Five Things You Can Do to Prepare for Your Birth

In my last blog I gave you some of my favorite pregnancy related books, so now that you have a head start on what to read what else you can do to prepare for your birth experience?

In this post I'll give you some easy to do things, in addition to hiring a Birth Doula ;), that will help further the mental and physical preparation you might be hoping to accomplish before you enter your baby's birth story.

• Be active! Go for a walk, hit the gym, really just do whatever you feel good doing and set time aside each day to keep your body moving. You'll want to check in with your OB or Midwife before starting a new or strenuous workout routine, but for the most part maintaining good physical activity is a great way to prepare for birth. If you're looking for low impact ways to get moving prenatal yoga is a great option! Some specific, beneficial poses you can research to practice at home that would be: Cat Cow, Pigeon pose, Chair pose, Seated side bend, and the Yoga squat. Since I have two little boys a trip the gym isn't always feasible, so I'm a huge fan of at home workouts. I use and follow the daily workouts shared by Tone it Up and really love that they have pregnancy safe workouts and modifications on their site. Plus it's free! Visit here to check it out https://www.toneitup.com/workouts/prenatal-core-workout-with-mama-to-be-kristina/

• Listen to positive birth stories and podcasts. This is a small task but honestly the impact can be huge. The birth stories we expose ourselves to often have ways of reinforcing what we naturally tend to trust and distrust about the birthing process. Knowing this it's important that we choose our resources, birth stories, and books carefully as we'll undoubtedly be affected by the beliefs we encounter through these things. Some of the podcasts currently in rotation on my phone: The Birth Hour, Free Birth Society, and Rockstar Birth Radio.

• Drink Red Raspberry Leaf Tea. This is a popular and widely shared suggestion in the birth community. Now I will say that while RRLT has been recommended by Midwives culturally for many, many years and we have a wealth of anecdotal knowledge, we do not have much by way of peer reviewed evidence based information to support it's benefits. From knowledge handed down we believe that it's likely for RRLT consumed after the first trimester to help tone the uterus, improve length of labor, prevent pre or post term gestation, and decrease necessary intervention. Since the current research available shows there are no known adverse effects, for most it may be worth discussing with your OB or Midwife and adding to your daily routine later in pregnancy (read second trimester and beyond). If you're looking for some evidence based info on RRLT you can start here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22928540 and here https://evidencebasedbirth.com/natural-labor-induction-series-raspberry-leaf/

• Eat Dates. Another commonly shared birth preparation tip that doesn't hurt to try and we actually have some evidence based information to support this practice. No adverse effects and potential gains sounds like a win in my book. "Randomized trials have found that eating date fruit in late pregnancy, around 60-80 grams a day of fruit, may increase cervical ripening, reduce the need for a medical labor induction or augmentation, and one small study found a positive effect on postpartum blood loss." This amounts to about 6 dates a day from 36 weeks on. If you'd like to read more you can start here https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-eating-dates-to-start-labor/

• Create Birth Affirmations. As we prepare for birth it's almost a given that we'll encounter the old saying, "trust your body" or "trust that your body knows how to birth." However, this simply isn't true for some birthing people and can in some cases cause lingering negative emotions when our birth story changes course from what we envision and hope for. Instead, I choose to focus on the belief that we are prepared to handle any changes that may arise during our birth. One way build this trust in our ability to navigate our birth experience is by creating powerful visual affirmations. Create affirmations specific to goals for your birth experience and display them somewhere you'll see them daily. Once you enter your birth story, you can bring these affirmations with you to the hospital to create a birth space that is specific to you. Throughout this post I've included free printable birth affirmations to help get you started or give you some ideas for your own affirmations.

The truth is we are strong, and we know what to do even when we feel as though we may not. The goal of any birth preparation is not to achieve a specific type of birth, whether that be unmedicated, at home, free birth or medicated in the hospital. The goal is to learn to listen to our body, explore what our instincts and the evidence work together to teach us, and discover that ultimately we are prepared to handle the inevitable mystery that our birth experience will be.