The Body Has Been Doing This Since the Beginning

Every single woman alive is the descendant of someone who gave birth.

Think about that for a moment. Every single one of us. Every woman walking the earth right now is here simply because somewhere down her line women have been bringing forth life. In every climate. Every century. In every set of circumstances. With + without doctors. With + without hospitals, epidurals, monitors, protocols + paperwork.

Everyone has heard of the book, The Body Keeps the Score. It is very true. The body holds onto everything, the fear too. The body has been doing all of the things since the very beginning. Without our direct input.

It is the modern world + society that has taught us to distrust ourselves + to be afraid of what our body is doing.

The very 1st birth I ever supported was a 1st time mom. Up until that point I had only seen births in pieces never from start to finish the way you do when you are a doula. There is this moment in transition. It happens every time, for every single momma. It’s like there is a shift that happens, their eyes sharpen + become focused. Breath becomes more intentional + direct. I have witnessed a mom simply say, ” I got to get up”, get up + move her body + then things began to progress.

Birth Is Serious. Fear Is Something Else.

Truth Moment?

Birth is serious. I have to start with saying just that. Birth is absolutely one of the most physically demanding things that a body could ever do. There are some MAJOR risks in birth. Real complications can come up. Lives can be lost when things go wrong + I would never minimize any of those facts. Many of the posts that I write about birth truly highlight those facts, the seriousness of it all, the system failures + the work of advocacy that will never end.

But that seriousness is not the same as fear. Birth is not something that anyone should fear. Unfortunately the culture + society has collapsed the two into one blurring the lines.

Universally we have been taught that birth is dangerous, medical + something that the body can not be trusted to do without supervision. We have been taught that we need ALL the things to deliver. A hospital, monitor, IV, a clock, plan A, a back up plan, then another plan, all to do the very thing that women in our bloodlines have been doing forever, on dirt floors, small huts, sheds, apartments, in fields or even the back of cars on the way to wherever they were headed to begin with.

The women who came before us were minimalist in so many ways + didn’t have all that we do. And many of them died, that part is very true + I would never romanticize what the lack of medical access has cost generations of women.

Two things can be true at the same time. Because also most of them did not die. Most of these women gave birth. A lot of them held their babies + got up the next day + kept on going. The funny thing about the body, is when it is supported, not interrupted + given the right conditions, it knows what to do. Most importantly it knows how to recover in its time.

What the Research Says About Physiological Birth.

There is plenty of research that backs this up. Physiological birth, when it is allowed to happen, has outcomes that are extraordinarily good. The Cochrane reviews on midwifery-led care are not subtle. The data on out-of-hospital birth for low-risk women is not subtle. The international comparisons of maternal outcomes are not subtle. The countries with the best maternal mortality numbers are not the ones with the most intervention. They are the ones with the most trust in the body + the most continuous support during the process.

You know what? The body is not the problem. It never was. It has always been the conditions that was the issue.

How to Work Through Your Fear of Childbirth.

So what does it look like to trust the body again?

Do the Fear Work

Well, it looks like fear work. Yep, real fear work. There are many people with a real fear of childbirth + most of the time that energy is sitting right in most pregnant women’s bodies whether they know it or not. Think about it. A lot of the birth stories that we know come from the women in our families or what we see in movies + TV. There are also the birth stories from the internet. All of them, most of them, have the same underlying theme of a form of birth crisis. Birth as emergency. Birth as the moment the doctor or nurse saved the day.

Just like the majority of us, you have absorbed those stories. Doing the work to bring them to the surface to name them + separate them from your own birth story is how you reclaim the trust your body already has. Therapy is a big help for this kind of work. So is journaling. And so is talking to a doula or a midwife who knows how to hold you in the conversation. Telling someone that you are afraid + what you are afraid of will give space for them to help you sort out which fears are based on real risk + which is just cultural noise.

Lear Your Physiology

This work looks like learning your physiology. Having a true understanding of what labor actually is. What happens + what needs to happen. How contractions work. What happens when the body opens. Understanding what hormones are doing what work + what fear does to slow it down. Most importantly what oxytocin, safety, dim lights, warm water + privacy can do to speed it up. The more you know + understand before labor begins the less you are likely to fight what your body is naturally trying to do. The less you fight it, the better it all works.

Choose Your Birth Environment

It looks like choosing the environment carefully. All of the things matter when you deliver. Where you give birth, who is in the room, the lights, sounds, temperature + the energy all matters. Your body responds to all of it. I promise you the exact same birth will react + move differently in a brightly lit room with strangers than it would in a dim room, with soft music with the people you trust. It is in your very best interest to plan for the environment of your birth with the same enthusiasm + dedication as you would plan for medical care.

Curate the Voices Around You

It looks like surrounding yourself with the right energy. The right voices. Not the ones that give you the worst-case scenarios. Not the folks that are full of the trauma stores, not the ones that want to give you every detail of their cousin’s hemorrhage. If there was ever a time to curate a room, this is the one. Mute. Unfollow. Block. Replace any noise with women who birthed in trust, however that might have looked for them. Read those stories. Listen to those podcasts. Those are the videos to watch. Train your brain to expect a different ending.

You Were Built for This

The work looks like remembering, every day, that the women that you come from did this. They did it in conditions that would terrify you. They did it without any of what you have. And yet here you are. A true descendant of each + every one of them. You were built from their bodies. Their wisdom is literally within your cells + you can not tell me that isn’t something you can absolutely trust.

You were built for this my friend.

The body has been doing this since the beginning of time.

You are not the first. You will not be the last. No new ground is being broken + you are not alone. This is a path that is well worn + has been walked by every mother who has ever lived.

She will guide you. She always has.

Welcome to the work boo. It gets real juicy from here!

Questions About Fear of Childbirth

XOXO

Denawa Deniece