Our goal is to prepare families to have a natural birth by teaching a mom and her loving coach to labor together.  The reality is that even with the best preparation, birth is unique, fluid and unpredictable.  Our experience as natural childbirth educators is that even if your birth does not go according to your plan, a comprehensive education like The Bradley Method® will pave the way for you to have your best possible birth with a Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby outcome.

The woman who taught my Doulas of North America (DONA) training course was kind enough to allow me to post this to our blog.  She is an accomplished doula, doula trainer, and author. Besides her passion around childbirth, she is also a dedicated state representative for District 16 in Arizona.  She sent this message to an SPB student who she knows through her political career.

 

 

There is a psychosomatic approach to childbirth that is often ignored in the United States.

As we close out Cesarean Awareness Month, I want to share this link to a post that I wrote about "Failing To Progress".  So often, these are the words of doom to a couple that is working towards a natural labor.  

There are other things that are going on when a woman is in labor.  The more birth stories I hear, the more convinced I am that labor is about surrender.  That concept is not measurable, nor is it graphed anywhere.

Please take a minute to revisit the post about

While there are no guarantees that the kind or amount of preparation you do will lead to a vaginal birth, there are things you can do to increase your opportunity to have the vaginal birth you want for your baby.

If I could write a blueprint for having a vaginal birth, I would follow the Five-Point Plan outlined in our Bradley Method® classes.  Here are five things you can do throughout your pregnancy to decrease your chance of a cesarean when you go into labor:

1.  Exercise
Have you ever heard of a person signing up for a race on the day of the event with no prior running experience?

We have had a couple of students have had textbook “NAPS” in the last two classes…and since we still have several couples waiting for their babies, I thought this might be a reminder and an inspiration to them for their labors.  NAP – no, they didn’t take epic naps in labor (although I am a big advocate for sleeping in labor)…what it means is that they were very patient in their labors.   

One of the cornerstones of The Bradley Method® is a Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby outcome.  All of the discussion below only applies if Mom and Baby are not showing any signs of distress through labor.