How to naturally encourage contractions

3 ways to encourage contractions to labour naturally in a hospital or home birth space.

You may be wondering why do we need to encourage contractions? When the time is right my body will put its self into labour, contractions will follow, and the baby will be born right?

Unfortunately, labour isn’t always this black and white.

These are some common times labour contractions may need some encouragement to become consistent and productive;

Early labour delay

Your body is hovering in this early labour phase for hours or even days, one contraction every 20 minutes, then every hour, then drops off completely, some only last 5 seconds while other last 1 minute, some are strong and some a mild. These techniques can be used to tip you over the edge from early labour to active labour.

Drive to hospital

Once the decision is made to make the move from home to the hospital (if you are having a hospital birth), this can be an incredibly uncomfortable drive for the labouring women, not to mention once you arrive at the hospital, walking through the halls with everyone gawking at you, huffing and puffing is not very oxytocin stimulating (I’ll explain why below).

Water Birth

So often when you enter the water, contractions slow down or even stop, this is a combination of a few things like; buoyancy lifting bubs head pressure off the cervix.

The main labour hormone is Oxytocin

Oxytocin is a smooth muscle contractor. For us women to secrete oxytocin we need to feel safe, undisturbed and unobserved which brings me to the 3 things we can do encourage labour contractions naturally;

Enhance our environment
Birth Partner tips
Perception of labour pain

These three things, while avoiding activities that create adrenaline and cortisone ( as the hormones combat oxytocin- ceasing contractions), should give you the best chance of allowing labour contractions to be consistent and productive naturally.

Environment

Lighting- Either no lights and just use candles (electric tea light candles can work a treat), or Dim lights preferably yellow in colour. Blue light stimulates our morning hormones of cortisol and adrenalin (reflecting our normal circadian rhythm), this reduces oxytocin slowing or stopping contractions. Avoid street lights, phones, TV’s the lot.

Oils
- Calming intent- Lavender, spearmint- Infuse, rub on temples or smell from hands
- Stimulate contractions- Clary Sage, either in the above methods or add to a carrier oil (coconut oil etc.) and rub into belly.
Music- Calming
People- Choose what people you want there based on their energy and the effect they have on you.
- They need to remain calm- in all situations (even if they don’t feel it)
- Advocate for you and what you want for your birth.
- Give you space when you require space, and rub your back for 5 hrs when you require.
- Pre-birth prep- Watch birth videos, know your birth preferences and desires.
Tone of voice- Low tones that are not alarming to the mother- no chit chat and minimal questions.
Staff
- Discuss your wishes antenatally Continuity of Care midwife
- If you don’t know your birthing midwife ensure your partner knows your preferences- have a dot point version of your preferences and hand it over on arrival to the hospital.

Whatever environment & energy you cultivate in the home environment, draw that into your hospital birth space as well.

Partner Techniques

Acupressure

SP6– 4 Finger width up from ankle bone on the internal aspect- pressing just behind shin bone. HOT TIP also great for natural induction use.

BL60– Between lateral malleolus (Ankle bone) and achilles tendon

Tone of voice & words spoken

The mother needs to be able to descend away from her logical, frontal lobe, into her mammalian brain. For this to happen we need to first of all not encourage her to analyse, discern or discuss, as this will ascend her to her frontal lobe. The more she is in her frontal lobe the more she is thinking and (and probably fixating) on her contractions.

The beauty about the mammalian brain is that the mother is present, calm, resilient. The contractions flow in, they deal with it, they flow out, and the mama rests.

Alrighty, birth partner, How to not bring the labouring women into her frontal lobe.

Ask minimal questions- Let her guide the labour and birth, if you want to offer something like water simply place the bottle in front of her rather than asking, she will drink if she wants.
Don’t be overly directive (Unless the mother is in the archetype where she needs it- Learn more about Archetypes in the Appetence Birth Workshop).
Use a low tone in your voice
Use minimal words (Once again- depending on the archetype)

Energy

Be present, be supportive. Don’t allow the mother to feel like you don’t want to be there, are repulsed, board, over it etc.

