Physical and emotional changes during birth
There are two ways that your body prepares for birth: the physical and the emotional. There are a few things your body must do in order to prepare for the birth of a child. First your cervix must move forward, soften up, thin out, and dilate. Usually when you are being checked at the doctors office or the hospital, everyone focuses on the dilation (or how much your cervix is opening up), but your cervix also has to do these other things listed. Effacement (the thinning out), is measured in percentage from 0 to 100%. Dilation is measured in cm from 0-10 cm. Once you are 100% effaced and 10 cm dilated, it is time for the baby to rotate and flex it’s head. The head also begins to mold, or change, in order to fit through the birth canal. Then the baby begins to descend, rotates more, and then is born.
The important thing to remember is, how far dilated or effaced you are does not tell you when you will go into labor, or how long your labor will be. As the laboring woman, it is best not to focus on this. You can be dilated to 4cm for three hours and then be at 10cm 10 min. later. What dilation and effacement do tell us, is where you are at right now, not where you will be in the near future. Some signs that you might see as you reach dilation is more bloody show, baby’s heart rate will sometimes drop during contractions, you may get the tremers, and you may begin to feel more pressure in your back and perineum (vaginal area) than you did before. As you near this point, contractions become very intense and are closer together.
There are two points that I feel women get to in their labor that are defining points emotionally. The point when they decide they don’t want to deal with the labor pains (usually around 4 cm) and the point when they feel like they can’t deal with labor pains (around 7cm). Which leads us into some of the emotional hurdles that we need to work through during labor. We must learn to deal with uncertainty, fear, emotionally dealing with pain, learning to lean on others, finding our own power, and finding meaning in our labors.
Laborinths are often used as symbols of rebirth or entering a new life. It is also often used in birth in various cultures. When a woman starts a contraction she is encourage to trace the path in and back out. I like to imagine all the emotional stages we need to get through as a part of the laborinth. It helps to distract, calm, and give meaning to labor. We will be making our own laborinths in class. These can be used in birth if wanted as a technique to help with pain, but it can also be used to help the mother and family reflect on their own journey into motherhood and the beginning of their new life together as a family.
