you get to and through that end and keep your sanity
in the meantime. As the journey progresses, you must focus on what is immediate.
Thats how the athlete, dancer, or artist with skills behaves, and your job is the same
as theirs. You know that the goal is reached by the small, discrete steps you take
now.
Everything occurs in a timeframe

Lets create a picture together. Youre pregnant or a father-to-be right now.
Somehow, you have to get rid of the big belly and replace it with a babe-in-arms.
Duh! But how do you get from your pregnant state to holding your baby? Of course,
you give birth! In order to appreciate exactly what this means, though, we have to
discuss timeframes.
When you look back on this past year, youll truly appreciate how much your life has
changed within that short timeframe.
When you first fell pregnant, the last thing on your mind was the birth. In fact,
during the timeframe of the first few months, you might have experienced morning
sickness which you believed would never go away! You probably also believed the
fat feeling was going to last foreveruntil you began to show.
During the middle of your pregnancy, you might have felt really good, like many
other women, and time just flew by. On the other hand, if you continued to have
uncomfortable health issues, the pregnancy seemed to drag on.
Now, during the last phase of pregnancy as you approach the birth, you may become
uncomfortable again. In the last few weeks, as your baby gets ready to be born, it
sends messages to your body to change. Your hormones gradually soften and ripen
your body, preparing it for this new activity that marks the end of pregnancy: giving
birth.
Through pregnancy, youve discovered that time expands and contracts. Sometimes
you feel it flies by; others you feel that every minute lasts forever.
How you behave, act, or even think during these timeframes can make a huge
difference on how you feel about what you are experiencing and the memories you
take with you. Skills always help any person to cope with timeframe fluctuations
better than if time just passes you by, with you bumping into things youre not
prepared to deal with.
In other words, time is something you do. If you already have children, you know
that, when your first was born, you suddenly woke up to how much time it takes to
take care of a baby. Many women and men express it this way: What did I do with
my time before I had a baby? Time is something you fill with doing.
Three Timeframes
From your reading in other childbirth books or through your childbirth education
class, you probably already know that childbirth has three timeframes, or stages,
although most of the focus is on the first two.
1st Stage: During this Stage, your baby moves down through the hole in your pelvis,
and your cervix opens. Youll be told by your doctor or midwife how open your
cervix is (Youre five cm dilated) and how much of your baby has moved through
your pelvis (Your baby is engaged, still high, or well down). These terms can be
quite cryptic. Thats why The Pink Kit teaches you how to personally feel what is
happening inside you. Its your body and your baby, and the more you can get your
head to understand where your baby really is, the more you can make sense of what
is happening to you.
At the end of 1st Stage is a period of labor called transition, which can be the
toughest, yet shortest, part of 1st Stage. This is the period when the cervix opens
entirely and your babys head moves all the way through your pelvis and into the
top of your vagina (its birth canal).
2nd Stage: This Stage is what people call the delivery or birth. Your baby moves
through and out of your vagina and into your arms.
3rd Stage: This Stage is when you deliver the afterbirth/placenta.
What Is Labor?
Labor is composed of contractions and a space between. Your baby stimulates its
home (its mothers whole body and specifically the muscles of the uterus). This
stimulation causes the uterus to tug open its closure (the cervix). The tugging open is
the contraction, and then the uterine muscle rests, which is the space in between.
Each contraction has five phases, and you will work through each phase.
You will inhale and exhale through one breath cycle after another, using effective,
sustainable breathing skills that give you the ability to work and cope with the
sensations of each contraction.
Your body will always be in some position or posture throughout the labor, and
you will learn how to find positions that truly relax you inside, help you stay
open, and create space for your baby to move through and out of your body.
Your husband/partner will be there to help you cope with the hard work. This is
not the same role as for your birth provider.
Remember the process! Basically, its quite a simple plumbing journey. Your baby
has to open the closure, or diaphragm (the cervix), to its home (the uterus). Once the
diaphragm opens all the way, the baby begins its journey out of its home by moving
into the tube in the bones that protects its home (the pelvic hole). Your baby will then
travel the short distance down through an aperture (the vagina/birth canal.) Finally,
your baby will stretch open the end of the aperture and be born.
You can read much more about the physiological journey a baby takes in any
childbirth book. In the Pink Kit, youll come to understand concepts at a more basic
level. However, youll be able to overlap the information you get from other
resources with the skills in The Pink Kit. Other resources tell you how the process
happens; the Pink Kit teaches you how to work with the process.
What can you expect during progressive labor?

Most people think that the three Stages of childbirth each have a very clear beginning
and ending. Thats not always accurate. The beginning part of 1st Stage can be
terribly unclear, manifesting as false labor, pre-labor, niggling labor, or nonprogressive labor.
On the other end of the 1st Stage is active labor, which birth professionals consider
to start when you are about three cms dilated and your contractions are one minute
long and three minutes apart. Progressing, active labor is NOT the same as
progressive labor.
During progressive labor (which happens in the 1st Stage),
contractions get longer (timeable),

the space between contractions gets shorter (timeable), and
contractions get more intense (not timeable, but felt by the woman).
Short form for this: longer, stronger, closer together. Although your doctor or
hospital probably doesnt want you to come in before your labor is established,
you can still have hours of contractions at home, growing in intensity and frequency
every hour or two.
An Important Factor about Progressive Labor

When labor is progressive, each contraction has a bell-shaped curve that can be
drawn on a graph, as it starts, gets more intense, reaches a peak, subsides, and ends.
If you have a fetal monitor strapped to your belly, you can actually see the shape of
the contractions. It is also often reflected in the sounds a woman makes.
For some women, the bell curve can be a bit off-center. For example, the contractions
can become very painful very quickly, which brings the peak of each closer to the left
-hand side of the bell. Other contractions can start quite slowly, with the heightened
pain coming toward the end and the contractions ending quite abruptly. This puts
the peak toward the right side of the curve.
The operative word is bell, rather than plateau, which has no defined peak. Flat
contractions indicate a stalled labor. They sound sort of like an almost-sneeze.
What stalls labor?

Luckily, there are a finite number of reasons. Well start with some of the more
uncommon ones:
a short umbilical cord

cord wrapped around the babys body
placenta in the way
the baby in an unusual position
the baby just too big to come through the pelvic tube
You need to discuss these things with your birth professional. They are infrequent
occurrences and not always easy for professionals to identify.
However, this is your baby and your birth, and you need to feel a high degree of
safety, so ask. Furthermore, while you cannot prevent these situations, you can have
a huge impact on whether they actually compromise your baby by preparing your
pregnant body and then working with your babys efforts to come down, through,
and out.
There are a few other, more common things women do without realizing that these
things (in their particular birth at the moment) are hindering the process. This is
where the Teamwork between the woman and her birth coach is so vital. As a
woman, you will be engrossed in the process. As a coach, you get to see what the
woman is doing. Together, you can make certain you do everything possible to keep
your babys container (the womans body) as open and relaxed as possible. If you
take your skills seriously, you do have control over these problems!
Being tense. Example: Tense up your rectum right now. Would this tension help
or hinder a small grapefruit from coming down, through, and out? Obviously,
tension will hinder the passage. Likewise, any inner tension in your cervix, pelvis,
or vagina can make your internal space harder to pass through. Obviously, any
woman would want to remain soft and relaxed inside to help her baby, wouldnt
she? So whats the deal? Pain. Contractions are most often accompanied by
intense, naturally occurring pain. Your skills will help you consciously choose to
let go of internal tension, even if you dont like the pain.
Keep in mind: As a man, you MUST help your woman accept the painful process
that is the journey of your child out of her body, where you planted it, into your
arms, where you will both parent it. Internal tension can be softened even if its
unpleasant, because its for the higher good: your childs birth.
Bending over, leaning forward. For some babies, this bends their passage or their
body in relationship to the inside passage. Example: a woman is sitting on the
toilet, leaning back, and the contractions are bell-shaped, strong, steady. In fact,
she feels they are efficacious. Someone suggests she change positions, so she turns
around, facing the back of the toilet, leaning forward. The contractions change;
they become shorter, less intense, and spaced further apart. The womans
husband notices this after half an hour and talks to his partner. Shes noticed it as
well, but really liked the break because the contractions were getting so intense.
He asks if there is anything more he can do to help her cope, because both of
them realize they need to work with the intensity, as it means the labor is
effective and they dont really want to do anything that stops that. So they figure
out how to incorporate whatever set of skills they need to use right then.
Keep in mind: If your baby feels fine even if youre leaning forward, your
contractions will stay strong and efficacious. Whenever you change positions, youll
know whether your baby is okay with your decision within three contractions. The
first one, the baby is thinking, Hm. Second one the baby thinks, Naw or Yeah.
On the third one, the baby shows either the Naw or Yeah. Naw contractions
will be flat. Yeah contractions will be bell-shaped.
Being closed or not being in open positions. At every single moment of your life,
your body is in some posture or position. This is why you need to learn pelvic
skills, so that, whatever posture or position you are in, your pelvis tube is open
and the soft tissues are pliable and soft. This is not always easy, because the pain
is real and very strong. As stated above, you have to be determined and use your
willpower to overcome your instinctive or intuitive response to pain, which is to
tense up! Its your conscious choice to accept the pain (even if you hate it) and
work with the pain (use of skills) that will make you a skilled birthing woman
and skilled coaching man.
Can a woman recognize when her labor is or is not progressive?

