Labor Pain Relief: Visualization

Video Transcript

"Another pain coping technique is visualization. Visualization can be helpful in getting your body to relax, and also can help your cervix to efface and dilate more, which means to open it up more. So you can visualize what's happening in your body. Right now your pelvis is getting looser, and your baby is descending deeper and deeper and deeper into the pelvis. So visually think about that baby dropping, dropping, dropping deep into the pelvis. Another thing that you want to pictualize is your cervix. It's hard to really imagine what our cervix looks like, and what it looks like as it opens up, so usually a really good way to get that image in your head is to think of a flower. Think of a rose that's in a really, really tight bloom, and think about how that bloom slowly opens into a full, full bloom. It goes from a bud to a nice full bloom, and that's just an opening sensation. So you want to think about opening. That can get your cervix to dilate and efface faster. Other things that you can think about are a relaxing place. Someplace that you've gone to on vacation; maybe someplace that you just really like to go to; maybe it's even in your house. Someplace that you can visualize that just calms you, and brings a sense of peace to you. You could also imagine something; dream up in your head. You don't have to have gone there before, but maybe if you're a beach person, and you love the warmth, imagine lying on a beautiful sandy beach with the sun just soaking into your skin. So you can actually use visualization of what is really, truly happening inside your body, or you can go outside, and just visualize different places. So visualization can be a really good pain coping technique."