Often the partner of a pregnant mother feels insecure about his ability to help her through labor and birth, especially the first time around. It can help a lot to take a good childbirth class and learn some skills, like the double-hip squeeze, that can increase her comfort. But most of the help that a birthing mama needs can be summed up in two words: Love her.
Even if you don’t learn any other skills (or if they fly out of your head in the moment of truth), you can give wonderful birth support just by loving on mama. This is because birth is a hormonal event, and one of the main players is the “love hormone,” oxytocin.
Oxytocin is a pretty cool hormone. It has a lot of functions. It’s the hormone that cements our emotional bonds to the people we care about. It comes into play when we make love, when we breastfeed our babies (causing our milk to eject), and it is the hormone that triggers the uterus to contract when a woman is in labor.
As labor progresses, if there’s nothing to disrupt the normal function of hormones, a mother’s oxytocin levels climb higher and higher. This is what makes her contractions more and more intense as she gets closer to birthing her baby. By the time the baby is born, her oxytocin levels are higher than they will be at any other point in her life, which is perfect, because those sky-high oxytocin levels help bond her to this new, helpless little person who she needs to adore so that she’ll take care of him or her.
When labor isn’t progressing as quickly as doctors think it should, they often recommend the use of the synthetic form of oxytocin, usually called Pitocin. It’s given through an I.V., and it can trigger the uterus to contract, too, usually very effectively. Sometimes Pitocin is needed and is a blessing. But it doesn’t affect the mother’s brain the same way that her own oxytocin does, and for some people, it causes contractions that feel more intense and harder to stay on top of than those caused by mom’s own oxytocin.
Sometimes, a natural oxytocin boost is enough to keep things going without the addition of the synthetic stuff. And can you guess how to boost her oxytocin naturally? You got it…Love her.
The same things that raise our oxytocin levels to bond us to our partners can help our bodies labor effectively. Loving touch, loving words, undivided attention, a quiet presence. And the best part is, most of these feel very doable for most partners.
Labor is h
ard work. It may not feel like a romantic encounter. But keeping romance in mind can help labor work better and feel better. Think about your environment. Do you feel like romance under the glaring fluorescent lights found in most hospital rooms? Probably not. So consider keeping the lights off. I kid you not, darkness makes oxytocin work better. (It’s boosted by melatonin, which our body produces in the dark.) What about music? Slow dancing? Cuddling? Even kissing. Seriously– real-deal, making out and kissing can help get mom’s oxytocin pumping big time. Plus, it is sure to scare off any unwanted visitors.
I would be remiss if I didn’t say this. There are some mothers whose birthing partners aren’t their romantic partners. Some are single mothers, some have partners who are away, maybe deployed in the military. There are other reasons mom’s support person might be a friend, relative, or a doula. But the same principles apply. You don’t need to make out to love on mama. You can still keep the environment dark and quiet. You can still speak gentle, loving words. You can still hold her hand and stay close.
It’s really not rocket science to support a mom in labor. Just stay off your phone. Keep the chit-chat with other people to a minimum. Keep the lights low. (Unless she feels safer with them on…feeling safe is important, too.) Speak gently to her, hold her hand, and tell her how amazing she is. This won’t be hard. When you see her doing the hard work of birth, you’ll realize just how amazing she really is.