The answer is YES, even if its a womans first birth. She can feel that the contractions
change every hour or two. Often, its the woman who realizes the labor has stalled or
the baby is stuck, because the contractions all seem the same, with no change.
A progressive labor should run start to finish for about 4-15 hours. Thats a
reasonable timeframe for the progress. If the labor is too rapid (i.e. shorter than
4 hours), a woman can feel very overwhelmed. (Although a very short labor certainly
tells you that the big object got out of its container with no difficulty!)
If a labor doesnt become progressive, or a progressive labor stalls and takes more
than 15 hours, this is a clear indicator to you that the object is having some
difficulty doing what its supposed to do. Your jobs are to
keep your labor progressive,

recognize in a reasonable time if labor is stalling, and
figure out where your baby is stalling and use skills to get it going again.
Always keep in mind the relationship between the 3-dimensional baby and 3dimensional body. Your birthing body basically uses three parts:
The Cervix
In your Pink Kit resources, youll learn skills such as the following to help your
cervix open:
Pelvic Clock
Cervical Relaxation
Deep Touch Relaxation
Directed Breathing
The Pelvis
As you keep in mind the metaphor that giving birth is an exercise in plumbing, you
can imagine what happens if a big object cant easily move through a tube. It gets
stuck. Luckily, the pelvic tube is flexible. Your Pink Kit resources teach you the
following pelvic skills:
Mapping Your Pelvis

Body Positions
Hip Lift
Kates Cat
Sacral Maneuver
Deep Touch Relaxation
The Birth Canal or Vagina

In your Pink Kit resources, you will learn how to do Internal Work on your birth
canal. This important skill can make all the difference in the world to the final
journey of your baby. These are some of the Internal Work skills youll learn:
Sit Bone Spread

Kates Cat
Sacral Maneuver
Body Positions
When to Use What Pink Kit Skills?

Practice During Pregnancy
Think about a sports or music performance. Obviously, you learn skills, practice,
then get ready for the performance, and you use your skills at every moment from
first picking up the bat to crossing home plate, from first drawing a bow across
strings to holding the final note as the crowd applauds. Its a seamless progression.
Labor is no different. You learn your Pink Kit skills, practice them more and more as
you get closer to the birth experience, and use them throughout the birth.
It is through your practice that you integrate the skills between your body and mind.
This goes for both of you. The biggest hindrance to truly converting your Pink Kit
skills into a body/mind connection is the fact that most families have little experience
with the birthing process.
If you had been present at 100 births, you would have seen some women who used
skills, stayed focused, and overcame the urge to just give in and whine. Youd have
seen other women who didnt have skills or didnt use them and ended up feeling
overwhelmed by the experience. Youd have noticed that those women who stay on
top of contractions and stay focused on whatever skills they were using were the
ones who felt best about their experience.
This goes for the fathers, too. Fathers who really help, not just wipe a brow or give an
ice chip, are the ones who have skills that are integrated between their mind and
their birthing partners body. They are paying attention and modifying at every
moment. They are more likely to feel proud of themselves as men, partners, and
fathers. Men who do this are also deeply loved by their partners.
These are the important reasons why you want to ready yourselves with skills.
The process your baby is going through deserves your full attention. When you
use your best level of skills, youll always be working with your baby.
You and your partner will truly become a team with the goal of working with
your babys efforts. Birth is the literal gateway between being pregnant and being
parents, and you want to go through the gateway together.
Practiced? Now Use the Skills During Pre-Labor!

