The 5 Requirements for Birth
Everyone planning for a birth makes a list of what to pack for the hospital, right? What I think is equally, if not more important, is the list of 5 requirements for birth. These aren't things to pack in your bag, but 5 crucial elements to allow your body to 1) go into labor smoothly and 2) continue to labor happily. If you’re aware of them, and your partner is ready to advocate and take action to make them happen, you’re giving yourself the best possible chance to have a smooth and positive birth experience.
The five requirements are:
SAFETY ◇ PRIVACY ◇ DARKNESS ◇ WARMTH ◇ SILENCE
If you’re my client, and we’re preparing for your birth, you’ll hear me go on and on about these 5 requirements pretty much from day 1 of our prenatal sessions. I think they’re the foundation of preparing for a respectful and powerful birth. But why are they so important? As a whole, each element contributes to allowing the flow of oxytocin, the love hormone, to do its work of kick-starting contractions and acting as a natural pain killer. Without oxytocin, your body tenses up, freezes, shuts down and holds tight onto that baby - everything you don’t want while giving birth! So paying attention to the 5 elements allows your body to do the job optimally. Let’s dig a little deeper into each one.
SAFETY
When you feel safe, your body is relaxed. When your body is relaxed, your muscles and joints are soft, meaning easier progress for a baby to be born. Feeling safe is essential for your body to stay soft and loose: the minute any feelings of threat, danger, or unease enter your space, your “fight or flight” hormones take over; they block the flow of oxytocin, and adrenaline surges through you. Think back to caveman times - if any danger to the baby presented itself at the time of birth, the body would freeze up, and labor would stop (now it’s called “stalled”) to prevent the baby from being born into a threatening situation. We still have these primal instincts. If you don’t feel safe, your body will hold on to that baby. It’s the protective parent instinct at it’s finest.
Some tips to protect the element of safety:
Know the birth space ahead of time, so you don’t feel like you’re in a strange place.
Don’t tolerate threatening, rude or careless behavior from staff or care providers.
Know your rights: you can ask for different staff, or to have things explained to you.
Knowledge is power, but it is also reassurance. Knowing what’s going on helps you to feel safe.
PRIVACY
Birth is not supposed to be a public display. It is a private and sacred event, where you will need to dig deep into your innermost strength and focus. Walking the path to birthing your baby is the most personal and introspective state most people will find themselves in during their lifetime. So of course, feeling like you are being watched, or under pressure to perform, is totally counterintuitive to the process. It is well known in doula circles that suggesting the birthing person go and use the bathroom, alone, is very likely to bring on strong contractions and see progress happen - and it’s because the bathroom is a place of privacy, truly “alone time”, a place to let go and have zero inhibitions. I also like to suggest, in moments of stalled labor, that everyone leaves the room for a minute for the birthing person to have a moment to themselves (or with their partner).
Tips for maintaining the element of privacy:
Ask any unnecessary people to leave the room.
Think carefully about who you want in the space with you. In some cultures, this is hard; tradition may dictate that certain relatives accompany you, but stay strong to your own wishes, knowing that birth is most likely to happen smoothly when uninterrupted and private.
In a hospital space, use the tools you have: pull the drapes to cover the door, so that people aren’t barging in on you at any moment; consider using a sign on the door to request that only essential people come in, and to knock first.
DARKNESS
In the dark, our bodies feel unexposed and safe. Darkness is intimate, allowing our senses to focus on shifts and changes in how we feel, and to act in an instinctual and uninhibited way. Consider other things that happen in the dark: freely dancing in a nightclub, having sex, reacting emotionally to a movie, connecting with loved ones over candlelit meals. Think about bars and fancy restaurants - the lighting is always dimmed, for intimacy and connection, and to feel romantic! You may wonder why romance is important for birth - it’s to let that oxytocin flow freely. When you feel loved on, oxytocin is doing the job of labor for you. Darkness provides us with the setting to release and relax - just what you need to give birth.
Bring on the darkness:
Turn off stark overhead lights. Most hospitals have dimmer lights.
Close the curtains or blinds. Make yourself a “cave”.
Use a blanket to huddle under if you can’t switch off all lights.
During your privacy moments in the bathroom, close the door and switch the lights off.
Consider packing battery operated candles or tealights, or fairy lights to give a cosy mood.
WARMTH
This is another basic human requirement: when we feel cold, we (literally) freeze up. Our muscles tense, we hold our bodies stiff and tight. When we are tense, we feel pain more strongly. Being warm means blood flows through us easily, circulating to all our joints and especially to the womb, where we want it to go for contractions to do their thing efficiently. If you’re warm, your body moves easily and loosely, your muscles flex and soften, and it’s easier for a baby to be born.
Tips to keep warm:
Use blankets or a robe to make a nest around you.
Use water. A warm bath is super soothing for a laboring person. A hot shower also works wonders.
A heat bag (wheat, rice, electric or a water bottle) is bliss on aching or sore areas.
Pack socks and slippers! Feet get cold quickly and they tell the rest of your body to be cold.
Turn off the AC or close the windows. If it’s cold outside, put on the heating.
SILENCE
Nobody can focus on any important task with excessive noise going on around them. Same for birth. Loud noises startle and jolt us out of our “zen” or “zone” that we need to be in for birth. The birth space should also command respect and reverence for the occasion; calm and low voices, soft music if desired, nothing more. You deserve to be spoken to kindly and gently; you’re birthing your baby, not participating in a sporting match.
Keep it down!
Ask everyone in the space to maintain quiet and calm voices (consider a sign on the door).
If you think you would like music, plan your playlist(s) ahead of time.
Shut the door.
Don’t hesitate to ask people in the corridor to be quiet.
Particularly during the pushing stage, it is important to maintain calm and gentle voices.
When you consider these 5 elements, you can see why there’s a reason so many babies decide to arrive in the night time. You’re safe and warm in your bed, a private, familiar and dark space, and it is peaceful and quiet. Your body is relaxed and calm. The prime conditions for labor to kick off! You can also see why many labors “stall” on arrival into the birth place: you are jolted out of your safe, private, quiet space and into a bustling, bright, loud, new area. Taking the time to make your birth space your own, and making sure the 5 requirements are being acknowledged and respected, will help you slide back into the zone and progress will continue. Maintaining the 5 requirements will help enable a smoother process and more positive, peaceful and special experience for your birth.
