Breathing techniques
For anyone who has checked out their library DVD collection or attended a child birth class, I am sure I am not alone in thinking what is it with all these old movies, that always seem to feature pregnant mom’s exercising in leg warmers? That always seems to stick in my mind and about the only thing I can remember.
Imagine my delight when my local birth center introduced Sheri Bayles’s 2007 DVD, Laugh and Learn About Childbirth, and it puts such a funny spin on childbirth that you are just bound to love, but also learn so much from.
She offered a great breathing technique which I’d never heard of before, but which made such perfect sense that every time I’ve had a contraction, I’ve practiced this technique and it took my mind off the pain I was going through.
It starts with the contraction of course, and Sheri’s advice is to focus on a focal point, and instead of the hee-hee haw-haw we seem indaunted with on TV, rather take in a long cleansing breath through the nose, then let out an equally refreshing breath through your mouth, and continue to do these as long as it takes for the contraction to end.
With baby due next month (wow!), it has done a lot to calm my nerves practing these breaths as epidurals are not offered at my birth center, so hopefully when the real deal hits, I’ll keep a calm mind and be able to use this breathing technique to get me through labor.
