Painless Childbirth

“My body knows how to nourish and grow my baby”

When I found out I was pregnant, I decided I was going to have a painless delivery. I know that sounds crazy, because we are told that delivery is a medical event that requires intervention and medication because its to painful for women to bare.

That didn’t sound right to me. I was willing and ready to do all the things I needed to do to prepare my body to gracefully, calmly, delivery my son to me.

The first modern humans, evolved from their early hominid predecessors between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago. So women have been birthing babies from more than 200,000 years before hospitals existed. Home births were standard. In the colonial period, all the way up to 1760 or so, midwives delivered babies. When a woman was ready to give birth, her female relatives, friends, and midwife would help her through the process.

Around 1760, upper class women started to want to have doctors at their births. However, in 2019, Black women are three times more likely than any other women to die during or immediately after pregnancy.

So I knew, to achieve my goal of a painless delivery, I would NOT deliver in a hospital.

I researched child-birthing centers and midwives. I was so happy I found a midwife, Dr. Kai Parker, that I really connected with and I may have fudged my due date because she was pregnant when I delivered August, my first son. (Funny story, I went to speak at the Black Solidarity Conference at Yale in Connecticut, against Kai’s advice, when I was like 32 weeks preggos and I started spotting. So my husband took me to the Yale Hospital and they tried to put an IV in me, and I said nope. I am not having a baby in a hospital and once you IV me you will try to induce and make me deliver my baby here. NOPE. My husband was so frightened, but I picked up my bag and looked at him and said lets go and started walking out, lol)

Here are the things I did to make sure my pregnancy was painless:

1. As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I started getting chiropractic care with Rashida Cohen of DC Integrative 1-2 times per week. She specializes in pre-natal chiropractor care. I didn’t have any back pain, and I think this was a large reason why.

2. Ya’ll know how important yoga is to me, so I I downloaded the Spinning Babies daily essentials video and did the yoga sequence flow at least 2/3x week. It helped with my flexibility and relaxation.

3. In my second and third trimester, I started getting monthly prenatal massages from Khetnu of A Soulful Touch Wellness, she worked out any discomfort I felt and I still see Khetnu to this day!

4. Because I was determined to have a painful birth, I had learn how to control my thoughts. I found HypnoBirthing class, and it provided me with the language and breathing exercises needed to bring on calm despite what’s happening around me. Positive birthing affirmations were also amazing in helping me shape a positive attitude towards birth (combating all of the negative images that you see in the media). Here are my pregnancy Affirmations

   • My body knows how to nourish and grow my baby

   • My baby feels my love

   • I welcome the changes in my body

   • I have a greater purpose 

   • I make the best decisions for me and my baby

5. My husband recorded him saying the Rainbow Relaxation, download the script here, and the last trimester, I fell asleep listening to it every single night.

6. I’ve always had low iron, so I’ve added blood builder and Floradix to my daily routine to help build up my iron. I also take a daily prenatal vitamin and probiotics. In the third trimester, I took one teaspoon of Mother’s Cordial daily. My logic was that I want to make sure that my body has all the vitamins and nutrients it needs to nourish my baby.

7. I didn’t have lots of crazy cravings, except tater tots from dunkin donuts, lol. I ate a lot of salads, fruit, avocado toast, and chocolate chip cookies. I noticed I would be super hungry in the morning, so I started eating cereal again, just because I had no patience to wait on anything else, ie a smoothie. I also got some great advice from Kai, eat like a cave woman. Stay away from anything processed and eat things as natural as you can find them. Cave women grab fruits, vegetables and grains. So when I wanted something sweet, I didn’t go get a cookie, okay, I still needed my chocolate chip cookie occasionally. But if I ate a cookie every time I wanted something sweet I would have been eating a dozen per day. So I tried to grab dates and dried mango when the sweet tooth wasn’t to bad I had to get a cookie.

8. I was really picky about developing my birth team. Similar to how it was done the 1600s, I wanted to be surrounded by my friends and family to ensure I had a loving environment for my baby to be born into. I also had my husband make a play list, and Back That Azz Up by Juvenile was on the list.

Any pregnant mama’s reading this blog, know that a painless delivery is possible. I delivered my son Asher in the shower and my husband caught him before my midwife arrived and it was painless. Yes, I had contractions but I breathed into them until they passed. Jason got frustrated because I wasn’t telling him when I had contractions for him to track (like I told him to) because I was focused on my breathing, lol.

I knew that my body knew how to nourish and grow my baby and welcome my son to the world in a painless, calm, and relaxing way.

I give gratitude to me, my body, my husband, my family and my friends for helping me build and sustain new routines and create a peaceful environment for a painless birth.