hey guys it's Alice here back with another spin of the big wheel of birth I am a doula
childbirth educator and I've put all of the previous spins together in a
free course for you called birth a to z grab the link below and get in ok let's spin it
okay today we have walking what does walking have to do with labour walking is a great easy thing to
do in labour and it can be both a comfort measure and a way to help contractions strengthen and come
into a pattern so walking is a great activity - it's it's almost I think like the next activity
to go to after resting so I think if you can an early labour rest as long as possible I mean rest
should be your top priority and we have rest on the wheel that we will get to but after resting
I love walking as an activity and you know as we talked about how movement it's really important
in labour and I'll link to the movement video but movement and let's grab our pelvis movement
we have as our baby is trying to make their way through the pelvis as we've talked about before
there's also pelvis video I'll link to there the pelvis has a lot of joints and it moves as we move
the inlet and the outlet change it changes shape so though this is not available pelvis we can feel
our own pelvis and as we walked how it changes shape and how it moves around and any ways that
we can facilitate that change in our pelvis and help the baby get to where it needs to be walking
is it's one of those options that I really love because first of all there's no training needed
we don't need to see a picture of walking we don't need to practice walking we do it all
the time we can do it anywhere you can actually walk outside and labor if it feels right to you
and it's not not - it's closed - time to go to the hospital you can walk inside a hospital room
if you have to be on a monitor or if you have an IV pole or anything like that it might be
a little bit different outside we'll have more freedom to travel more distance inside we will
have a little it'll be more confined but walking can still be done sometimes I've heard people
say oh I had an IV so I couldn't go walking um that's not the case you can actually as long as
your care team approves it you should be able to walk even with an IV because your support people
your partner whoever supporting you and labor can move the IV pole and even you can do that
if if you don't have a support team with you so walking is definitely something that is we all
do it anyway and it can be great to facilitate that change in your pelvic pelvis now a couple
of tips when you're walking first of all if you can bring some someone with you especially if
you're going to walk outside also bring your water with you so hydration is super important
bring the water along so that you can take sips in between contractions and you don't get too far
away and need need some water so bring someone and bring water with you now if you are walking
outside like in a neighborhood setting and you have access to a curb you know a curb at the edge
of a road sometimes it's it's one strategy that you can do is walk for a little while with one
foot up on the curb and be hard to do that here in Seattle because there's a lot of parking on
the curb but if you have the ability one foot on the curb and one foot off the curb and then turn
around and do the other foot that's kind of like an asymmetrical walk that's pretty cool that you
could try and labor and the other thing to note is just because you're having strong contractions
doesn't mean you can't walk and labor because you can stop during the contraction so I know
we did a video on slow dancing that I'll link here but slow dancing is a great position to pair with
walking so you go with your partner on a walk you walk walk walk when the contraction happens
you turn to your partner lean grab do a little swaying slow dance after that contraction it's
over walk walk walk when the contraction happens do the slow dance after it's over so it's good to
kind of have that strategy ready to go so that when you're out on your walk you don't feel
panicked like here comes a contraction I don't have anything to lean on or you know what to
do have your partner and have a plan so when you go out you know what to do I also probably would
make sure you have some kind of phone or timer or something with you just to keep up you know
keep up to date with what time is it how long you've been out and maybe do a little timing of
the contractions to maybe your partner can do that while you are walking so walking is a great way to
strengthen contractions in labor it certainly is a coping technique when we're looking for those pain
management coping techniques just moving our body and walking can be one great way to to deal with
the contractions to work with the contractions and yeah I highly recommend it so if you found
this video helpful give it a like and you know to subscribe and hit that notification about if you
want notifications of the next video and grab that birth a-to-z course if you'd like an organized way
to find all the previous videos okay guys thanks for hanging out with me today I gotta go on a walk