Intuitive Birth
*This post contains affiliate links to products I use or recommend. By shopping from these links, you help to keep us writing!
Today Jaelin and Andie talk about intuition in birth what they've seen with their time with women.
Points from the video:
We live in a day and age with information at our fingertips. This is wonderful, however, many times we can take all that information and not know how to interpret it, or we set aside our own intuition for the sake of what the internet or technology is telling us. Women are told that trusting their instincts and intuition is wrong, but, intuitiveness is at its peak in pregnancy and is an important factor in pregnancy and birth. No one knows your body like you do, and we need to listen to our own intuition.
During pregnancy, changes in a women's personality can occur due to hormonal changes in her body. This is what many women refer to as "pregnancy brain" or "placenta brain" or general forgetfulness. These changes encourage the mother to have a more nurturing, centered mind, bringing out her intuition and instinctual behavior to protect herself and her children. These hormones help you key in on your intuitiveness for labor, birth and parenting.
We see this instinct and intuition in the animal kingdom all the time. Typically, we see an animal by herself during labor and birth, without a tribe of other around her. She goes off, away from others to listen to her intuition and her body, which are telling her how to move and how to protect herself and her baby. She isn't surrounded by others telling her what to do. We don't question this at all in the animal kingdom, but for some reason, we as women are told to ignore our instincts and do what others are telling us to do. We fear our own intuition and want "science" instead.
Fear of the unknown can block our ability to access our intuition and instincts, especially when we rely on others to provide us with information that might be counter intuitive. Some examples of areas women rely on others over their own intuition (or trusting their body) are induction of labor, augmentation of labor, using a labor curve, or multiple ultrasounds in pregnancy for many reasons that will not change the outcome.
Intuition, like with most beautiful things in life, comes when we are receptive and relaxed versus feeling in danger or not supported. Fear brings on frazzled feelings and blocks intuition. If you were looking at a tracing of a brain wave pattern this would look like a frantic up and down pattern, a zig zag pattern of different sizes and widths also known as Beta brainwaves.
Alpha waves are where we want to be most of the time. This is a calm relaxed state, in tune with the environment around you. These look more wavy and even, seen when we are doing yoga, meditating, or generally happy. When we allow ourselves, as women, to tap into this Alpha wave, instinct comes and and our body will tell us through intuition what position our body needs to be in, how we need to move, etc. during labor and birth. When women accept these internal messages they will have a more fulfilling pregnancy, labor, and birth. Intuition in pregnancy and birth allow us to experience this time in our lives with more confidence.
When we look at hormones, the one that we see most in times of love is Oxytocin. Oxytocin is the hormone of labor and love. This is also seen with orgasms, and loving touches. Brain waves in this state are called Theta waves and, in this state, we are accessing that part of us that is more instinctive and intuitive. This hormone is at its peak right after birth and is necessary in successful breastfeeding and intuition for protecting and connecting with your baby. This is how we become that protective "Mama Bear".
False or synthetic hormones introduced during labor or birth interfere with Oxytocin and can cause a disconnect with the bonding of the mother and baby. Many times when we see new mothers who say they feel disconnected with their baby or are having trouble successful breastfeeding, we see that there were interferences in her birth where synthetic hormones were used. Unfortunately, women take this as a personal failure, whereas, in reality, the system is failing them and the medical community has caused this interference.
There are other times when women ignore their intuition because, honestly, they like drama. It can be exciting to be able to say "this happened" and "that happened" in birth, causing a more dramatic experience and they can have a more dramatic story to tell. But, boring is good. We want boring.
Resources: