Hi and welcome to today's video all about pushing during labour. I'm going to be
sharing my top tips for pushing your baby out smoothly and comfortably.
If we haven't already met, my name's Anja and I'm an antenatal class teacher specializing
in hypnobirthing. On my YouTube channel you'll find pregnancy tips, birth preparation videos
as well as a series of hypnobirthing meditations and pregnancy relaxation audios. Don't forget to
click the subscribe button and the bell icon so you don't miss any of my upcoming videos, there's
new ones every single week. The pushing stage of labour is also known as the second stage of labour.
The first stage of labour is cervical dilation so your cervix will gradually open from closed
to 10 centimetres dilated. Then you'll move on to the second stage of labour when your baby
will come down your birth canal then you'll push them out of your vagina and into the world. Before
we move on to my 7 top tips for pushing, I'm just going to give you a little bit of background
information about the pushing stage of labour. As your baby comes down your birth canal it can
feel like you need to run off to the toilet to do a massive poop but it's just your baby
pressing on your rectum and making you feel like you need to go to the toilet. The best thing
that you can do is just relax and surrender to the sensations that you're experiencing and know
that it's completely normal and natural for it to feel like you need to do a massive poop! Pushing
your baby out can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2-3 hours. If you're a first-time mum, it can take
a little bit longer to push your baby out than if you're a second third or fourth time mum and
that's simply because your vaginal and perineal tissues won't have stretched so much before.
If you're giving birth to a second or third baby your vaginal and perineal tissues will already be
more stretchy and flexible so the pushing stage can be a lot faster. Now, if you're watching this
and you're a first-time mum, you might be thinking "Crikey, I'm going to have to push for two to three
hours that's going to be really exhausting!" I don't want you to worry about this. When I was pushing out my
daughter it took about two and a half hours but it only felt like I was pushing for 20 minutes
and that's because, when you're in labour, the sensations kind of take over your mind and you
enter a trance-like state. Time becomes very distorted so you won't realize how much time
is going by. So please relax about the pushing stage of labour because you will be able to do it!
Okay, so the moment you've been waiting for, let me delve into my 7 top tips for pushing your
baby out smoothly and calmly. My first tip is to stay energized and hydrated. You're gonna burn a
lot of calories in labour and it's really important that, in-between contractions, you're taking little
sips of water or energy drinks and that you're taking little bites of a banana, an oat bar
or whatever you've got handy to snack on. You're going to burn so many calories during the pushing
stage of labour because your uterus is working extremely hard to push your baby down and out of
your body. Your birth partner needs to be offering you regular sips of drinks and snacks because you
might not feel like you have an appetite and it might not occur to you to eat or drink anything
yourself. So have a birth partner handy to encourage you to eat and drink regularly so that
you don't become depleted of energy. My second tip is to push in a gravity-friendly position.
When you're working with gravity it helps your baby to be guided down your birth canal and to
come out of your body a lot more easily. Some great gravity friendly positions include standing up,
squatting, being on all fours or kneeling over the side of something like a bed a birth pool, a sofa
or even kneeling over a birth ball. Also, when you give birth in a gravity-friendly position,
your sacrum (which is at the bottom of your spine) curves and moves out of the way
to make extra space for your baby to descend comfortably. If you're lying flat on your back
on a hospital bed, your sacrum can't curve and move out of the way. You've probably seen on a lot of TV
shows, and in Hollywood movies, women giving birth lying flat on their backs but this isn't ideal and
it's not recommended. Really, you should be getting into a gravity-friendly position wherever possible.