After months of practicing your skills while pregnant, you are now actually
beginning to work with the efforts your baby will make shortly to come down,
through, and out your body.
For example, as you feel a Braxton Hicks contraction, recognize it as having four
phases. (During active labor, there will be five distinct Phases of each contraction.) It
starts, your belly gets tense, it eases, and time passes before another one.
The Braxton Hicks contractions trigger the exact same mechanism as labor
contractions, except these are softening your cervix while labor contractions open it.
As you start to experience these pre-labor changes, it is a good time to begin the
touch relaxation to help calm down the hormone rushes. Also, begin using some of
your other skills.
Kates CatOften, women experience backaches in the few weeks before labor
starts, as the baby moves into the pelvic tube. By using Kates Cat, you truly begin
to mobilize and open your sacrum. This can reduce discomfort.
Body PositionsNows the time to go through your open labor positions (dont
forget about where your upper body is).
Start your teamwork, as well.
10
When you start to fit all your skills into what is happening during this timeframe,
you are training yourself to respond automatically to the bodily sensations you will
have from now on until after the birth. Think of this as the opportunity to apply what
youve practiced, minus major pain.
As labor becomes regular, then grows in intensity, time shifts and compresses. Every
single moment, every inhalation and exhalation, becomes an exquisite moment by
itself.
Use the Skills During 1st Stage

This is what you need to focus on during the 1st Stage: use your skills to work with
each contraction and each space in between. Although this early period of the
birthing process may not be clear or defined, and even if your labor niggles or
doesnt immediately get into a rhythm, rest assured, labor will settle down over time.
When you drive your car, do you use your driving skills one after another or a
number of them at the same time? Do you have to pay attention to the environment
outside your car? Do you also have to pay attention to how others are driving? Does
your attention change depending on the weather or road conditions?
Getting from A to B in a car is a journey. The journey can be defined or viewed from
the distance traveled. In other words, a 300-mile journey passes by lots of land.
Youd see a change in the environment, the traffic on the roads would vary, the
landscape might range from dense urban to isolated forest. The journey can also be
perceived from the time it takes. During that time, you might feel hungry, need to go
to the toilet, hear a funny story, feel tension in your neck or back, or stop for a rest. In
fact, that same journey could be viewed by even more angles. You could be entirely
focused on your cars performance, or the purpose of the journey could occupy your
every thought.
No matter how you view this one journey, you still need to use a complex set of
driving skills at every single moment of the time you are driving. Labor is the
11
samewith perhaps one exception.
Notice that, during this driving journey, you stopped to rest. You cant do that in
labor. There is no stop (except the times between contractions) until your baby is
born. This means two things:
No matter what is happening on this birth journey, you cannot choose one
convenient, long rest stop. Instead, you will have many, many short ones that
happen when your baby feels like it.
Even during your brief rests, you cannot put your skills aside as you do when
you break an auto journey. You must use energy-conserving skills in between
contractions.
In between contractions, when you will have little or no pain, use your active
consciousness to talk to yourself: Im going around the Pelvic Clock. Or use it to
see yourself doing specific actions with your internal vision: you see some specific
area inside your pelvis and soften there. You can also combine the two, using a shortform internal dialogue to say a specific word (soften, relax) while envisioning
softening inside a specific place in your pelvis.
As contractions get more intense, you will increasingly move from the verbal (left
hemisphere of the brain) and into the visual, right hemisphere. You will just see
yourself using good birthing behaviors, while choosing not to do tense up with the
pain. Yes, your visual right hemisphere still makes choices.
As for the working phases themselves (contractions), you have another whole set of
skills.
Directed BreathingHelps you cope with the natural pain during contractions and
helps you achieve deep relaxation
Pelvic ClockHelps you relax the soft tissue of the pelvic floor, both during
contractions and rest periods.
12
Cervical RelaxationHelps you relax the soft tissue of the cervix.

