1. Make sure you have a healthy lifestyle and diet 6 months before you are pregnant.
The health of both mother and father before your baby is even conceived is important for a happy healthy pregnancy. When asked, everyone, without exception, maintains that they eat a healthy diet, but this can vary widely.
One book which is definitely worth reading is Eat Right 4 Your Type by Dr J J d’Adamo.
1. Make sure you have a healthy lifestyle and diet 6 months before you are pregnant.
The health of both mother and father before your baby is even conceived is important for a happy healthy pregnancy. When asked, everyone, without exception, maintains that they eat a healthy diet, but this can vary widely.
One book which is definitely worth reading is Eat Right 4 Your Type by Dr J J d’Adamo.
2. Enjoy your pregnancy
A mother who is happy, calm and confident produces the hormones oxytocin and endorphins. These hormones, which are the hormones we also produce when, for example fall in love or make love, pass through the placenta to the baby, and so the baby’s view of the world is that it is a calm and happy place, and definitely a good place to be.
3. Research the options of where to give birth. Consider a home birth
Mothers often say, ‘I’ve decided to give birth in hospital, just in case……’ Just in case of what? In fact giving birth at home is statistically safer, and the statement should be turned round to, ‘I’ve decided to give birth at home, just in case……’ Most mothers who give birth in hospital haven’t ‘decided’ on that course of action. They’ve generally assumed that this is the safest thing to do. The mothers who have decided to give birth at home have genuinely decided, having looked at the facts and realised what a fantastic experience it can be.
4. Prepare yourself for your natural and gentle birth. HypnoBirthing classes are the ideal way.
As a society, we know birth is usually painful, but if some women give birth naturally without pain, then it’s plainly possible. The fear of pain causes tension which inhibits the working of the muscles and causes pain, which leads to more fear, etc. etc. etc. HypnoBirthing is the leading childbirth education method today which teaches you how to release the fears. Only then is the breathing, relaxation, visualisation, etc. that you will also learn really effective.
5. Give birth in an environment of privacy, confidence and calm
Animals always go somewhere on their own, unobserved and safe to give birth. As far as the birth process is concerned, we are simply another mammal. If you feel observed, the body produced catecholamines and endorphins which produce the fight / flight response and inhibit the natural working of the uterine muscles. Home is where you are most in control of your environment, feel comfortable, and have your own privacy.
6. Work with your body. Your body knows what to do.
There are many classes which tell you about positions in labour, breathing in labour, visualisations in labour, etc. etc. etc. In fact, the less you DO the better, because your body knows what to do. It’s difficult to trust that if you’re a first time mother, but it’s true. YOUR BODY KNOWS WHAT TO DO. You prepare yourself by being in the right state of being, and that allows your body to get on with the ‘doing’ on its own.
7. Welcome your baby with the things it recognizes: mother’s skin, mother’s heartbeat, and mother’s and father’s voices.
We cannot begin to imagine the shock of the experience of being born. We know that it is the most formative experience of the whole of our lives, and the welcome we receive will affect every other relationship we form throughout life. If birth is gentle, calm, easy and quick, and there are no drugs either in our own system or our mother’s system, then that first welcome is as it is designed to be. That’s first and immediate skin to skin contact with mother, so that the baby can get close to the heartbeat it recognizes and be put to the breast immediately is of vital importance for the development of the child.
