Dorothy Guerra speaking about the Yoga Birth Method

Watch Dorothy Guerra Speak about the Yoga birth Method and Empowering women to educate themselves about birth and to how to make informed choices in labour. Learn how the Yoga Birth Method can make childbirth a wonderful experience and remove fear and uncertainty from expectant parents

What is Active Labor

If you don't have an understanding that labor progresses through phases and stAges you would assume that labor is just one process all the way through. This is not the case. In fact active labor is when your doctor or midwife would conSider you to be in a good labor and would have to go to the hospoital or in the event of a home birth your midwife would join you. Good or active labor is usually when you reach or pass the 3 cm mark in dilation.

The thing is that you would not know where you are as far as dilation goes because you would need to be examed by your caregiver. One way to asses active labor is through emotional and physical changes. When active labor sets in you may find the contractions are longer and harder thEn the ones you had been experiencing in early labor. You find that it is harder to walk and talk through contractions as well. My recommendation is if you are ar 3-5 mins apart and your contractions are a good 60 seconds you may want to consider going to the hospital.

What you do physically and how you breath are really important to making sure you keep progressing efficiently and that baby takes proper vertex anterior position and can descent. Sqautting is a good way to help this along but be sure to keep the spine upright, and the hips neutral. You don't want to curve over the baby. Imagine a straight line from your spine to pelvic floor that baby can move down into. Another good pose is lunging to help open the cervix and make room for the baby in the hips. Your breathing should be long and deep. I call it elevator breath. One inhaltion over three seconds and one long exhalations over 3 seconds. This will help you manage the peaks of active contractions and ensure your body is open and not constricting with stress.

For a full active flow for movement and breathing you can read Yoga Birthing from thE website. www.yogabirthmethod.com

What to do when you think your in labor

This question may worry you over 9 months. you have no idea what a contraction feels like or when to expect them to happen. Labor can start in different ways: it may be a long slow start meaning you have slight cramping on and off that doesnt really concern you as serious, it may be sudden and intense, your water might break, or you notice that you are experiencing a regular a regular pattern of contractions that have a pattern when timed.

The key to managing labor is to not panic and elimate stress which could be harmful to you and your baby. Maternal distress in labor has caused medical interventions unnecessarily. Part of eliminating stress is trusting your body and yourself to know what to do during labor to manage pain. If you have a technique such as the yoga birth method then you will feel comfortable with managing longer at home without rushing to the hospital. Walking, stairs, movement and breathing are all positive steps to bringing baby closer to delivery. You want to avoid laying on your babk and holding your breath during contractions. The YBM starts with the early flow for early labor. These postures are done with a steady Ocean sound rythym breathing. This will start you moving and create a meditative environment for calmness. By using the early flow you also encourage the body to keep moving throught labor even when it may become challenging to do so. The sequence of postures help to enhance dilation, effacement and encourages decent of tge baby into the pelvis in normal birth positioning. It's imnportant to maintain a pattern of movement, breathing and focus even when you are inbetween contractions. This will help you come into your next contraction with ease and not feel overcome with pain every few minutes. As labor progresses you will then enter the next phases before pushing which are active and transiton. Transition is usually the shortest stage but can be the most challenging for pain tolerance. Ybm prepares you to go to this stage naturally and through it with ease and calmness.

Its your birth story

Proper birth education is the defining factor in how your birth will play itself out. Knowing what happens and what you should expect will give you the power to know when to make pain management decisions. Here in the West we have the luxury of getting medical assistance and medication to manage contraction pain. We have been given so much information about pain medication that it has become the norm in childbirth. Women have forgotten the "naturalness" of childbirth and the benefits of being connected to your baby physically.

In some circumstances medication is necessary. When a woman is showing signs of distress managing a natural labour and the baby is responding negatively to her emotions then sometimes the best way to help her calm down is through medication. The concept of informed choice is knowing when to make the decision to use medications as opposed to using a natural approach to dealing with your circumstances at the time.

When you are not in control you tend to accept what is being told to you by your caregivers and may end up regretting the process in hindsight.

Being present and mindful during labour is a key step in the yoga birthing pathway. When we use our yogic breathing and posture movement we stay awake to our birth story. The pain may be intense but our minds are clear of outside influence. We know what our bodies need and when to make the right call for medicated assistance. Receiving an epidural in labour does not mean failure in birth. It's the emotions after the epidural that are important in managing. The best way to be in control of those emotions is to be educated beforehand. When is an epidural necessary, how will an epidural affect your labour time, how does it affect the baby, what is the recovery time for an epidural, how will pushing time be affected... by asking yourself these questions before labour begins you develop an informational baseline for the decisions your faced with during labour. When the time comes and you feel that your contractions have put you between a rock and a hard spot, you can come back to your baseline of information and decide which path to take.

The Experience of Birth

Fear in Childbirth and the result of fear drivin labor - Be Informed!

Know how to ask the right questions in your labor to prevent unnecessary interventions