so I had this great question the other day and after I answered it I thought I know I need to
make a video about it because I know that you would love to hear this questions answer and
that is if I want to avoid going past my due date or having to deal with the decision about
induction what should I be doing now so that I'm ready and I love this question for several reasons
first of all just thinking ahead and not getting to you know that late pregnancy 38 weeks 39 weeks
and thinking about some of the things that we can do and you know getting started then so I
love thinking in advance and as I thought about my answer I actually have three activities that I
recommend on a regular basis to my clients and my childbirth ed students to help prepare your body
and your mind for going into labor on your due date around your due date and hopefully avoiding
induction now if we haven't met before my name is Alice Turner I am a birth Doula a childbirth
educator and here on my channel I love to make videos that are going to help you feel confident
before contractions start and this is a great one today because it's three specific tasks that
I really recommend and I think you're going to love them once you get into a habit of doing
them now I'm going to be honest these are not research-based no one did a study doing these
three activities to prove whether or not they really do put you into labor by your due date
however there are some principles behind each of these that have shown to help us as we prepare
for labor so the first one is one that is really going to help prepare our body and that is sitting
on a birth ball just 15 minutes a day so you don't have a birth ball yet I have my favorite
that I recommend down in the description below and they're really affordable you can get them
on Amazon you can get them almost anywhere even under 20 dollars it's such great investment and
just spending 15 minutes on the birth ball a day can help prepare your body you can do so many
different things on the birth ball you can sit you can bounce you can do hula hoop type moves
you can sway it's it's you can sit on it you know even more than 15 minutes sit on it while you're
watching TV or working it's really a great way to get your body used to opening that pelvis and
just make you really comfortable with sitting on the ball so that if you use it in labor it's not
going to feel foreign so 15 minutes day on the birth ball is my number one my number two it's
kind of tricky in that it's two activities that I put together but they're both easy and you can do
them both together and that is practicing your breath that you can use during contractions so
I'm a huge believer in practicing this breath it is something that a lot of people do if they're
familiar with doing meditation or yoga but it's that nice long breath in and that slow breath out
long breath in slow breath out so doing the breath and pairing that with birth affirmations so birth
affirmations are just sentences phrases that we say to ourselves that help set our mind up for
labor that help us get that positive mindset that we're really kind of brainwashing ourselves with
this birth affirmation you know telling ourselves once a day that we're strong that we can do this
it really does make a difference and if you're skeptical just all I have to say is give it a
chance give it a shot and an easy way to do this is to pick out your affirmations that you want to
say record your own voice saying them on your phone the voice memo and then you can play it
back while you are sitting on the birth ball and practicing your breath so we're combining all of
those activities together now if you don't know which affirmations you would want I'm going to
also send you down below to this description where you can download a free list of like 150 birth
affirmations that I put together okay so super easy really really powerful now the third thing
that I recommend that you do every day is a little unconventional it's not something that is normally
included in childbirth education but I think it's pretty huge and it's something to work towards
reducing our fears and that is journaling so I'm a real believer in journaling on a regular basis
really just dumping out our brain onto a page not overthinking what we're journaling but just kind
of that brain dump journaling and I'm a fan of the one sentence Journal idea so just writing one
sentence a day not overthinking it putting your thoughts about your birth about pregnancy how
you're feeling anything you really want any kind of concern just dump it onto a page once a day
so grab a fun Journal I love I'm a total Journal addict this one says remember ideas become things
so I'm really a believer in that as well again our birth affirmations So it's 15 minutes a day
we're setting up our mind our body and trying to reduce those fears so that we're going into that
phase of the end of our pregnancy being ready now if you are watching this and you're at the end of
your pregnancy that's okay it's still a great activity to do this but if you're watching this
and you still have months or weeks out just give it a try 15 minutes a day I would love
to hear your thoughts down in the comment which one do you think is going to be the easiest for
you to do on a daily basis let me know also if you still have a few weeks before your due
date I'm going to point you to this video right here I know you're going to want to
check that out it is a great one for practicing for birth and I will see you guys next time bye