Preparing for birth and beyond - Part 2: Emotional Prep

(Originally posted in 2018)

[ If these posts interests you and you want to know more - I go more deeply into the topic of preparing for birth in my pregnancy course which will be released soon.] 

Previously I wrote about how I'm preparing my body physically for birth and recovery. Another aspect of birth preparation that I think is often overlooked is preparing yourself emotionally for the birthing and parenting experience. This is unfortunate because today's birth culture is extremely fear based, and negative emotions can impact the progress of a natural birth. Here are a few ways that I've been preparing emotionally for this upcoming birth:

a) Positive Thinking

With my first child I used  the Hypnobabies birthing programme and one of the things I love about it is the way it encourages positive thinking about birth.Hypnobabies comes with an affirmations track to help with positive thinking. (Although I didn't use it in my subsequent births because I wanted to avoid the music that is played with the tracks).

My midwife also suggests using affirmations to empower you in the weeks leading up to labour and putting up affirmations to look at during labour.  While browsing through affirmations online I was thrilled to find Islamic birth affirmations at   https://drshahira.com/pregnancy-resources-for-muslim-moms-free-printable/ . I used some of her affirmations (you can get her free printable) and I was inspired to create more of my own, drawing on the beautiful qualities of Allah swt.

To make these affirmations extra special and to get my oxytocin (the happy labour hormone) flowing AND to include my other family members in the birth process, I wrote these affirmations on water colour paintings that I asked my kids and husband to create (I did a few myself too). 

b) Keeping a journal 

My midwife suggests journaling throughout pregnancy as a way of processing emotions. In particular she recommends that you consider what sort of parent you want to be and how your life will change once you have the baby.

In the run up to birth however, a few of the things she has suggested I write about is what I've learned from this pregnancy, what I enjoyed about this pregnancy, and what I am looking forward to about this labour (and yes, there actually are things I'm looking forward to! )


c) Visualisation 

Visualising how you would like your birth to go can be a very powerful tool to help keep positive about labour.  My midwife has encouraged me to write a "birth vision" of what my perfect birthing experience would be. At the same time, in her prenatal classes she has also thoroughly discussed the realities of complications and c-sections and she also encourages her moms to have "birth plans" which cater for what you would like should a c-section be necessary. I'm fully informed on "gentle" c-sections and have discussed it with my back-up gynaecologist so hopefully I will be emotionally prepared should my birth experience take that route. 

d) Preparing Emotional Support

 Having emotional (and not just medical) support can make such a difference to the experience of a labouring women. Using doulas, who usually provide precisely this, have been proven to have such positive outcomes on natural birth. Personally, I have spent plenty of time with my midwife during this pregnancy to have developed a great emotional relationship with her. I also have a doula who works with my midwife. But I know my greatest emotional support will probably be my amazing husband who has spent tons of time in the past doing Hypnobabies with me and who has attended all the prenatal classes with me where my midwife trains and educates birth partners on what labouring women need. He knows how to support me physically in terms of birthing positions, how to verbally affirm my efforts, how to take notice of my emotional state and how to help prepare our birthing venue (more on that in the next post in Part 3, InshAllah).

Some people prefer female support, and moms and sisters who can offer positive support can provide great assistance. My mom was awesome during my first two births and both I and my husband want her around for this birth too. 

e) Positive Birth Stories 

Reading POSITIVE birth stories helped me so much emotionally before my first birth. It helped me understand that birth can be so different from one person to the next and that labouring for a few hours or even a few days are both normal. It also gave me plenty of ideas of different coping mechanisms for labour. This time around my midwife also wanted me to rewrite my own previous birth stories so that I could reflect on those and release any fears that I may be holding onto from those experiences. Please don't read negative birth stories though, negative emotions and fears are not conducive to the natural progression of labour!