Nipple Stimulation

Creates oxytocin production (generally), being a smooth muscle contractor creating tightening’s in the uterus.
HOT TIP also great for natural induction use.

Soft Touch Massage

The gentle brushing, tickles on the mother skin- first of all because it feels amazing, relaxing and connecting with the birth partner, this coincides with oxytocin stimulation. But it can also encourage some lymphatic drainage specifically in the legs.

Rub clary sage oil on belly

The birth partner mixing a few drops of clary sage in their palm with a generous amount of carrier oil such as grape seed, jojoba or coconut oil and rubbing it into the belly can be amazing.

This rub may be a whole palm wash over, or it may be the very tips of the finger tickles. WARNING Usually mamas don’t like whole palm wash over during contractions- just a heads up to the birth partner.

Light touch tickles on the belly can be amazing during contractions- Can give the mother a distraction to focus on instead of the sensation.

Clary sage as I mentioned last week doesn’t have much definitive evidence that it is a strong inducer of contractions however there are multiple studies that suggest this and no studies that show it causes any harm to the mother or baby. Clary sage oil used this way will not only topically absorb into the tissue and muscles of the belly but it will also be inhaled by the mother.

Perception of Pain

Our final factor discussing how to naturally encourage labour contractions is your pain perception- how you perceive your contractions. Now what this comes down to is our hormones. As we learnt above, oxytocin is a smooth muscle contractor that contracts your uterus. Oxytocin is the hormone of love and connection, and to release the mother needs to feel safe, undisturbed and unobserved.

These are all external influences, however, to encourage our internal reality. Our pain perception is our internal reality influencing itself to allow our natural hormonal functions. If our external is beautiful, calm, safe and connecting, but our mind is full of fear, pain, stress and resistance, our hormones will still not function efficiently.

So, how ‘should’ you perceive your contractions? In my Appetence Birth Workshop I break it down into two interpretations, ‘Distracted and distraught’, or ‘Mindful acceptance’.

Distracted and distraught is very logical thinking from our frontal lobe, from this part of the brain we discern how we feel; how we are coping, analysing the intensity and pain behind the contractions, closely followed by distraught during the contractions, freak out, fear in anticipating future contractions, then to cultivate the ‘cherry on top’ of these thoughts comes self doubt of the mothers own ability. All of this is from using our analytical mind.

Mindful acceptance is what we are aiming for to have a normal birth experience. Natural contractions from cultivated from oxytocin, crosses our blood-brain barrier and mirror’s a release in our beta-endorphins, this then clouds our frontal lobe helping us to descend into our mammalian brain. In this space is where we mindfully accept our contractions for what they are, we allow them to flow in and flow out, not resisting them, not analysing them, not discerning our feelings of them or anticipating them, just remain in the present moment.

This all sounds well and good but like anything this is easier said than done. There will be times where thoughts will creep their way into your labour, tell you how hard this is, tell you you can’t do this anymore, this is where pregnancy preparation to help draw you back into the present moment is essential.

Through the Appetence Birth workshop, we go through mock contraction with mamas, teaching them to cope with the intense sensations and maintain control of their mind, describe helpful words of affirmation the partner can say to help the mother return to the present moment, and mindset techniques for the mother to use herself to bring her back into her mammalian brain.

I summary, I am going to draw this back to a point I am always driving home in birth education, you cannot control birth, however, you can sure as heck influence it!

You can prepare your body physically for birth to be mobile, and expel obstacles in the birth canal, you can prepare your mind to cope with contractions, and develop a range of techniques between you and your birth partner, to keep in your tool belt to cope with labour naturally.

One thing that is definitive, labour is not a time to learn new tricks! Anything you do in labour, you want to be second nature, whether it be using a birth ball or adapting a mindset, pregnancy practise is essential if you want to whip it out in the birth room!