Fear of the unknown is common. Many children are scared of their first day of school, adults are apprehensive of their first day on the job and many expectant parents worry about the upcoming event and raising a child. These feeling are all normal but the fear of birthing affects you in more ways than just giving you butterflies in your stomach.
Fear is a natural reaction to anything that is scary but it has negative effects on the body. An excess of adrenaline which is produced by fight or flight responses is toxic in the body and may just affect your baby. What most people don’t know is how worry affects the birth itself. A powerful effect of worry, anxiety or fear is that the muscles contract. This is an expected response to fear but when the muscles contract while delivering a baby it causes the birth to slow down and also causes an increase in pain.
Think about it; if you were to contract a muscle while receiving an injection, the injection would hurt much more. However, if you relax, the practitioner administering the shot may tell you it’s over before you know it. This is exactly why relaxation at the birth is crucial. When a woman relaxes at the delivery, the birthing muscles open and give way to the baby so that the contractions are more productive. Fear on the other hand not only causes the muscles to constrict, but any relaxation techniques that you may have practiced will seem difficult to do. This is why letting go of the fear of birthing is important to do before the birth itself so that the practice of releasing fear before the birth will cause the birthing mother to be in more control of herself while she is birthing.
Although The Painless Childbirth Course offers a release technique, here are some things that you can do to ease anxiety of birthing.
- Stay away from negative birth stories from the media, magazines, books and even friends. This seems to cause the mind to wander into “worry land” more than if you weren’t informed. You may label a woman that has already had a baby as experienced because she already had a baby. Additionally, if she had a negative or difficult birth experience, you may just relate that birth to you. Therefore, staying away from negative stories will help you to think less about what can go wrong or how bad it’s going to be.
- Practice letting go of fear when you feel it. When most people have fear they let the fear overtake them and once it subsides, they tend to suppress the feeling. Don’t suppress the feeling. Recognize it. Imagine that the feeling is leaving you as if it’s a dark smoke leaving your body. This can ease a lot of the tension.
- Whenever fear of birthing strikes, focus your attention on positive thoughts. Think about how good the birth is going to be instead of how long or painful. Many times replacing the thought allows you to build a mental program that says “negative thoughts on birthing will automatically cause me to think positive ones.” The replacement in the mind or the affirmation is purely subconscious, so you may not be aware of it.
Following these suggestions may help you have a more pleasant pregnancy because there is less worry and even program your mind and body to react more pleasantly at the birth itself.
The Painless Childbirth Course addresses letting go of fear and teaches you how to relax at the birth so that you can have the best birth possible. Please visit www.israelmaya.com and click on the testimonials to see how other women have benefited from this course.
