For every woman that has had a baby pass through her body, you know exactly what I am talking about. We have all gotten pushy. We have been told to push very hard, then to not push at all. Okay not me, but I’ve talked to lots of women, and heard, and read many birth stories to know what other women have been experiencing.

Whenever I have encountered a scene about birth while growing up, I was always under the impression that the woman needed be told what to do. I mean really, do you really need to be told when to push? Well, according to most baby shows (and sitcoms), you do. I would like to address this situation. Do we need to have that counting stuff going on, and exactly why DO they count to begin with? Do we really need instruction in how to push our babies out of our bodies? In addition, why oh why do some women just not get the urge to push. Why are so many women are unable to get that baby down the canal and end up with the ultimate in birth intervention&the cesarean? And finally, I would also like to answer a question the average birthing woman never asks, what happens when you hold your breath during pushing and how does it effect the baby.

Lets go back to the beginning of time. This thought comes from the book written by Pam England about "Lucy". How did she birth her children? I bet no one told her how to get her baby out. I bet she just did it. Well about a million or two (maybe even more) years went by and the next thing you know women are lying flat on their backs, doped to the gills, and having their babies dragged out of them just as doped up as the mother. Funny thing about this is that it didn’t even phase the medical community at that time that they were doing any harm to mother or baby. You see babies were just lumps of flesh that had no thoughts or feelings or anything. Okay lets go a bit further up the time line here and get to Dr. Grantly Dick Reed, a fine man that started to make some changes in the way women were birthing. He began to believe that drugs were not needed so much if the woman was to understand the pain and face the fears that can accompany birth. Enter Lamaze. With Lamaze training woman where now giving precise instructions as to how to breath and focus during all stages of birth. All the while, the medical community had this belief that babies should be born fast (relatively). So the mothers were trained in strenuous pushing exercises to assist the body’s expulsive efforts to birth the baby. This is where we have come to get the deep breath holds and counting that is so common today in second stage labor. So now that the history lesson has been told, we need to address whether this method of pushing is actually helpful during birth.

Okay so do we really need instruction from external sources to tell us to push? No, for about 99.999999% of women. But, but, but, you say, as you sit there reading this...I never got the urge!!!!! Ahhhhh yes, there are some women that are like this, but never the less, please bare with me as I continue my pushy little tale. In all my births I have never had to be told when I could push my babies out. With the first I was at home when the urge hit (almost in the car birth). The second I was at home when the urge hit (planned home birth) and the third I was in hospital (breech birth). One of the things with all these births is that I didn’t have anyone assessing my cervix to let me know when pushing could commence. I just had to, so I did. Now I’m a lucky sort. I have this thing about trusting my body. I trust that it will tell me what I need to do when the time comes. (Very much like after eating at my sister in laws. I know my body will signal to me at 3 am that I need to sit on the pot as a result of her cooking!!! Now I just have salad when I go there)

Anyways...I digress.

The body is a wonderful thing. I was told once that a woman in a coma can birth a baby. I mean really, how she can’t here anyone telling her push!!! Well oddly enough the uterus is powerful enough to push out a baby all on its own. Wow amazing stuff eh! That is if you have let it do its business the way it needs to. You can do that by letting go during the birth experience. By not allowing that which will tire the uterus out happen. Do things that will keep birth short. Keep up your energy up by eating. Even marathon runners grab a juice while they are running. But this is not an article about keeping up your energy, that is your homework to find out. Give your uterus lots of oxygen and don’t, don’t, don’t hold your breath. A uterus does not like being starved of oxygen when it is working really hard. You need to breath, breath, breath!! (I seem to need to be repetitive in this dialogue). If you fail to get your oxygen in, the pain of the contracts will be more. Again, that is for another article.

I have heard many women talking about how they pushed very hard and just could not bring the baby out, so forceps or vacuum was used. Or they had to have an episiotomy cut to get the baby out quickly because every time they pushed the baby’s heart rate went down. This is pretty scary stuff for the mom and dad. Yes, yes, yes cut and suck, and pull and reef, just get the baby out and healthy SAVE THE BABY!!!! Maybe...

Hmmmmmmmm

Lets see...mom is usually on her back pushing, so we are now impeding decent of this baby and pushing uphill. All this is on a time clock. As most docs will only allow 2 hours of pushing once you have reached full dilation (though it has not been proven that longer second stage is harmful to baby). There is probably a lack of faith that the mother can calmly birth her baby in her own time. And most times the mother is spread eagle with a few more people looking at her nether parts than when the baby was conceived. If there is an epidural involved well that is just a whole other issue that I’m not going to go anywhere near (though that will make the mother have to push harder as she is now out of touch with her body. Heck she might even have a nurse or two pushing on her belly to boot. EVERYBODY PUSH!!

Sorry, I digress again.

Okay so lets look at what happens to the baby when mom does this so called "purple pushing"

Purple Pushing (PP) is when you push so hard your face turns purple and you increase the chances of bursting a few blood vessels around your eyes. Not very pretty to look at.

Well if a mom has been partaking of the is PP for some time a few things happen inside of her...and more importantly inside the baby.

The mother is holding her breath so she is lacking oxygen to the baby. This cause the baby to have stress. Ask any doctor at your next prenatal what happens if the baby is lacking oxygen...remember this term... FETAL DISTRESS. That is one of the things that that nifty machine hooked around your belly is for. To detect this distress. So here you are holding your breath and pushing till you feel like if the baby comes out it will fly across the room, and the monitor detects fetal distress. What you think they are going to do. Yup panic. And could this have been avoided? Yup. How? By just listening to your body. Resting and pushing when you feel like it.

This is more beneficial to your baby that anything else you could do. Baby gets some nice oxygen during this really stressful event, mom doesn’t get tired pushing so hard that she could hit the uprights from the 50 yard line. And the monitor shows a nice well oxygenated baby. You might see the heart rate dip a bit during the contraction, but as long as it comes up to base line, no problem. That dip also is caused by head compression of the baby coming through the birth canal.

What the mother should do is just follow her body. Not the clock, or anyone else instructions (well maybe her doula). Move about and stay as upright as possible. Just follow your body’s signals. Your body would never tell you to "take a deep breath and hold, hold, hold and push, push, push. Only your Lamaze instructor will tell you that. Your body will not lie to you. And your body was made to birth. The problem is when we follow along man-made (listen to that term*man-made*!!) procedures for birth, we lose communication with our bodies.

Stop look and listen. Your body is meant to push that baby out. The problems of long ago are not present in our women today. The myth of CPD occurs when we don’t follow out instincts. It is hard to trust ourselves when surrounded with professionals that have help more education than we do in regards to the birth process. But, You have more information about yourself and your body then they ever will. Listening to what your body tells you and following its advice will get your baby born a lot more gently.

Thanks for reading.

Blessings in Birth...

Patricia