Tips To Manage Labour Pain
You’ll probably hear countless stories and experiences about ‘labour pain’ from various friends, relatives and new mothers during the pregnancy. But try not to get intimidated and unnecessarily worked up. Instead find out ways that could help you ease labour and focus on them. Remember, a lot depends on how well you handle pain and your pain tolerance levels as well.
A few techniques that you could adopt to manage your labour pain naturally without any medication:
- A firm massage in the lower back region, arms, legs and neck can be a great pain reliever as well as reduce contraction discomfort
- A birthing partner can give you that moral support you desperately need. It could be your husband or a friend/ relative who can egg you on and make you feel positive
- Meditation, yoga and pranayama can have a relaxing effect and help you deal with labour pain better
- Rhythmic deep breathing techniques can keep you from hyperventilating and also do wonders to ease your tension
Visualization Techniques
Diverting your attention by visualizing on something real or imaginary is a great way to get distracted from labour pain. By shifting your focusing on past events, experiences or even on people who’ve inspired/ impacted you can drift you away from pain and keep you relaxed to a great extent.
Active Birth Positions
You can explore various positions like – standing, squatting, kneeling or walking to help ease the pain. Studies have conclusively demonstrated that upright positions shorten labour while reducing pain of contraction. By staying upright your uterus can contract without encountering resistance, there’s less pressure on major blood vessels and oxygen supply to the baby increases thereby helping the baby get into the best position for being born.
Tips & Tricks
Prunes and dates are known to strengthen the uterus muscles and ease child delivery. They also reduce chances of bleeding that might occur after delivery.
Methi (Fenugreek) induces and eases the child birth during labor by stimulating uterine contractions and reducing the labor pain. However, excess intake during pregnancy could be counter active as it increases the risk of miscarriage as well as premature childbirth.
One of the ways to tell a false labour from a true one is to time the contractions. False labour contractions are irregular and die down with time, while true labour contractions come at regular intervals and are persistent.
Make a checklist of all things you need to take to the hospital and pack them in your bag so that it’s all ready when you need it. Remember to pack the baby’s stuff too like clothes, nappies, blankets, booties and mittens.
To soothe labour pain, place a hot water compress bag (take care not to fill it with boiling water) on the aching areas and massage your back gently.
To make the task of picking a baby name easier, make a list of your favourite ones and keep adding them to the list. While short-listing, read each name aloud to see how it sounds with the surname.
