My List of Tools for Pregnancy and Labour
I am writing this list because I have had three pregnancies to try to new things and figure out what was useful for me in pregnancy and labour. I mean, c’mon, I must have learnt something right! Not all tools will be suitable for everyone but it’s good to be aware of what is out there and try them for yourself.
Growing a baby isn’t just work for your body, there’s work you have to do to prepare your body and mind. It takes up time from your day, and this can be hard with other children around, but please do what you can to put the work in. After my first birth, I definitely didn’t feel that because I’d done it once, that I knew it all. With each pregnancy I read more, researched more and continued to practice the skills I’d learned.
Here it is-
1. Pregnancy Yoga
The best bit about pregnancy yoga is taking the time to focus on you and your growing baby. This is one way to tick that self-care box. It’s also essential to do something physical to cope with the changes your body is going through and to prepare it for the work out that labour can be! A weekly yoga lesson will give you a chance to do this.
It’s also a great place to meet other pregnant women and pick up information about pregnancy and birth. It’s also a place where you’re allowed to say what aches in your body. Hopefully your teacher can help you remedy it or advise you on how to prevent it getting worse!
Nowadays there are so many more classes available all over Edinburgh, than there were 9 nine years ago. I travelled into town for Cáitlin Heavey’s amazing Yogabirth class at Mulberry House. I also had the pleasure of attending Heather Burns’ Mum and Baby yoga class with Nikki Hunter, who has since built her own yoga business, the fabulous Esk and Ivy in Dalkeith. They won the Yoga Retreat Specialist of the Year 2022/23. I definitely want to try out one of her retreats!
Luckily, by the time my third baby came along, there were more options available in Corstorphine. As Cáitlin was baking bread in Italy and I had the demanding schedule of two young boys to deal with, I did my own pregnancy yoga practice at home. After Maggie arrived we then attended the lovely Lousie Burchell’s parent and baby yoga class at St Anne’s church.
2. Hypnobirthing – believe your body can do this!
Hypnobirthing is about putting your mind in a state of hypnosis so that you can take control of your feelings both physically and mentally. You do this with visualisation and controlled breath. It requires work! You do need to practice to be able to use this skill in labour. If a course is too expensive, borrow a Hypnobirthing book from the library and spend your money on a good hypnobirthing audio track to listen to, some are free on the authors website. The power of the mind is strong, so embed it with soothing, informative instruction. It’s also giving you another chance to ignore the world around you and start bonding with your baby.
Click here to find out more about Hypnobirthing from London Hypnotherapist, Hollie De Cruz. https://www.weareherehear.com/hypnobirthing
3. Books
I read many books over the years starting with those that explained what was going to happen to my body and how to look after it. The classic ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’ by Heidi Murkoff, Zita West’s ‘Pregnancy Companion’ , which was a golden charity shop find as I’d never heard of her. I also used her once a day pregnancy vitamin too. ‘How to Grow a Baby’ by Clemmie Hooper, is a good read, more current and written by a British midwife.
I also read a few hypnobirthing books starting with ‘Hypnobirthing’ by Marie Mognan, which my course was based off. It was informative and eye opening but there are more recently published books and I found them easier to read and more relative to today’s modern world. They were ‘Mindful Hypnobirthing’ by Sophie Fletcher and ‘Your Baby, Your Birth’ by Hollie De Cruz. These ladies can be found on social media, which is also a good place to tap into for good advice about pregnancy and birth.
There are loads more books available, there just isn’t time to read them all. If you are having a search for one try sampling a few pages first or read up about the author to gauge whether you are on the same wave length.
4. Active Birth Workshop
This kind of workshop you attend with your birth partner. It’s an opportunity to learn what to actually do with yourself and what your partner can do, whilst you are in labour. It is especially good for couples where your partner feels a bit left out of the process or unsure of what’s going to be expected of them at the time. Having guidance on that (and print outs) will give them an objective. One of the tasks you are taught is essential oil massage. You can pick scents that you not only enjoy but that will assist with relaxation or energy boosting depending on what you need. This leads me on to my next tool.
Click here to find out more about Active Birth Workshops with Cáitlin Heavey in Edinburgh. https://caitlinheavey.co.uk/havingababy
5. The power of scent association
One of the things I read about in one of the Hypnobirthing books was how strong the association of scent is. We’ve all experienced something smelling really nice that for some reason connected to our memory, makes us feel happy. The advice in the book was to spend time relaxing (with two children already, this only happened for me at my bed time), listen to your hypnobirthing track (if you’re not practicing this you could play relaxing music or simply try to close your mind from niggling thoughts) and inhale a relaxing scent of your choosing either by diffuser or placing it on your skin or on your pillow. I used Neals’ Yard Lavender, but Boots do one too. Doing this almost every night throughout my pregnancy, before going to sleep, my mind created a strong association with lavender and a restful, peaceful state.
During labour, I would dab the essential oil on a small Cheeky Wipe cloth and hold it over my nose and mouth to inhale it, which also helped me to focus on my breath. By linking the scent with periods of relaxation it helped my mind to return to that state during labour and kept me calm and focussed.
Whilst breathing in my lavender I also thought over all the birth affirmations I’d read over the months. I’d burned them into my mind by using a visualisation board. Which you can read about in part two.