If you're lying down flat on your back, aside from the fact that it restricts the space
in your pelvic and abdominal area, you also have to push your baby uphill to get them out. Right at the
at the entrance of your vagina, just inside your birth canal, there's a little
nook or cranny that your baby can get stuck in as you're pushing them out and that just
makes pushing so much harder and longer. Try, whenever possible, to get yourself into an upright
forward and open position that's working with the gravitational pull of the ground. I just wanted
to point out here that if you have an epidural in labour you probably won't be able to use your legs
to get into a gravity-friendly position but rather than lying on your back to give birth, the best
thing that you can do is lie on your side and have somebody lift up one of your legs and support your
leg (hold it up for you). What this does is it means that your sacrum can still curve and move out of
the way and you can push your baby out more easily. My third tip is to work with your body's natural
and instinctive urges to push or bear down. Your body will trigger what's called a Fetal Ejection
Reflex when your baby is ready to be pushed and birthed so my advice is to just go with
the sensations of your body and just be guided by what your body's telling you to do. As I mentioned
earlier on, when you're giving birth to your baby, it can feel like you need to do a massive poo
(so coming back to poo again!) When you need to go for a poo you just know don't you? You know
when to push your poo out. You just feel like "I have to go and this poo has to come out". It's the
same when you give birth to your baby. As long as you haven't had an epidural and you can feel
the sensations of birth going on down there, you will know what to do so just trust what your
body's telling you to do, surrender to it and just go with it. If you do have an epidural in labour,
you probably won't feel an urge to bear down and push because you'll be numb from the waist down.
However, you might feel a sense of pressure and that can be a sign for you to push. Also, your
midwives might coach you to push. They'll be monitoring your contractions and they'll be able
to tell you "Okay you're having a contraction now so push!" That is the best way for you to be able
to birth your baby comfortably by being guided by your care team. My fourth tip is to use a birth
breathing technique when you're pushing your baby out rather than holding your breath. There are two
different breathing techniques that you can use to push your baby out in labour. One of them is called
J Breathing and the other is called Down Breathing. They're quite different to one another but I do
recommend that you watch my J Breathing technique video and my Down Breathing technique video,
practice them both and decide which one you would prefer to use when you're pushing your baby out.
The reason it's so important to learn a birth breathing technique is because it encourages
optimal blood and oxygen flow to your uterus and your baby, it helps you to relax and also it helps
to reduce any discomfort or pain that you might be experiencing when you give birth to your baby. My
fifth tip is to have patience, especially with your baby! Your baby is going to cause you to feel
a quite intense ring of fire burn as their head is crowning and it can feel a bit overwhelming.
You might just want it to all be over and for your baby just to be born already but it's important
that you let your vaginal and perineal tissues stretch gradually as your baby comes further and
further out of your vaginal entrance. As your baby's head is crowning your baby will do a little
dance off two steps forward one step back. With each contraction, your baby's head will gradually
emerge until the head pops out and then normally, with a final contraction, your baby's body will
come out. My sixth tip is to keep your upper body relaxed. When we experience pain or discomfort of
any kind, our automatic reaction is to frown, clench our jaw and raise our shoulders up like this...
During childbirth, this is the worst possible thing that you can do because what it does is it
decreases the amount of space in your abdominal area and it can make pushing and birthing your
baby harder. Please remember to relax your forehead, keep your jaw loose and limp and keep
your shoulders down so that you can push your baby out more easily and comfortably. My seventh and
final tip is to ask your care team to provide gentle reassurance and encouragement to you
as you are pushing your baby out. This might be something that you want to include on your
birth preferences sheet so that your care team know exactly what you want them to say to you
as you are birthing your baby. Great things to hear during the pushing stage of labour are "You're
doing so well" "That was a great push!" "Your baby's head is nearly out" "You're going to be holding your
baby really soon!" "You're doing so well keep going just a little bit longer." Maybe your birth partner
can say "I love you! I'm so proud of you, you've got this girl. Keep going, we're nearly there now"
All of those things are what my sister and my partner told me when I was pushing my baby out and
my midwives were also really good. They were saying "That was a great push you're doing so well Anja,
keep going!" Maybe signpost your care team towards this video or at
least your birth partner so they know good things they could say to you as you're pushing your
baby out. Thanks so much for watching this video today, I hope you found it useful and informative.
Let me know in the comments section if you've got any questions about pushing and also let me
know which pushing tip you liked most:) If you're keen to join one of my free hypnobirthing taster .
sessions, please click the link in the video description below and if you want to learn
how to do perineal massage to reduce your risk of tearing in childbirth, please make sure that
you watch my perineal massage video on my channel. Take care and see you again soon :)