How To Give Support During Labour

How To Give Support During Labour

Hi I'm Mars Lord a duly UK recognized doula. I support women through pregnancy, childbirth
and post birth. You can find me at mammydoula.

co.uk . I'm here today to talk about pregnancy,
birth and infant feeding.

How to support someone at birth. First it's important to know what
a woman needs when she's birthing. What she needs is a sense of security and privacy.

We're
creatures who instinctively look out for ourselves. So a woman may birth in the smallest area
so that she can see her predator coming and so that she can go out. It's not a conscience
thought, she just knows that she needs to feel safe.

Her thinking brain and neo cortex will
close off, she will go deep within herself and into her instincts. What she will want is quiet.
Sometimes we think we need to say "how you doing?, are you ok? ".

These aren't the best
things to do as labour progresses. If you want to support a woman in labour the best things you
can do are: make sure that she goes to the toilet regularly, make sure that she eats regularly.
Just small things she's not going to want a three course meal.

Make that she drinks regularly,
the uterus is a muscle and it needs hydrated. You wouldn't run a marathon without eating a
decent meal. Think about birth as her marathon, feed her, encourage her when she feels low.


Sometimes encouragement is as simple as a touch, look lovingly into her eyes. But if she asks
you to be quiet, don't take offense.
Just be quiet, leave your ego at the door and just do the things that she wants.

If she says
come forward, come forward, if she says step back, step back. To support her through her labour
she needs to know that the choices that she's made before hand will be honoured by you. When she's
frightened you'll hold her hand, you'll encourage her when she's low, you'll praise her when
she's high.

But ultimately you must be guided by the things that she wants. Look for those
unspoken symbols as unspoken words where you can see that she needs you close. Don't eat anything
smelly, a labouring woman's sense of smell is heightened.

Make sure you eat yourself and drink
yourself because you're no good to her if you're passed out on the floor. It doesn't make you
strong it makes you weak. Your ultimate aim is to support your partner through birth.

Be guided
by her wishes and that is how you support someone through labour.
.