Birthing with your right brain
There's a lot of information out there for pregnant women about pregnancy and birth that is logical, instructive, and engages your left brain. But the problem is, women don't birth with our left brains, meaning that everything you 'know' in your head before birth will go out the window as soon as you get into the swing of labour. By contrast, the right brain, which works imaginatively, subsconciously and emotively, is in control in a free-flowing birth process. Women who let the right brain take over in pregnancy, during birth and in the early days of mothering are able to birth and mother instinctively. (Interestingly, if you think that your right brain has taken hold during pregnancy - ever heard of 'pregnancy brain'? - you may be right. Studies have shown the right brain does increase in size during pregnancy. This is a good thing - use it.)
So you might want to practice and encourage your right brain, and learn to trust the messages it is giving you. Here is where yoga comes in. It gives ideal practice in listening to your body, awakening the heart, meditating, deep conscious breathing, visualisation and affirmation. Or you might also like journaling, drawing and writing.
Women often say that they found they were doing some of the poses from prenatal yoga in labour, not consciously ("I think I'll try Child's Pose now") but instinctively. That is because through practice your body remembers the feeling of those positions and moves naturally to favour them.
Remember that the key to deeply instilling new messages via right brain activities such as yoga and visualisation is practice, so start as early in pregnancy as you like. If you'd like to know more about prenatal yoga classes, go to www.canberraprenatalyoga.com.au.
All that said, I'm a big reader myself and must have read more than a dozen books on pregnancy and birth while I was pregnant with my first child. I wouldn't have done that differently in hindsight, because I think I needed to know 'about' natural birth to be able to counteract the sometimes negative mass of information from my hospital and other sources. That's why I have a reading list for my students and encourage them to investigate some of the better books on natural birth (I'll tell you what I think they are in future blogs) But it wasn't enough, and I knew that for my second birth I would need to engage my right brain in changing my key beliefs. I can't begin to tell you what a difference it made.
I'll leave you to consider one of my favourite quotes, from Michel Odent.
“I usually claim that pregnant women should not read books about pregnancy and birth. Their time is too precious. They should, rather, watch the moon and sing to their baby in the womb.” –Michel Odent
Rebecca Perry, Canberra
