Standing labor postures keep you active and moving, which helps to facilitate baby’s decent and rotation though the pelvis. These postures also help you to manage pain. In all phases of labor, before pushing, it’s generally better to be active and upright during contractions. Standing and leaning over something, in this case a chair, allows […]
Help Open your Pelvis in Labor with Kneeling and Lunges
I’m a big fan of labor postures that involve a mother kneeling. Though we can get the same benefit from standing postures that are similar, the kneeling versions avoid the issues of balance, potentially falling, fatigue, sore feet, etc. I’d encourage moms, if they are in the hospital, to kneel on the bed, as opposed […]
Seated Labor Posture with the Comfort of a Partner
Next up in our series with Josh and Amy is a seated labor posture which is a perennial favorite. It allows dad or the birth partner to sit down and allows the laboring mom to rest as comfortably as she can with the touch of her partner to comfort her. Here, you see Amy sitting […]
Seated and Moving with a Birth Ball
Continuing our series with Josh and Amy, I wanted to offer up something simple, but extremely useful for laboring moms. Sometimes, the basics are the best. (I suppose this should have been a video instead of a still photo, but you’ll get the idea of appropriate movements here.) Amy has a couple of choices as […]
The Lamaze Method Failed Me
Recently, I met a mom in a bar with her baby. Yep. A baby-in-a-bar. Eh, why not? Anyway, she and I got to talking and I told her what I did for a living. She then said something that made me take pause. She said that she’d taken the hospital’s Lamaze class, but “it didn’t work […]