How to cope with pain during labor without medication

Research indicates that an unmedicated birth is healthiest for mom and baby. So how do you do it? Try this...

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Learn everything you can about labor and birth by taking a childbirth class. Be sure to take a class that emphasizes building confidence and autonomy, as opposed to a class that simply discuses what will happen and how your doctor may approach you. Learn about the different stages of labor, what each term means and what your different choices will be during labor and birth so that you may have a more fully informed dialog with your care provider. This will dramatically increase your confidence, which you will need plenty of.
2. Rather than approaching the experience of giving birth with the mindset that things can go wrong, develop the mindset that birth is normal, natural and healthy.
3. RELAX!!!! That may sound a little crazy, but the tension that you hold in your muscles will actually increase your pain.
4. Plan for constant emotional support while you labor. This should include hiring a doula (http://www.dona.org). Doulas are the only "intervention" shown to decrease the length of time in labor and decrease the likelihood of cesarean births.
5. For early labor, simply distract yourself with projects that can take your mind off of your contractions. Plan for these projects ahead of time, and make them require as little energy as possible. One idea would be to bake a cake from scratch, or simply plop a birth ball in front of the tv and watch a funny movie...or both!
6. For active labor, attempt to distract yourself still for as long as you can manage. When that no longer works, begin to incorporate comfort measures gradually. Call your doula and let her know its time.
7. As you progress into strong contractions that are closer together, use more comfort measures that require more effort or focus. Use multiple comfort measures at one time, attempting to use as many of your senses at one time. For example, have your partner massage your lower back, as you focus on a picture, while listening to music, counting through contractions and enjoying some aromatherapy. Sound like sensory overload? It is! The more signals that you send to your brain, the harder it is for your brain to focus on pain.
8. To shorten labor, get up and move around. You may find that certain movements and positions decrease your pain during contractions. Listen to your body! It has been found that when you move your body in the ways that decrease your pain, you are actually helping your body to progress faster through labor. Try doing squats, slow dancing, pelvic tilts, rocking side to side on a birth ball, or anything else that feels good.
9. Use temperature! Some women respond better to heat, some to cold. Whatever works for you, use it! If the change in temperature suddenly stops helping, try using the opposite. (Sidenote- if using heat, have someone check the temperature first.)
10. Shower shower shower! Once you get in that shower you may never want to get out! Before you get in, be sure to have someone check the temperature of it. You may have a significantly high tolerance for heat, which can easily result in burns.
11. Between contractions, relax and rest. What's nice about labor is that you will likely have a 60-90 second long contraction, and then you'll have a break for 3-5 minutes. During early and active labor, you should be spending less time having contractions than not. So take the down time to regain focus by relaxing.
12. When you reach transition, your contractions will become stronger and closer together. Transition is the shortest phase of labor though, so don't let that intimidate you. The end is almost here. Rely on your support team to help you through it, and celebrate! Your baby is almost hear!!!
13. For the pushing stage of labor, its important to push as your body tells you to. In order to shorten this part of labor and reduce the incidence of perineal trauma, push in an upright position. In fact, for best results, try squatting (many birth sites will have a bar that you can use for support).
14. After your baby is born, embrace him or her, and then congratulate yourself. You have just done something incredible! And you will tell this story over and over again for the rest of your life :)

Tips & Warnings

• You have to go into labor with the expectation that it will be difficult. You have to relax and be okay with knowing that sometimes labor may not go the way you expect. But most importantly, you must have confidence in yourself and your birthing team (your partner, doula and care provider) because labor is normal, natural and healthy and since the beginning of peoples' time on this earth, women have been giving birth to healthy and strong little babies!
• Avoid any medical interventions that may hinder your ability to labor naturally. Continuous fetal monitoring, artificial rupture of your membranes, use of IVs, and restriction of food and drink (in early labor) have been found to not improve the outcome of labor and can actual hinder your progress through labor, making labor last longer and creating the possibility of fetal distress due to lengthy labor. Just trust your body to tell you what is right!
• Your body will be orchestrating labor in such an incredibly elaborate way, and using pain medication or pitocin may actually inhibit your body's production of hormones that are key to an effective labor. Pain medication and pitocin may also affect baby adversely. Pitocin creates an unnatural and oftentimes stronger contraction pattern, which can create fetal distress. Pain medication can cross the placenta, making it more difficult after birth for baby to learn to breastfeed.
• IF LABOR TAKES AN UNEXPECTED COURSE, some of the aforementioned medical interventions may become necessary. Learn the benefits and risks of any and all medical procedures that may relate to labor and birth, and weigh them carefully. Any advice I have given here is directed toward women who are experiencing a low-risk pregnancy, labor and birth, which is most pregnancies, labors and births.