I’m now 20 weeks pregnant. This means the baby should be coming along around Thanksgiving (give or take a week or few, I suppose). This also means that I have renewed and stepped up my birthing research.
When I originally met with my midwife, I asked her about birthing classes: should we take them? Do we really need them? Her answer was yes, we should take Bradley method classes, particularly because Bradley engages the father in a very active and important way.
I’d vaguely remembered reading about Bradley and Lamaze methods in Tina Cassidy’s book “Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born” but couldn’t remember any details. Naturally, my curiosity was peaked and I started researching the subject. A very precursory internet research didn’t show much: Lamaze uses a pattern of breathing and distraction from pain of labor while Bradley uses complete relaxation of all muscles with the help of the coach, usually the father. In this (precursory)research there wasn’t any favoritism: either should work.
But, being that my midwife recommended Bradley, I got myself a book, “Natural Childbirth the Bradley(R) Way” by Susan McCutcheon and I am now convinced it is the better way.
Here, I learned that Lamaze’s distraction techniques may fail women when it becomes truly impossible to ignore the pain. Also, the breathing pattern can cause mother and baby to hyperventilate. Mother’s problem can be easily fixed with a paper bag, but that won’t work for the baby. This newborn may need to be supervised for the signs of sleep apnea.
On the other hand, I’m very interested in relaxation. I remember hearing that in car accidents a lot of the pain and injury actually comes from the victim’s own body. We tend to tense up during distress so we tear our own bodies apart. I once met a horse-back rider, a beautiful woman, who told me that as a rider, she had to learn to let go while falling of the horse. We were rafting on a river upstate and we both turned over. She emerged from water as if she were a mermaid, in complete ease, while I panicky tried to get get hold of my raft, coughing up water, forgetting that I’m a decent swimmer. I tensed up and got confused and experienced pain while she was able to let her body fall and give in to the event that she couldn’t control.
So, no surprise that once I started reading about the Bradley method, I knew it was the right way for me even if the complete relaxation, even a partial one, would be hard to master. The craziest part of this is that Chris has to be the one making sure I do. Should we manage to get our act together and should everything go by the book, it will be Chris who will have to be observant, alert, firm yet kind and loving, noticing the smallest tensing of my body and telling me about it and massaging my back, which, apparently, will hurt me a whole lot and exhaust him. At the same time, my job will be to listen to him and RELAX while concentrating on the body doing its thing during labor. Impossible? I’m eager to find out….