Letting Down Reflex RelaxationHelps with a pinched cervix.
Uterine LiftImproves the effectiveness of contractions.
Thai MassageHelps the baby move down into the pelvic inlet.
Bony Structure skills (e.g. Hip Lift, Rocking the Sacrum, Kates Cat)Create
structural and internal relaxation.
Choosing Body Positions that help create internal relaxation and eliminate internal
tension no matter what posture or position you are in.
Stay on top of what your head is saying

Just as your body is always in some posture or position, you are always carrying on a
conversation in your head. We comment constantly on our own lives. We say nice (or
unpleasant) things to ourselves about what we are feeling or experiencing.
Labor causes this internal verbal conversation to become very focused. In fact, you
can determine the overall process of labor by what you are saying to yourself and
how well you are listening to what you are saying. Men, much of what a woman is
thinking, she does not verbally express, but there are times when women will explain
exactly what they are experiencing and doing in response.
Keep in mind: Youre lucky if youre saying This isnt too bad; I can cope. And
even if your head is saying I HATE THIS, you can also think Boy, Im managing
this well.
During the 1st Stage, dilation is very much an exercise of fortitude. Remember The
Little Engine That Could? I think I can, I think I can, I knew I could! Once you get
to the I knew I could, you are approaching or actively in 2nd Stage.
Use the Skills During 2nd Stage

Once the cervix is completely open and your baby has moved down through the tube
of the pelvis, its final passage is through its birth canal. The pain associated with
dilation stops. Oh, what relief!
13
If the birth canal is stretchable and not filled with tense tissue, each contraction
brings your baby further down this short passage (2-3 inchesyou can feel this
distance when you work through the audio CD Internal Work). If the movement of
your baby down through its birth canal is not hindered by internal tension, there is
an urge to bear down or push. In other words, your body begins to eject your
baby.
When there is a spontaneous urge to bear down, the sensations are often satisfying
and pleasurable (productive). But even with spontaneous bearing down, if the ring
of the vaginal opening is tight, you will experience a ring of fire. A tight vaginal
opening is the final tension your baby tries to reduce. The Internal Work prevents or
reduces this sensation, as well as reduces any tension inside the birth canal.
Otherwise, your midwife or doctor might deal with this tension by cutting the
vaginal ring (episiotomy).
On the other hand, if the upper part of the vagina is tense, there wont be a
spontaneous bearing down, nor will your baby continue down the passage. This can
be frustrating. After all the great work to open the cervix, to have your baby get
delayed at this point can seem unfair.
To reduce or prevent a delayed 2nd Stage, your job is first to prepare this area during
pregnancy to become stretchable tissue, and second to use your skills to keep your
active labor progressing. This final part of your babys journey is still an exercise in
plumbingan object has to come down, through, and out this last part of your body:
your vagina, your babys birth canal.
These are the skills youll use to keep this phase of labor progressive:
Breathing into the Perineum

Letting Down Reflex Relaxation, to counteract your instinctive reaction to feeling the
baby coming down
Internal Work
Sit Bone Spread
Hip Lift
14
Kates Cat
External Massage
Anterior lip
An anterior lip is caused by your baby pinching the front of the cervix against the
pubic bone, thus preventing the final full dilation. Your job is to help your baby
move backward in your body, toward your sacrum. Your ability to relax this very
hidden and unreachable area of your female body is an important aspect of helping
your baby to birth.
These are the skills:
Letting Down Reflex Relaxation

