Birth is as emotional as it is physical.
I expected pregnancy emotions. I expected postnatal emotions. But the birth emotions?
They got me ninja-bull in a china shop.
The reason was simple. I’d knew plenty about pregnancy & postnatal hormone-driven emotions.
But birth? Well, that was just mechanics, right?
I am an 80’s baby who learnt about babies from the media-driven world of the early ‘00s.
School sex-ed was a free box of tampons and a condom-on-a-cucumber video; babies were for very brief biology classes. My life education didn’t come from people: it came from TV - American sit-coms like ‘Friends’ and ‘Sex and the City’ to be precise.These shows used ‘real’(ish) scenarios as their starting point and pregnancies, births and babies were big storylines for both in 2002: 16 year old me could not get enough of Rachel and Miranda’s pregnancies and I took everything in.
And in some senses it was really valuable: I saw both struggle with their pregnancy hormones: the mood swings, clothing choices, relationships and body image as their pregnancies developed. I laughed as Rachel berated Ross in the heat, with Phoebe’s warning of ‘don’t anger it!’; I was hooked by Miranda’s quest for her last final steamy relationship before her body became ‘too pregnant’ with Brady.
And from a postnatal perspective, these shows were really enlightening too. Rachel’s on the spot acceptance of Joey’s non-proposal introduced me to postnatal fears and anxieties. Miranda’s battle between her hormone-fuelled breastfeeding urges against her desire to maintain her pre-baby work-life balance revealed the nature of mum-guilt.
But what about birth? What did I learn about that? Well, I learnt that women give birth in hospitals on their back surrounded by doctors, even if their baby is breech (we’ll leave that for another blog). I learnt that they are calm and can speak witty lines through labour. That the most intense part of labour is the frustration of watching other women deliver before you, or dealing with the annoying things that people say whilst you’re doing it.
That was it: I learnt that birth was a waters-breaking, wait, deal with some mild annoyances and then take a baby home type situation. Emotions may run high before and after birth, but not during labour.
Despite all my antenatal classes, that was the belief I took into my first labour. Feeling tidal waves of emotion during birth? It never entered the equation.
So what happened when, quite naturally, I did become emotional? I lost control of my self-belief. I believed I shouldn’t be feeling the things I was feeling, and thus, I felt I was broken and failing.
And when it comes to birthing a baby, that’s the one feeling you want to avoid at ALL costs.
How can embracing emotions help to create a better birth experience?
Emotions and hormones go hand in hand. And when it comes to birth, hormones are EVERYTHING.
Birthing bodies rely on oxytocin, progesterone, prolactin, endorphins. In antenatal classes all over the world, they’ll be mentioned in some form or another, which is great. But in what context?
Experience tells me that these hormones are mentioned in the form of their physical actions: progesterone supports the placenta and prevents contractions, endorphins help you to deal with pain, oxytocin supports contractions and boosts milk delivery, prolactin supports the production of milk etc. Each one is linked to a different physical stage of labour.
But that’s only half of the story, because as research shows us that ‘when women discuss and describe normal labour and birth they often do so in terms of their feelings, their thoughts and their actions’ (Dixon, Foureur & Skinner, 2012). In other words, they experience it through their personal perception of the moment, not the physical mechanics; since we are not robots, this will mostly be emotional.
I’ve not spoken to a single birthing person who talked about the regular contractions working effectively to build up the muscles at the fundus of their uterus. But I (along with many researchers!) have spoken to plenty of birthers who delved into their feelings of excitement, of calm and confidence, to a need to focus on themselves; of a need for internal focus and disconnection with those around them to becoming fearful and overwhelmed or tired and sleepy as the birth became imminent, followed by feelings of happiness, awe and joy once the baby was born.
So what? People are emotional when they give birth. Of course they are: it’s a big thing.
But the thing is, these emotions are ALSO a result of the hormones. They are not just a consequence of birth; these emotions are an absolutely bloody essential part of it.
That excitement, calm and confident feeling? That comes from the rush of oxytocin at the start of labour as your body starts the birthing process.
The need for inward focus and disconnection from the world? That’s the endorphins allowing the birther to focus on labour, keeping her calm and reducing the adrenaline and cortisol to allow the oxytocin to keep the uterus contracting effectively.
That sudden moment of fear? That’s the adrenaline of transition shifting awareness to checking the environment of birth is safe as her body moves into the pushing phase…
I am not going to go through the whole process here: it’d take weeks. But you see my point: the emotions we experience are central to undisturbed, physiological birth. We feel them because the hormones coursing through our bodies are causing them.
The problem comes when we don’t know that they’re coming. Humans like control and we do not like the unexpected, especially when it comes to our own emotions. And this is important because if don’t understand these emotions, we don’t know why we’re feeling them, and so we think we shouldn’t be feeling them… that we’re broken… or failing… or doing something wrong.
And so we produce adrenaline and cortisol in response to this stress; and if that comes at the wrong time, these hormones have the very real potential to stall or stop labour, so we feel even more broken… and the negative cycle continues. Less than ideal.
Positive birth experiences, however that birth happens, comes when the birther feels calm, respected and in control of the situation.
If you’re like me and did hours and hours of antenatal preparation classes, that’s great! But think about what you’re covering. If you know all the ins-and-outs of what your body is doing, but nothing else that you’ve only covered half of it. And when those intense, but totally natural emotions hit, that calm and confident mind is likely to be shaken.
If you want to keep that calm, controlled and confident mindset in birth you have to prepare for what those hormones are going to do to your emotions too; after all, forewarned is forearmed, right!
How to include emotions into your antenatal planning for birth.
Four steps to prepare for a more positive birth experience.
Choose antenatal courses carefully:
Not all courses are created equally. Some will focus on physical aspects more than emotional, or have a more ‘decision-based’ angle. Some might cover all three angles briefly. Alternatively you could do different workshops in specific things you want to know about, or contact a doula to create a personalised antenatal package so you can get the balance of physical, emotional and logistic information right in your birth preparation.
Remember you are emotionally unique:
You will respond to one situation differently to another person. Thinking about what normally makes you happy, sad, stressed and anxious in advance of your birth may help you to pre-empt them and come up with ways to cope with them if they do arise. This might be a tricky process and talking it over with someone objective might really help.
Build birth plans that support your emotions:
Remember a positive birth experience comes when you stay calm, controlled and confident throughout. Once you’ve identified negative emotional triggers for you (eg: not knowing what’s going on) think about how you make yourself feel better: a cuddle? Massage? Crying? Whatever it is, build that response into your birth plan in a way that makes sense (eg: if I am scared, I want to be able to cry about it!)
Tell your birth team how to emotionally support you:
Sharing the information from points 2 and 3 with your birth partner, doula, midwives and any other health care professionals is really important. This will allow them to know what to expect, know what to encourage you to do, and know what the best thing is to do when you’re experiencing these intense emotions during the birth of your baby.
And finally, emotional thinking is pretty emotional!
If you’re sitting there feeling a bit overwhelmed and feel like you need some support in preparing for the emotional side of labour, check out some of my antenatal classes and birth planning services; I’d love to help.
