Birthing Body Balance
Pregnancy Exercise Classes for a Confident Birth
Would you like to experience a more comfortable pregnancy, and help yourself to have an easier birth?
Your body is designed to give birth, but you can significantly stack the odds in your favour for your birth to go smoothly, by training specifically for birth.
While it is absolutely beneficial in pregnancy to be generally active, preparing your body specifically for birth is what can be the game changer on your birthing day. When athletes train for events, their training is focused for their particular sport. They don't prepare for a running race by practicing their tennis skills. The same goes for birth.
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I am here to guide you through the things that you can do regularly throughout your pregnancy, in the lead up to birth, and during labour to optimise your chance of an easier, quicker and more straight-forward birth, and a more comfortable pregnancy. ​​​​​​
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Sitting in car seats regularly
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crossing you legs
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carrying a toddler on your hip
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...the list could go on!
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Stress - which is often carried in the body
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Poor posture​
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A sedentary job
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past injuries anywhere in your body
Many things in life can affect our body, and our pelvic balance. Can you relate to any of these?​
All of these things can throw off your pelvic balance and alignment, which then affects baby's ability to position well, and move easily through the pelvis to birth - Birth Biomechanics can benefit EVERYONE! ​
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What is Birth Biomechanics?
Why is it important?
Simply put, biomechanics is the biology and mechanisms of movement.
For birth, this relates to the incredible interaction between the mothers body and the baby's body, as baby gets ready for birth, and then navigates their way to the outside world.
Both bodies are perfectly designed for this process. The maternal pelvis changes in pregnancy to allow more space and mobility, and baby's skull is designed to mould to pass through the pelvis more easily. Despite this beautiful design, our modern lifestyles of less movement, reclined postures, more stress - to mention just a few - have an impact on our body's ability to make full use of these pregnancy adaptations when it comes to birth.
Interventions in childbirth are often required as a result of biomechanical issues, preventing labour from flowing as nature intended - such as babies starting labour in less than optimal positions, and tight, or imbalanced pelvic ligaments preventing optimal space in the pelvis from being utilised for baby. On the flip side, interventions can also be the cause of biomechanical issues, by interrupting the natural flow and timing of birth.
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Having an understanding of biomechanics for birth means that positional changes and techniques can be use to encourage babies to position themselves more optimally before or during birth, and help them to rotate and turn to navigate the pelvis, and by supporting the woman so that birth can unfold physiologically.
Knowledge of the processes of biomechanics can help to identify and piece together clues of a suboptimal position of baby, or other reasons for delays in birth progress, and how these can be helped to resolve, improving the chance of avoiding more medicalised intervention. .
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People would be forgiven for thinking that understanding of birth biomechnics, and experience of using biomechanical positioning techniques for birth would be common knowledge among maternity professionals working in this area, but sadly in most cases these skills have been lost over time, to the point where many have not even heard of the concept of birth biomechanics, so empowering yourself with this wisdom is important.
Knowing about techniques that can be used in labour if needed is very useful, but I am a firm believer that preparing your body throughout pregnancy is what really makes the difference.