Prenatal courses fail to teach this crucial skill

I recently had a client ask if I could do a breathwork for birth workshop. She was desperate and frustrated that none of the prenatal courses she had taken had given her the information to feel confident in how to use her breath for birth. She knew that breathing was important, but no matter who she asked she didn't feel she had been given the tools or explanations to do anything about it.

It honestly had never occurred to me before to take all this knowledge I have about breathing and pelvic floor and apply it to something as critical as the labor and delivery experience.  In my mind, I assume there was already loads of services out here, but seeing her desperate for this kind of information - a lightbulb went off!

Breathing well isn't always instinctual

I did some research on what’s currently available, I spoke to clients and I reached out to various groups for feedback on what they found most helpful. All of these resources led back to the same frustrating place, which is that prenatal courses are failing to teach breathing well. It's easy to say "breathe low" or "breathe into your belly", but what does that actually mean? What parameters can you give someone to know when they're doing it correctly vs not? You're basically asking people to flounder around with different word choices without establishing if they're actually doing it well.

Here’s the thing… breathing may feel instinctual, but that doesn’t mean you’re actually doing it well.

I'd go a step further and say that most of clients know that they could be breathing more deeply, but they don't know what that means or where to start. "Breathe low" doesn't really help if your abdominals or pelvic floor are tight - your muscles aren't going to let you get that low breath which, in turn, limits the kind of breathing you want for labor.

The same thing applies to pushing .  Many women report that pushing feels instinctual, but usually when someone is pushing or bracing with their abdomen they're actually creating more tension in the pelvic floor. Once you discover how to release, open, and engage the proper muscles for breathing and pushing you can actually make birth smoother and recovery faster.

But does any of this matter? As long as you have a healthy baby that’s all that matters right?  

Having a healthy baby isn’t the only thing that matters...  

YOUR HEALTH MATTERS TOO!

This is the crucial skill that prenatal courses fail to teach – how to care for your body when it's so delicate. There's so much focus is on how to care for the infant, but who's going to do that if you can't?

Most any parent is willing to risk injury for their littles, but you can’t properly care for your kiddos when your body is broken. And feeling broken when there's so much that needs to happen is incredibly hard to navigate in the early days of postpartum. The reality is, a little bit of information and awareness about your breathing can help risk of injury both during labor as well as postpartum.

Unlike traditional prenatal offerings, I created Breathing for Birth and Beyond to give you tools that will serve you beyond what happens in the delivery room.  I’m not teaching gimmicky breathing techniques that you only use during labor, I’m showing you a whole new way of experiencing and thinking about breath in your body.

Breath as a tool for strength, support, and wellbeing.

If you’re pregnant and worried about what labor and delivery will look and feel like, then this is the workshop for you!  You’ll get an intimate understanding of precisely how your body functions and how you can use breath to improve your labor and postpartum experience.  

By learning how to release, open, and engage the proper muscles for breathing and pushing you can make your birth smoother and recovery faster. This workshop helps you build deep, embodied awareness of your whole breathing system to transform your birth from uncertainty and fear into clarity, comfort and strength.

Read more and register for the workshop here.