Roses, throats and the cervix

I've been thinking a little about this picture I came across on Navelgazing Midwife. The power our thoughts and imaginings have over our physical bodies is extraordinary. Often I read about women who visualize their cervix opening during birth like a flower, and with each rush of a contraction they imagine themselves opening up little bit by little bit and then in second stage transferring that picture to their vagina allowing it to stretch. There's something about visualizing or perceiving something in our minds eye which gives extra strength. As a mind imagines so a body can follow.

I've been with a few women in labour now and the one women who didn't tear during birth was without any drugs for pain (I firmly believe this helped her keep in touch with what her body was doing and allowed her to follow). She was deeply in her own space, almost trance like she was so deeply internal, and as she pushed and breathed her baby out of her body she said, 'No pain, open, open, no pain, no pain.' It was beautiful and the first time I'd seen anyone birth without drugs of some sort.

I love small things that can make a difference to labour. One thing that fascinates me is the relationship between a relaxed throat and a relaxed and dilating cervix. Asking women to relax their mouths from being clenched or tight from high throat noises, and getting them to soften their mouth and make lower deeper noise as they labour actually helps dilation. Lower deeper noises while also relaxing the throat and cervix are often more calming in the woman's own ears too which eases fear and stops the bodies fear and stress response from kicking in and slowing labour down. One simple way to relax a woman's throat is to encourage a woman's husband to do what he normally would do if his wife was in pain - be near her physically and kiss her. (But then some women don't want to be touched in labour so that rules that option out). Saying the words words "I love you" relax the throat too - women tell their husbands they love them, they tell their unborn baby that they love them.

Some times when I see husbands and wives working so closely together as a woman's labouring it makes me feel like I'm stumbling across something private and sacred, it reminds me of the sexual nature of birth - which makes perfect sense to me as that's how a child is created in the first place.