3 REASONS TO BREATHE DURING LABOUR

Breathing is known as one of the top Hypnobirthing techniques, and we hear people say things like “I breathed my baby out”. But, what are the reasons actual that breathing is important during labour and birth?

Well there are many, but let me tell you three:

1. Breathing tells our brain that we are safe

Imagine the way someone breathes when they’re scared. It’s short and shallow right? Like hyperventilating.

Compare that hyperventilating to the way that someone breathes when they’re chilled on the sofa or they’re asleep. It’s these lovely full inhales, and even longer exhales.

That’s because your body breathes differently, depending on how your brain is feeling.

So if you’re scared, it’s shorter and shallower (or stops altogether!) If you’re relaxed, it’s long and slow.

So if you intentionally breathe slowly, taking in full breaths of oxygen and long exhales when you are feeling scared or panicked, you’re directly telling your brain – it’s OK, you’re safe.

And the feeling of safety is SO important in birth. Your body is much less willing to birth your baby if you don’t feel safe. And that’s a wonderful evolutionary aspect of the brain which has kept us safe for millions of years – the message being, don’t give birth if you’re not feeling safe, because why would you want to give birth to a loud crying helpless infant if you’re trying to run or hide from a sabre tooth tiger.

Our body needs to feel calm and safe in order to give birth efficiently, or would you believe it, joyously. If it thinks it’s in danger, labour can slow and stop altogether.

2. Breathing during labour is one of the best ways to help your uterus

The uterus is an organ, but it’s a muscular organ, surrounded by two layers of muscle. One vertical, one horizontal.

We all know muscles need oxygen, and the breath is a hot topic in sports for that reason.

During labour, the uterus, that muscular organ, is doing a hell a lot of work throughout your whole labour, so getting oxygenated blood to it is KEY.

So that’s the second reason that the breath is vital for labour. There’s not much you can do to help your uterus muscles during labour,  it’s a bit like your heart in that it’s a muscle that kind of works involuntarily. You can’t flex it like a bicep.

But one thing you really can do to help it, is fill your body with as much oxygen as you can.

3. Breathing is a natural pain reliever.

There are a number of ways that breathing can help you to feel less pain during your contractions.

Firstly, breathing releases endorphins, which are your body’s natural pain relievers. And did you know that you can bank endorphins? So by getting in loads of oxygen at the beginning of labour, you can produce and bank endorphins for when you need them later on. Wow.

Secondly, breathing helps your body to relax, and to feel less tense. If you are tense, the pain of contractions will be felt more strongly. A bit like when you have an injection and you’re told not to tense your arm, because it makes it more painful. It’s the same with contraction pain. If the body is relaxed, the uterus is relaxed, and the pain of the contractions will be felt less acutely.  Tensing up when you have a contraction will make it hurt more, and also the uterus will find it hard to contract, meaning your cervix is opened more slowly, making for a potentially slower labour. So breathing can actually help your cervix dilate quicker.

Thirdly, breathing can be used as a distraction technique for coping with pain. It gives your brain something to focus on. Your brain can only focus on so much at one time, and if you are focussing on your breathing, maybe even on the counting if that feels right to you, you can put the pain the background and your focus on the breaths instead.

There is plenty of information around about breathing techniques for labour, but the specifics of them, the counts, the names, the visualisations – those are all just bonuses. They don’t really matter. What DOES really matter is just that you breathe, and get oxygen to your body and baby – that’s it.

Take a lovely deep breath now, and have a great day!