Preparing for labour and birth: The basics

No one can ever fully control birth, not the cosy APP promising you a candlelit waterbirth or the obstetrician who thinks that they have intervened early enough to mitigate every risk imaginable. Birth will always have unknowns and part of the work of preparation is to acknowledge that.

One of the most important things we can do is get to know and trust ourselves as part of our preparation. Communication with our minds our souls our bodes and even sometimes with our deepest fears all feature in birth preparation.

There are also pragmatic things such as getting familiar with breathing well, moving with strength and flexibility, understanding the mechanics of labour and how our different body systems function in labour, and then there is the environment we birth in and the way our mind affects us. For more . . . just listen in.

I you feel drawn to support people in labour or just afterwards, consider my postnatal doula training course, which is both a stand alone course and an entry into the Comprehensive Doula Training that will continue after the summer. More information here