Examples for each of the comfort techniques:

Cognitive Strategies

• Protect yourself against worrying thoughts such as having a 'big' baby or the pain being 'unbearable'. Give your body the right environment, thoughts and opportunity to do what it's designed to do
• Use other people's birth stories to your advantage; did they have an amazing labour? Try and figure out what they were able to do to help them cope and birth so confidently. Did they have a not-so-great labour? Try to reflect on the situations and decisions surrounding their birth that could also arise in yours and how you might be able to handle it differently.

Gate Control

• Two words: TENS Machine
• Anything that stimulates the senses also works great: warm water, essential oils, massage, using hot or cold packs, sucking on candy.. Whatever sense is most distracting for you, use that one!​

Counter-Irritants:

• We used the combs in class, and they are one of my favourite labour weapons
• Sometimes a birther will find themselves pulling their own hair, hitting their own leg or even biting themselves; obviously inflicting self-pain isn't the name of the game, but it may be a part of your own rhythm and ritual. Scroll down this page to check out an amazing video with some real-life examples of birthers finding their flow + ritual.

Body Mechanics

• Labour positions! The more comfortable someone is in a position, the more they can rest and relax into the sensations. This relaxation helps the birther cope with the pain, rather than stimulating the fight-or-flight response and having a birth feel like they need to run away or escape from it. Imagine having a toothache and being contorted with a leg cramp.. the toothache will definitely feel worse! The number one priority is to get the birther into a labour position that works and then add on the other coping techniques.

And just as a reminder of my favourite coping techniques for each stage: