Ecstatic Birth
The following information is so vital to understand, as we really have lost this wisdom in our culture’s way of birthing today.
As Sarah J. Buckley says, “Mother Nature, in her wisdom, prescribes birthing hormones… so that we can be transformed on every level as we enter motherhood. This exquisite hormonal orchestration unfolds optimally when birth is undisturbed, enhancing safety for both mother and baby. Science is also increasingly discovering what we realize as mothers-that our way of birth affects us life long, mother and child, and that an ecstatic birth, a birth that takes us beyond our self, is the gift of a lifetime."
Oxytocin, Endorphins, Epinephrine, Norepinephrin, and Prolactin are all hormones that are secreted during an undisturbed birth.
Oxytocin
The love hormone
Secreted during sexual activity, male and female orgasm, breastfeeding, and engenders feelings of love and altruism. The body is so smart!
Oxytocin mediates sperm ejection
-and the corresponding sperm introjection reflex with female orgasm
-as well as the “fetal ejection reflex” at birth. This occurs during undisturbed birth with powerful contractions at the end of labor that allow the baby to be quickly and easily born.
Who would want to mess with such an intelligent design?
During pregnancy, large amounts are secreted to enhance nutrient absorption, reduce stress, and conserve energy my making us more sleepy.
The baby also produces oxytocin during labor, perhaps even initiating labor when the time is right.
In the minutes after birth, baby and mother are bathed in an ecstatic cocktail of hormones
all enhanced by-
-skin-to-skin and eye-to-eye contact
-and by first breastfeeding experience
-also protecting against postpartum hemorrhage
One study showed that mothers who breastfeed for longer than seven weeks are calmer.
Oxytocin is in charge of the let-down reflex in breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding relaxes the mother (oxytocin again) and baby and de-stresses them.
Oxytocin is also secreted in non-sexual and non-birth and non-mothering situations of love and just friendship including meal sharing.
Endorphins
Naturally occurring opiates
They also have properties similar to pain medications (such as Demerol- and without the bad side-effects!) and morphine and heroine. Who needs the synthetic kind? Let Mom labor without disturbance so she can make the real stuff!
High levels are present during love-making, pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding.
It is secreted during stressful and painful situations. It acts as an analgesic.
Induce feelings of pleasure, euphoria, and dependency
High levels in pregnancy that increase throughout labor
Helps the mother enter the altered state (through her inner mind/ limbic system) that characterizes an indisturbed, more comfortable birthing
Present in breast milk, inducing good feelings and mutual dependency and closeness for both mother and baby in their ongoing relationship- another good reason to breastfeed as long as you can
Epinephrine and Norepinephrine
Levels are low during labor in undisturbed birth
Levels of these adrenaline (and noradrenaline) hormones suddenly increase when birth is imminent.
This increase helps to activate the fetal ejection reflex.
The mother experiences a sudden rush of energy. She will probably choose an upright position and will be alert.
She will experience dry mouth and shallow breathing. She should have several very strong contractions before birthing her baby quickly and easily.
After the birth these levels decrease sharply. This is good because epinephrine decreases oxytocin and oxytocin is needed to prevent postpartum hemorrhage.
The baby also produces it, because of this exciting and stressful event, epinephrine also. This benefits him against any lack of oxygen that could occur. He is also wide-eyed and alert at birth and with first contact with mother. Babies have great things working for them!
Levels in the baby soon drop with contact and soothing of mother.
Prolactin
The mothering hormone
Major hormone of breastfeeding
Thought to produce aggressive and protective behavior in lactating females
Levels increase during pregnancy, although milk production is inhibited until the birth of the placenta.
Creates feelings of desire in the mother to put her baby’s needs first.
Buckley explains, “These [hormonal systems listed above] are common to all mammals and originate in our mammalian, or middle, brain, also known as the limbic system. For birth to proceed optimally, this part of the brain must take precedence over the neocortex, or rational brain.” If a woman in labor feels safe and is undisturbed, she will naturally tune out of her rational thinking mind and go within to her limbic, less- rational mind (the same place she goes during love-making) and she will be able to let go and let her body safely and easily do what it was made to do.
So what kinds of things are needed for a woman to stay in the limbic system, the inner mind, of the brain? Quiet, privacy, dim lighting, little conversation, support and care, feelings of safety, mother’s choice of movement, sound, breathing, and positions are all things that can help to facilitate an easier, more effective, safer birth that benefit the mother, baby, and family for a lifetime. The woman’s body is so wise! She knows how (even if she doesn’t know she knows)!
All parts of the body were magnificently created- the eyes, the ears, our skin, the nervous system… and the uterus! There is nothing wrong with our uteruses and yet in our culture we are so afraid that the reproductive system of our body is faulty. The belief is that instead of being as intricately designed as the rest of the body, the reproductive system must somehow be flawed. And yet there is no shortage of people on the earth because birth doesn’t work. Could the problem not be the uterus at all?
What kinds of things can disturb birth as it was meant to be?
“Undisturbed birth is exceedingly rare in our culture, even in birth centers and homebirths,” Buckley asserts, “How would it be to attempt to make love in the conditions under which we expect women to give birth?”
Some of those disturbances might be strangers, an unfamiliar place, induction (Unnatural forms of labor induction can work against the system and cause labor to be very difficult. All forms of synthetic and natural induction carry risks. Pitocin, for example is not the same as the body’s own Oxytocin. A great many women are induced for non-emergency reasons today. No wonder the epidural rate is so high!). Other things that disturb the body from it’s natural, wise way of birthing the baby are routine conveyor-belt procedures for all women regardless of need, pain-killers, unnatural positions (being made to stay in bed for example) that mothers would not normally choose to be more comfortable and facilitate baby’s easy descent, cesarean section (about one third of women give birth by cesarean surgery today resulting in much greater risks to mother and baby), pressure for every woman to progress a certain amount in a particular amount of time, man-made machines to “protect” the faulty way the body was made (These can be invaluable in situations where the mother or baby are truly in danger, but can cause a myriad of problems and dangerous situations when used for all healthy, normal women and babies despite need- another reason unplanned cesareans have become so prevalent).
As well, women and babies are also often separated after the birth. All types of mammal babies and mothers need to stay together and be left alone after they are born if the hormonal systems are to function well and for bonding to occur. Instead, babies are most often soon removed from their mothers for testing, weighing, pictures, pokes, immunizations, eye-blurring ointment, warming (as if mothers are unable to keep their babies warm under a blanket next to their bodies as they have done for ages past), baths, (these things really can wait until the baby has been with his parents for at least the first three hours, or better the next day- if parents have chosen any or all of the procedures above at all). Everyone seems to have forgotten whose baby this is! Babies need to be in the warm, loving arms of their mothers (and fathers!), not with nurse in the nursery and not crying with the other babies that all lined up in the hospital’s “sterile” bassinettes.
Dutch professor of obstetrics G. Kloosterman says this, “Spontaneous labour in a normal woman is an event marked by a number of processes so complicated and so perfectly attuned to each other that any interference will only detract from the optimal character. The only thing required from the bystanders is that they show respect for this awe-inspiring process by complying with the first rule of medicine-nil nocere [do no harm].
Optimizing the Ecstasy
Oxytocin, Endorphins, Epinephrine, Norepinephrin, and Prolactin are all hormones that are secreted during an undisturbed birth.
Oxytocin
The love hormone
Secreted during sexual activity, male and female orgasm, breastfeeding, and engenders feelings of love and altruism. The body is so smart!
Oxytocin mediates sperm ejection
-and the corresponding sperm introjection reflex with female orgasm
-as well as the “fetal ejection reflex” at birth. This occurs during undisturbed birth with powerful contractions at the end of labor that allow the baby to be quickly and easily born.
Who would want to mess with such an intelligent design?
During pregnancy, large amounts are secreted to enhance nutrient absorption, reduce stress, and conserve energy my making us more sleepy.
The baby also produces oxytocin during labor, perhaps even initiating labor when the time is right.
In the minutes after birth, baby and mother are bathed in an ecstatic cocktail of hormones
all enhanced by-
-skin-to-skin and eye-to-eye contact
-and by first breastfeeding experience
-also protecting against postpartum hemorrhage
One study showed that mothers who breastfeed for longer than seven weeks are calmer.
Oxytocin is in charge of the let-down reflex in breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding relaxes the mother (oxytocin again) and baby and de-stresses them.
Oxytocin is also secreted in non-sexual and non-birth and non-mothering situations of love and just friendship including meal sharing.
Endorphins
Naturally occurring opiates
They also have properties similar to pain medications (such as Demerol- and without the bad side-effects!) and morphine and heroine. Who needs the synthetic kind? Let Mom labor without disturbance so she can make the real stuff!
High levels are present during love-making, pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding.
It is secreted during stressful and painful situations. It acts as an analgesic.
Induce feelings of pleasure, euphoria, and dependency
High levels in pregnancy that increase throughout labor
Helps the mother enter the altered state (through her inner mind/ limbic system) that characterizes an indisturbed, more comfortable birthing
Present in breast milk, inducing good feelings and mutual dependency and closeness for both mother and baby in their ongoing relationship- another good reason to breastfeed as long as you can
Epinephrine and Norepinephrine
Levels are low during labor in undisturbed birth
Levels of these adrenaline (and noradrenaline) hormones suddenly increase when birth is imminent.
This increase helps to activate the fetal ejection reflex.
The mother experiences a sudden rush of energy. She will probably choose an upright position and will be alert.
She will experience dry mouth and shallow breathing. She should have several very strong contractions before birthing her baby quickly and easily.
After the birth these levels decrease sharply. This is good because epinephrine decreases oxytocin and oxytocin is needed to prevent postpartum hemorrhage.
The baby also produces it, because of this exciting and stressful event, epinephrine also. This benefits him against any lack of oxygen that could occur. He is also wide-eyed and alert at birth and with first contact with mother. Babies have great things working for them!
Levels in the baby soon drop with contact and soothing of mother.
Prolactin
The mothering hormone
Major hormone of breastfeeding
Thought to produce aggressive and protective behavior in lactating females
Levels increase during pregnancy, although milk production is inhibited until the birth of the placenta.
Creates feelings of desire in the mother to put her baby’s needs first.
Buckley explains, “These [hormonal systems listed above] are common to all mammals and originate in our mammalian, or middle, brain, also known as the limbic system. For birth to proceed optimally, this part of the brain must take precedence over the neocortex, or rational brain.” If a woman in labor feels safe and is undisturbed, she will naturally tune out of her rational thinking mind and go within to her limbic, less- rational mind (the same place she goes during love-making) and she will be able to let go and let her body safely and easily do what it was made to do.
So what kinds of things are needed for a woman to stay in the limbic system, the inner mind, of the brain? Quiet, privacy, dim lighting, little conversation, support and care, feelings of safety, mother’s choice of movement, sound, breathing, and positions are all things that can help to facilitate an easier, more effective, safer birth that benefit the mother, baby, and family for a lifetime. The woman’s body is so wise! She knows how (even if she doesn’t know she knows)!
All parts of the body were magnificently created- the eyes, the ears, our skin, the nervous system… and the uterus! There is nothing wrong with our uteruses and yet in our culture we are so afraid that the reproductive system of our body is faulty. The belief is that instead of being as intricately designed as the rest of the body, the reproductive system must somehow be flawed. And yet there is no shortage of people on the earth because birth doesn’t work. Could the problem not be the uterus at all?
What kinds of things can disturb birth as it was meant to be?
“Undisturbed birth is exceedingly rare in our culture, even in birth centers and homebirths,” Buckley asserts, “How would it be to attempt to make love in the conditions under which we expect women to give birth?”
Some of those disturbances might be strangers, an unfamiliar place, induction (Unnatural forms of labor induction can work against the system and cause labor to be very difficult. All forms of synthetic and natural induction carry risks. Pitocin, for example is not the same as the body’s own Oxytocin. A great many women are induced for non-emergency reasons today. No wonder the epidural rate is so high!). Other things that disturb the body from it’s natural, wise way of birthing the baby are routine conveyor-belt procedures for all women regardless of need, pain-killers, unnatural positions (being made to stay in bed for example) that mothers would not normally choose to be more comfortable and facilitate baby’s easy descent, cesarean section (about one third of women give birth by cesarean surgery today resulting in much greater risks to mother and baby), pressure for every woman to progress a certain amount in a particular amount of time, man-made machines to “protect” the faulty way the body was made (These can be invaluable in situations where the mother or baby are truly in danger, but can cause a myriad of problems and dangerous situations when used for all healthy, normal women and babies despite need- another reason unplanned cesareans have become so prevalent).
As well, women and babies are also often separated after the birth. All types of mammal babies and mothers need to stay together and be left alone after they are born if the hormonal systems are to function well and for bonding to occur. Instead, babies are most often soon removed from their mothers for testing, weighing, pictures, pokes, immunizations, eye-blurring ointment, warming (as if mothers are unable to keep their babies warm under a blanket next to their bodies as they have done for ages past), baths, (these things really can wait until the baby has been with his parents for at least the first three hours, or better the next day- if parents have chosen any or all of the procedures above at all). Everyone seems to have forgotten whose baby this is! Babies need to be in the warm, loving arms of their mothers (and fathers!), not with nurse in the nursery and not crying with the other babies that all lined up in the hospital’s “sterile” bassinettes.
Dutch professor of obstetrics G. Kloosterman says this, “Spontaneous labour in a normal woman is an event marked by a number of processes so complicated and so perfectly attuned to each other that any interference will only detract from the optimal character. The only thing required from the bystanders is that they show respect for this awe-inspiring process by complying with the first rule of medicine-nil nocere [do no harm].
Optimizing the Ecstasy
The following suggestions will help a woman use her hormonal blueprint and so optimize the experience and safety for herself and her baby.
Take responsibility for your health, healing, and wholeness throughout the childbearing years.
Choose a model of care that enhances the chance of a natural and undisturbed birth (e.g. homebirth, birth center, one-on-one midwifery care).
Arrange support according to an individual woman’s needs; trust, a loving relationship, a continuity of care with support people are important.
Consider having an advocate at a hospital birth, e.g., a private midwife or doula.
Ensure an atmosphere where the laboring woman feels safe, unobserved, and free to follow her own instincts.
Reduce neocortical stimulation by keeping lighting soft and reducing words to a minimum.
Cover the clock and any other technical equipment.
Avoid drugs unless absolutely necessary.
Avoid cesarean surgery unless absolutely necessary.
Don’t separate mother and baby for any reason, including resuscitation, which can be done with the cord still attached.
Breastfeed and enjoy it!
This information was adapted from an article by Sarah J. Buckley printed in the March April 2002 issue of Mothering Magazine. http://sarahjbuckley.com/index.html
~J~
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