Mindfulness is paying attention to the purpose and accepting the present moment. Therefore, mindfulness during childbirth is a preparation to develop a relationship with yourself, with your partner and with your family.
According to a recent study, mindfulness can help the pregnant woman to overcome delivery anxiety and maintain a sense of calm. It also reduces the postpartum distress and creates a feeling to accept the pain and give childbirth happily.
Useful tips for mindfulness during childbirth
- Meditation: Meditation can help to relax both mother and baby on the deeper level. When you practice meditation regularly, you will make yourself and your baby to learn not to react to the stressful situations and avoid depression. In other words, meditation helps to regulate blood pressure, removes the risk of preeclampsia, miscarriage, placental breaking. Meditation helps the baby to have a sound sleep, prevent allergies, improves the baby’s growth, boosts breastmilk and removes the production of stress hormones.
- Increase Your Awareness: Encourage yourself to prepare for childbirth. Attend childbirth and breastfeeding session with your partner and talk with your doctor about what to expect so you can aware of your pregnancy complications. Choose a good doctor and build a positive relationship to trust them during childbirth and keep calm dealing with stressful situations. This mindfulness helps you to become aware of several labour outcomes.
- Relax: Let your body relax not only from outside but also have mindfulness that keeps you emotionally healthy. Try to take rest often, get enough sleep, try changing your exercise schedule and feel your baby. Relaxing will help you with the risk of preterm contractions that also improves your health.
- Comfort your pain: Childbirth pain is not only in your body, but it’s in your mind too. When you accept this pain in your mind, you will feel that this pain is necessary to bring your baby into this world and the pain will be tolerable.
- Don’t Make Childbirth Plan: Do not predict childbirth as every woman has a different delivery. We cannot plan a fixed time for labour, how the baby can tolerate the pain or how your contractions will work. Therefore, have mindfulness and make a simple wishlist that may come in handy at the time of decision-making.
- Keep yourself physically active: Regular exercise according to your pregnancy health can help you stay energetic, reduce your body pain, back pain, increase blood circulation, and prevent you from getting stressed out.
- Create a good environment: Keep a calm and happy environment which helps the pregnant mother to feel good. This relaxed mindfulness helps to release a hormone (oxytocin) for relieving the childbirth. Try to keep everything as much as you feel safe, secure and comfortable. Choose a positive family member whom you can trust.
- Save yourself from getting tired: You may not have the exact things you thought will happen until childbirth. Mindfulness can help you understand the continuing process of your body. Even if you have a 10-centimetre dilation then also you have to wait for the baby to come into the birth canal and you feel the urge to push the baby. If you force it, there are chances to get exhausted soon.
- Let your partner know that you need them: Affection and support of the partner are most important for a pregnant woman during childbirth. Therefore, it is recommended for every significant other to be with their wife. It is that remarkable time in your lives to make your bond stronger with your partner and baby. The more you make them feel you are there, it will help a pregnant mother to have relaxed delivery.
Practice the above mindfulness ways during childbirth and bring the gifted life into the world, happily.
