Pain in Childbirth? How bodywork and exercises can help… and why you may need both

What does the vagus nerve have to do with giving birth?

What role do your pelvic nerves, fascia, ligaments, and muscles play in your birth experience (of pain or ease) and outcome?

Have you ever wondered if there is more to this whole “natural birth maybe even without pain” thing, beyond just learning how to breathe and meditate?

Do you worry about things like your baby being in the “wrong” position, or pain in labor, or shoulder dystocia, but you also have no idea if there’s anything other than hoping for the best and trying to overcome those fears with visualization techniques?

Does it seem like everyone has a different answer, but it all seems oversimplified, or way too complex?

I have so much appreciation for the pioneers in women’s health and natural birth, those who have brought us lovely practices like hypnobirthing, Spinning Babies, and more.

And yet, I could not stop where my teachers left off.

I have studied midwifery for years, but I also practiced as a massage therapist for longer, and I had the incredible opportunity to learn from my late master, Philip Young, the art of working with the nerves of the pelvis and whole body to both activate nerve force and bring back functional balance and sensation in the whole pelvis and beyond, but also activate the parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system fully, for a system-wide change that allows for shifts in function to go much deeper.

While he was not in the birth world, what his work opened the door for was a whole new way of seeing the female anatomy, and the way in which the pelvic bones, ligaments, muscles, fascia and nerves interact during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. What I began to notice in my work with birth clients was that there was a huge correlation between pain in labor, and functional patterns of imbalance in muscle and fascia, nerve impingement from adhesions, as well as tailbone trauma, spinal and pelvic torsion, and sometimes even issues that carried up or down the body and didn’t seem to be pelvic at all!

And when we released these layers, brought back function, and re-trained the muscles and nervous system for more balanced movement patterns, labor flowed more smoothly and painlessly in women with a history of severe pain in labor. And of course, postpartum pelvic floor issues are diminished as well.

And let me just tell you, it’s not just the worry about dribbling pee postpartum that one should be aware of. It’s the long term implications of a damaged pelvic floor, the ways in which that dysfunction can carry into old age and cause more severe decline of function as tissues become more friable, muscles weaker, and hormones change in later years.

So, I learned and learned, from a bodywork and midwifery perspective… and over the years, my work with movement dysfunction led me to realize that I needed to do more than just the few integrative exercises I was doing with clients at the end of a session. I also wanted to do more, to help people learn how to re-pattern their neuro-muscular function so these imbalances wouldn’t return. While I love money, my goal is not to have forever returning clients, but rather to see people graduate to a level of freedom in their pelvis and body that leaves them forever changed. They can come back for my mushy relaxing massage, rather than to address the same functional issues over and over again.

So, I became a personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist as well, and continue to add layers to my skill set to better serve my clients in neuro-muscular retraining. And at this point, I finally feel like I have uncovered the level of integration of these modalities necessary to help women not only receive the best care they can from me individually, but also to learn a lot of the self-care and body awareness on their own that even my remote clients can benefit from my knowledge base, and use it to have better births.

I am excited to bring you this work, whether you are local to me in North Carolina, or able to travel to me for a series of sessions, or simply buying my online self-guided coursework on the Nourished Waters Birth Portal app. This app gives you not only all the body wisdom courses including self-release work and exercises, but also all my foundational courses on natural childbirth, emergency skills tutorials, informed consent articles, the understanding of physiologically normal birth, including 3rd stage (the release of the placenta), newborn transition to breathing, and newborn care. It’s SO GOOD… and both thorough, while also being concise and to the point, so you don’t have to go through the information overload that Google rabbit holes will lead you on.

Excited to see you there, and right now, the Portal is on sale for a bit longer while I work on uploading the Body Wisdom courses in the coming months. That gives you a nice discount on a ONE YEAR subscription, before the price goes up about $100 more for those who come in after I get it all up. And while you wait for those juicy bits… there is already SO much to pore through on the Portal.

Birth doesn’t have to be impossibly hard or painful. But we need to understand both our body, and our mind and nervous system, and how to biohack them both, bring them into alignment and access the altered state that birth brings us to as well, allowing us to transcend pain and ease through birth like butter.

You won’t find this unique intersection of modalities and perspectives from the lens of midwifery AND bodywork anywhere else. At least not yet…

I look forward to meeting you, in person, or in the Portal, or both!

https://nourishedwatersbirth.com/plans/1436890?bundle_token=2714f5bd67025c4b9ebb9feb009a3109