Pain Management Techniques for Labor?

[redbirdlady]

I had three inductions with epidurals (two of which, I got the epidural before anything was done to induce the labor), but my most recent birth was a homebirth with no meds.

Honestly, the labor part wasn't a huge deal for me. I don't know why...I was expecting it to be horrendous, and I know for some people it is, but I just focused on breathing through the contractions, and when they got really hard to where I couldn't calmly breathe through them anymore (I was at least at a 6 at that point; the midwives had decided everyone should get some rest, so we were all in bed sleeping when the really hard contractions slammed into me.), I got in a hot bathtub. I always used to roll my eyes at people who said that the warm water took away a lot of the pain, but it is so true. One of my midwives sat in the bathroom with me, with most of the lights off, keeping track of the baby's heart rate with my contractions, and it was all very calm.

I didn't make a sound through the contractions, I just breathed. I'd take a short, but deep breath in, and then a LONG breath OUT, and pretending I was blowing out the pain. I didn't take any classes or anything and didn't have a doula, that's just kind of what my body was telling me to do.

Forget mooing, I screamed bloody murder pushing her out (head out when I was on all fours, then they had to flip me to get her out because her shoulders got stuck.) She was 10 pounds, 7 ounces, so nobody was making me feel bad for screaming.

[Mommy2Be08]

For me what worked was not focusing on the contractions at all...I say on the birthing ball, make banana bread, and just relaxed my body. When they got intense I listened to hypnobabies "slept" and just tried to relax and breathe.