In this blog, we’ll take a look at:
- Understanding the Process
- The Importance of Support
- Physical Preparation
- How Physiotherapy Can Help You Prepare for Childbirth
- Keeping a Positive Mindset
Childbirth is a monumental life event filled with anticipation, excitement and a healthy dose of nervousness. As parents prepare to welcome a new life into the world, understanding the journey ahead can transform anxiety into confidence. We walk you through how to prepare for childbirth, providing practical tips and insights to help you approach this special journey feeling informed and empowered.
Understanding the Process
Before stepping into the birthing room, it’s helpful to understand the stages of labour and what to expect. Labour usually unfolds in three phases: early labour, active labour and delivery. Early labour can last for hours or even days – typically around 14 hours for first-time mums. This is the perfect time to manage your emotions and finalise your birth plan.
As labour progresses, more intense contractions, sometimes accompanied by a “show,” backache or diarrhoea, signal the beginning of active labour. This is your cue to head to your chosen birthing facility.
The final stage is the most magical, as it brings the moment you’ve been waiting for: meeting your baby. Engaging in prenatal classes and other supportive therapies can give you a deeper understanding of these stages and help you feel more prepared and confident for this life-changing experience.
The Importance of Support
Having a strong support system is vital during childbirth. Surrounding yourself with encouraging people, be it a partner, family member or friend, can provide emotional comfort and practical help. Consider involving a doula, a professional trained to offer physical and emotional support during labour. Their unbiased assistance can help manage stress and ensure your needs are met throughout the experience.
Physical Preparation
Physical preparation often goes hand in hand with mental readiness for childbirth. Research confirms that unless there are specific medical reasons not to, staying fit and active during pregnancy improves birth outcomes, increasing the chance of normal vaginal delivery with no intervention, and decreasing the risk of medical concerns such as pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure and gestational diabetes.
Unless directed otherwise by your medical team, you can generally continue with your current pre-pregnancy exercise programme with only slight modifications to allow for the physical changes of pregnancy. These include taking into account that your maximum heart rate lowers, your posture changes, your flexibility increases, your deep core works differently and you may have more aches and pains than normal.
Remember that each pregnancy is different, and everyone’s activity levels and expectations are different, so getting professional advice is advised to discuss your specific programme. Our Pelvic Health Physiotherapists can give you this advice.
How Can Physiotherapy Help You Prepare for Childbirth?
Physiotherapy during pregnancy offers a range of benefits, supporting and empowering expectant mums to optimise their pregnancy, birth and post-natal journey. Let’s explore each benefit in a bit more detail:
Management of back, pelvic and/or hip pain
Your body significantly changes during pregnancy with a change in posture and shape, altered muscle function, increased flexibility, and weight gain, amongst others. This can lead to mild to severe aches and pains in some people. Physiotherapy can help you to effectively treat and manage these changes with a combination of techniques including manual therapy, soft tissue release, exercise programmes, and the use of support belts. Treatment programmes are tailored to your specific needs.
Management of bladder, bowel, and vulval or vaginal heaviness, swelling and/or pain
You may have pre-existing concerns, or new symptoms that arise through your pregnancy, either way, we have a multitude of techniques and strategies to help you manage and improve this during pregnancy. This also helps you recover better after giving birth.
Optimisation of pelvic floor muscle function
Preparing your pelvic floor for pregnancy and birth is not just about strengthening it. The strength, endurance and functional coordination are very useful during pregnancy but when it’s time to labour and give birth we need your muscles to soften and lengthen to allow your baby to descend and birth.
We recommend coming early in the 2nd trimester for a full pelvic health assessment. From this we reassure you that everything is fine, or we set a programme to address any issues that are arising. This gives us plenty of time to strengthen or release as needed in preparation for labour and delivery.
Research demonstrates that having a well trained pelvic floor leads to a significantly lower incidence of severe perineal tears, and a significantly shorter second stage of labour (the pushing time).
Perineal Massage
Around the 34th week of pregnancy, we teach you perineal massage. You may choose to do this yourself, you may prefer your partner to do it, or you may prefer one of our Pelvic Health Physiotherapists to do the release for you. Either way we spend a session learning and practicing the technique. Partners are welcome to come and be part of the session and learn the technique first hand.
During this session, we also combine the release work with effective pushing techniques in preparation for birthing your baby.
Again, research indicates that both these techniques result in a significantly shorter second stage of labour, a significantly reduced risk of severe perineal tears and a reduced risk of post-natal symptoms.
Birth Education
At any point during the pregnancy, we go through the risks and benefits, to you as the mother, associated with normal vaginal delivery, instrumental deliveries, caesarian sections, labour positions, epidurals, perineal tears and episiotomies. This information is discussed to empower you to make informed decisions during your labour and delivery, or at a bare minimum to know what is happening if an emergency situation occurs.
Your midwives and Obstetrician do their utmost to assist you in having the delivery of your choice. Unfortunately, things don’t always go to plan, interventions are needed, and that’s okay. What is important is that both you and your baby are healthy. Understanding what is happening, and why, if things don’t go to plan is very powerful for both you and your partner. Being able to make empowered decisions when the opportunity arises is also invaluable in helping you deal with the change of plan.
Birthing Workshop
This is a 1:1 session with Felicity, one of our Pelvic Health Physiotherapists, with you and your partner, to go through different positions for labour and birth, breath techniques, visualisations, and natural pain relief options. It is a beautiful preparation for giving birth and very empowering for your partner.
Keeping a Positive Mindset
Preparing mentally for childbirth is just as important as the physical aspect. Cultivating a positive mindset can ease fear and anxiety as the big day approaches. Techniques such as mindfulness, meditation, affirmations and visualisations can enhance emotional resilience. Surrounding yourself with uplifting stories through books or conversations with other parents, and empowering yourself with knowledge of the different events that can happen during labour and delivery, can inspire confidence. Embrace the unpredictability of childbirth with an open heart, knowing that every journey is unique and special. Having a birth plan is good, but we encourage you to keep an open mind as births often don’t follow a set plan. As mentioned above, the best outcome is a healthy mum and a healthy baby, and if interventions are needed to achieve that, then that is alright.
Preparation for childbirth involves emotional, physical and practical steps. By learning about the process, creating a personalised birth plan, staying active and building a strong support system, you can approach the big day with confidence and excitement. Remember, every birth is unique, so trust the process and stay open to the journey ahead.
Book an appointment with our Pelvic Health Physios today and embrace this time with positivity. As standard, we recommend an initial appointment early in the second trimester (approximately 16-20/40) to get a baseline of your function. We then recommend a second session at approximately 34/40 to do the final preparation for labour and birth. We can however see you at any point in your pregnancy – from when you first conceive, until the day before you give birth.