so when your contraction ends there is this lovely period of rest time but what
to do during the rest time really i like to think of it in two categories so you've got
rest during the rest time and prepare during the rest time i want you to make the most of
this rest time so that you will be ready when the next contraction starts and if you haven't watched
my video on what to do during the contraction i am going to put a link up here and a link at the end
make sure that you watch that one next because they go together perfectly now if we haven't met
yet my name is alice turner i am a certified doula a la mod certified child birth educator
and here on this channel i make videos to help you
have a confidence before the contraction starts now if you're on board with this mission then make
sure you subscribe so even though we're always talking about what to do during a contraction
the rest phase really is a lot of our labor and i have eight actions specific practical actions
that i'm going to share with you so that you will know how to make the most out of this rest period
i drew out a very common contraction pattern now i drew out the 511 pattern this is the pattern that
a lot of our healthcare providers want us to go to the hospital during this labor pattern what this
means is that we have contractions that are five minutes apart so you see the bumps here these are
our contractions they are five minutes apart one zero and then five they last for one minute long
and then this pattern goes for one hour that's what five one one means so as you can clearly see
the rest time here is four full minutes and our contraction is just one minute so we're talking
about what are we gonna do during that whole four minute period so we're tackling rest let's
talk about rest number one what we can do during these contractions is just breathe just calm our
breath down we can sometimes take a big giant inhale and exhale and just reset into kind of
a normal breathing pattern when we're having the contraction we might be doing long slow breaths
we might be having doing a pattern breathing but in between contractions something really great
to focus on is just getting your breath back to normal so that's our first action that we can do
our next one is thinking about if we're resting kind of relaxing our entire body
so i like to suggest a check-in with our muscles kind of a body scan you know where are we holding
tension where can we be more aware of being limp and loose when the next contraction comes
so kind of doing a body scan moving our body and kind of looking for any tight areas also i like
to just say shake it out you know kind of regroup just sort of you know move those arms and and just
kind of shake everything out so that our bodies are in that ready for that nice restful time
in between our contractions and then that last thing is to resume distracting activities which
can be very restful so you know that often means chatting with your partner maybe even watching tv
watching your favorite movie playing cards there are all sorts of things distracting activities
that people do in between contractions and if this seems really weird to you i totally understand it
often surprises people how restful the rest can be when i'm working with families sometimes i'll have
partners that say in between the contractions it does it just feels like a normal day and i'm like
yeah that's exactly how it is so let's just kind of treat it as a restful normal day and that will
really allow us to have that relaxation and that rest now let's talk about prepare there are a few
active things to do that are they're more active than what we talked about with rest that helps
us prepare for the next contractions and also helps us kind of set up our labor so it can
keep progressing and one of the things to help keep your labor progressing is to stay hydrated
so in between contractions this is a great time for our partners to hand us a bottle of water
uh with a straw usually or something easy way that we can just take a quick sip in between
contractions we don't want to try to drink water during contractions so in between contractions
we're going to take those sips great time to do that also it's a great time since we're getting
all the water in we need to get the water out if you know what i mean we need to go to the bathroom
so it's a great time to take a quick trip to the bathroom now just note if your contraction pattern
is coming closer than this pattern so if your rest time is shorter then as soon as you are
down off of this contraction here you are going to want to giddy up and go to the bathroom quickly
a lot of times i will talk to my clients and say hey after that next contraction let's go ahead and
go to the bathroom and so they know as soon as that contraction ends it's time to start moving
and get ourselves to the bathroom so that we can make it either back to our position or make it off
the toilet if we don't want to labor on the toilet which is not a bad thing but if you don't want to
get yourself back during that rest period it's also a great time to change our positions so we
don't want to change positions during contraction that doesn't work well what we want to do
in between contractions if it's been about 15 20 30 minutes in one position it's a great time
to change things up changing things up is gonna help keep our labor progressing so it's a good
time to say okay we've been sitting on the ball why don't we move to a forward lean or we're in
a forward lean why don't we do some slow dance so changing the positions is an awesome thing to do
in between contractions and just so you know this is not like a one action during the rest time only
kind of a thing you can probably get several of these done you can definitely take a sip of water
regulate your breathing change positions so we we have options to do multiple things during our
rest period the last thing i love during that rest time is for our partner to i wrote in my
notes pump us up to encourage us our par partners is a great time to have those encouraging words
to um say something that you know or you think you know that your partner would find um
helpful beneficial it can be super short like wow that was a great contraction you're doing awesome
i so proud of you can't wait to meet our baby anything that is positive is a great time to
throw that in during the contraction hey hand over that water just as you're saying you're doing an
awesome job so we have eight great things to do during rest time partners for your my tip for you
is to remember these and help facilitate that these happen during rest time
and then as you guys as i mentioned i have a great video on what to do during the contractions
so that you they can make the most progress on your cervix during the contraction so
make sure you check out that video i know you're gonna like it and i'll see you guys next time bye