Sit Bone Spread
Kates Cat
Hip Lift
Sacral Maneuver
Energy/tiredness
Because any internal tension can delay the birth process, the baby makes certain
tension doesnt happenby putting the woman to sleep between contractions. There
is another purpose: a woman must have lots of energy to expel her baby, and resting
helps her to renew her energy. Particularly during late labor, women often get very
sleepy. This seems to be inconsistent with the intensity, but it makes sense when you
remember that the womans body is working very hard.
Unfortunately, this sleepy period is often perceived of as an indication that labor has
become too hard for the woman. Just remember, if there is no medical concern, sleep
is a natural part of giving birth.
15
This means you want to encourage and support sleepy periods. Of course, there is a
hitch. When a woman sleeps during rest periods, she often wakes up suddenly in a
full-blown contraction. This makes it difficult for her to control herself. However, she
will give you a clue if you are watching over her or slightly touching some part of
her body. There will be a slight movement as her body starts another contraction.
This tells you that you have to resume using your skills right away.
Let your partner know that you are totally there for her and that she should rest and
sleep to restore her energy. Let her know that you will be attentive so she can begin
to apply her skills right away once a contraction has started. Helping her to rest well,
stay hydrated, and stay well-nourished will help her stay on top of the process.
You, too, can sleep with her, but you have to be touching her body and able and
willing to come out of your sleep as soon as her body motion tells you another
contraction is coming.
Keep in mind: Being tired in labor is not an alarming issue. Women need to rest.
Labor is hard work. Its strenuous. Resting is good. Continue to use your skills; just
choose which ones work best when she feels energized and when she wants to rest.
Medical concerns
As you can tell, resolution to a stuck or hindered birth process is all about opening
up the pelvic area, thus, an exercise in plumbing.
If you have a concern that there is a medical problem, its the birth coachs job to ask
your doctor or midwife. If they are also frustrated that the labor is hanging up but
dont think there is a medical concern, then your knowledge of your partners
pregnant body is all the more vital. They might not understand what you are doing,
but thats ok. Medical teaching does not include plumbing.
16
Use the Skills During 3nd Stage

Often, the most dangerous period of a progressive labor is after the baby is born and
before the placenta is delivered, because this is the time when a woman might bleed
excessively. If excessive bleeding occurs, the woman will be given an injection that
will contract her uterus. Use what skills you can fit in, let the professionals do the
rest, and just be thankful you live in a modern country with modern medical care.
Basic take-away
Birth is unknown until it unfolds. You just have to work with what you have, but
there are two very important things that you have huge control over:
1. Dont go into labor tired.
2. Dont overreact to contractions when they are lasting 1530 seconds and are 5
20 minutes apart. Instead, quietly learn about your contractions and teach
yourself how to relax in this early phase, so you develop good labor management
skills for the later stages.
End of the Road: Making Memories

Giving birth is seen from several time perspectives. The first perspective is when
youre pregnant and you look forward to the birth experience, knowing its
unknown until it happens. Then you view the experience as it unfolds and as you
experience it. Then you look back immediately afterwards with opinions and
emotions. Finally, you periodically look back throughout your life. The birth of your
baby is always something you look back on.
Only the human mind has the ability to imagine the future, be so self-reflective in the
present, and recall experiences in the past.
Because you have imaginative power, you can project different scenarios. Imagine
that you are looking back right now to your childs birth, in which you did not have
17
or use your Pink Kit skills. Without skills, you can hinder the birthing process, but
not stop it, which means it will only get more tiring the longer you make it last.
Long, tiring labors are also more likely to end up with medical interventions. Now
imagine you are looking back to your birth experience in which you did have and use
skills. Which way do you want to give birth?
The human mind also endows you with the remarkable ability to see yourself as you
are using your skills, even if this is your first baby, no differently than you can see
yourself taking complex driving directions to a new place. You can both see all the
turns, as well as how you drive the car. You are in charge of what you do and how
you manage the experience, just as you are in capable of engaging with the natural
physiological process of birth.
Because the birth of your child is a one-time event and remains as a lasting memory
for life, its vitally important that you do feel skilled. You may not be able to control
much during the birth experience, but you can always control your skills. They are
what will empower you throughout the whole of the progression, from now until
you hold your baby in your arms.
18

Getting From Here To There in Labor

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Getting From Here To There in Labor

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Getting from Here to There in Labor

Published by Common Knowledge Trust