5 Questions for Manifesting an Ecstatic Birth
While it is important to set clear intentions for your birth experience, it is equally as important to ensure your decisions and actions are congruent with your desires. The following questions are imperative to ask yourself when consciously manifesting an undisturbed, ecstatic birth.
1. Will I experience a true sense of privacy?
In order for physiological birth to unfold as easefully and efficiently as possible it is important to consider the complex hormonal orchestration that is taking place. When a woman feels watched, or self-conscious during birth, the hormonal matrix can be significantly disrupted. Ina May Gaskin likens this to someone watching us when attempting to do a poo. As you can imagine, it would be difficult, to say the least, to relax, open and release. Instead, we are more likely to feel that we no longer need to go. Ina May refers to this experience as the “sphincter reflex”. However, on a hormonal level, when a woman feels watched and self-conscious during birth, there can be shift away from her production of oxytocin, and beta-endorphins and an increase in fight or flight hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline (note: these hormones also play an important role within the hormonal orchestration of birth). This takes a woman out of her mammalian birthing brain (within the limbic system) and into her neocortex, while at the same time drawing blood away from her uterus. This can lead to more painful sensations, excess feelings of panic or even a slowing down of the birthing process.
The importance of maintaining your sense of privacy should be discussed openly with your birth attendants and witnesses during the months and weeks leading up to your birth. Additionally, if there is a lull in your birthing process, this may be an indication that you need a greater sense of privacy in order to rebalance stress hormones and optimise oxytocin levels, the hormone of uterine contraction, love, and bonding (to name just a few of it’s roles).
The place you choose to give birth should feel both familiar, and safe. However, it is important to make the distinction that where your rational brain (aka your neocortex) views as safe is often very different to what your mammalian, limbic brain would consider safe. At the end of the day we are still mammals and almost all features of birth are shared with our fellow mammals. These features include the hormonal orchestration within birth and our shared basic need for darkness, no strangers, no interruptions, and complete privacy, in order to protect birth itself.
Ask yourself questions such as, is there the option for dimming lights, for candles or complete darkness? Will I feel comfortable and empowered enough to ask certain people to step out of the room if that instinctively feels best? Or better yet, will those present have the awareness to step back and give me space when I need it? Or, will I feel crowded with so many people present? Another way of asking yourself questions around your privacy is to consider if you could actually make love in this environment? Given the same hormones involved in sexual intimacy and orgasm are also present during birth, an intimate, relaxing and private space is essential.
2. Will I feel free from time constraints and pressure?
This is another important question to consider when carefully selecting who will witness your birth. If you have chosen for a registered midwife to be present, it is important that you have a very transparent conversation around time frames. Many women who’ve chosen to give birth outside of the medical paradigm, have had birth experiences that can last as long as 3 to 4 days. While, the length of a woman’s birth is highly individual, it is important to know whether or not you would feel any pressure at a certain point to transfer, simply because of how long your birth is taking.
If you feel ready and willing to tap into your own intuition and instincts, then it is worth discussing with your midwife what her stance is on “long births”, or “post-dates” births (>42 weeks), and what her regulating body permits in terms of supporting a woman to birth at home outside of certain time frames. This is why many women are choosing to give birth with attendants or witnesses who are not under the authority of regulators and the medical paradigm. This also applies to the birth of your placenta and whether or not you would consent to any form of intervention if the birth of your placenta was to take greater than a given time period. Ultimately, it is your body and should be your choice.
Other measurements of linear time should can also be avoided, including removing any clocks from your sight. Any discussions around “how many more contractions”, or trying to predict the length of your birth, can be very mentally distracting and counterintuitive to trusting the birth process and allowing it to unfold. I also strongly recommend not having any vaginal exams to measure cervical dilation. From my own research and experience, I believe this procedure is disruptive, invasive, painful, and irrelevant within physiological birth.
3. Will my birth be treated as a sacred ceremony?
While this is very individual to each woman, birth as a sacred ceremony comes down to a feeling of reverence and the belief that birth is a portal that a woman must pass through in order to be reborn and transformed as a mother. Reverence and respect for this portal and powerful transition includes like minimal noise, if not silence within the birthing space. During this time, as the birthing woman, you should feel completely centered. Anyone who has ego issues (we all know that person who seems to make every situation about them) simply does not belong in your birthing space. You should not feel obligated to meet the needs of those around you. The space should feel meditative and allow you to transcend when needed. Those around you should understand that you’re embarking on a sacred journey and therefore, put your needs and wishes above all else.
4. Will I be able to let go and be vulnerable?
By this I mean, will you feel completely comfortable to swear, moan, yell and/or pass all kinds of bodily fluids in front of those you’ve chosen to be present? Or, will you feel embarrassed, self-conscious and like you need to hold yourself back in some way. Birth is a time of allowing, surrendering, and opening to all that is taking place within your body. You should be able to express the sensations of birth in a way that feels free and uninhibited. Anyone, who is uncomfortable with bodily fluids, or the intensity and wildness of birth, should simply not be present.
5. Will the “golden hour” be honoured?
Imagine a golden halo forming around you and your baby, and time standing still for this eternal moment. You feel yourself falling deeply in love, as you’re gazing into each other eyes, without any interruption or disturbance. Your witnesses are standing back and giving you the privacy and space that you need. You may feel a towel being gently placed around you both, keeping you snug and warm, but other than this, you feel completely present.
During this sacred hour, there should be “no hatting, patting, or chatting”, as Carla Hartley says. This first hour should be a time of deep awe, reverence, and love. There should be no separation of you and your baby, especially in the case of resuscitation. When you’ve birthed in your instincts, undisturbed and physiologically, you are the best person to resuscitate your baby (I will do a blog post on this topic in the future). The umbilical cord should remain intact until your baby is completely transfused with all the hormonally, iron, nutrient, and stem-cell rich blood that their body requires to make their full transition into life outside of the womb. There should also be no pressure around the timing of the placenta. When the golden hour is undisturbed and treated with respect, this is actually the time in which oxytocin levels peak, the hormone needed not only for bonding and breastfeeding (creating the blueprint for your mothering journey), but also for the adequate contraction of your uterus and a safe and easeful birth of your placenta.
Ultimately, where you give birth and who is present to support you *matters*. These are your choices to make, and yours only…When a woman feels unobserved, supported and held within a space of love and trust, the integrity of the hormonal matrix in maintained, and birth can unfold not only safely and optimally, but ecstatically.
Resources:
https://sarahbuckley.com/leaving-well-alone-a-natural-approach-to-the-third-stage-of-labour/
Much love
Genna Del Bianco
you may also like
Postpartum haemorrhage is one of the most common fears projected onto pregnant women. The idea that our bodies could fail on us at any moment has been deeply ingrained into us since we were little girls.