How to Breathe and Push During Labor | Lamaze

– Hey momma, if you are looking for a way to calmly, safely, and effectively birth your baby you have come to the right place. In this video I’ll be teaching you how to breathe your baby down and out during the pushing stage of labor. Let’s get started. I’m Bridget, and I’m a birth doula in the San Francisco Bay area. And I love helping moms love their birth.

For more tips and tools on how to have a positive birth experience make sure you subscribe to my channel. Click the little bell so you don’t miss any of my future videos. All right, have you ever played that card game on road trips, where as you’re driving up to a tunnel you hold your breath, and see if you can hold it all the way through? If it’s a short tunnel it’s no problem, right? But when they’re long by the end of it your chest feels like it’s burning and about to burst.

And your face is turning red. And your body is screaming for oxygen. Now, imagine after holding your breath in that long tunnel, you come out of it, finally get a breath of air. And you look ahead, and you have another tunnel right in front of you, and you do the same thing. You hold your breath, your chest is tightening, you get red in the face, your body is screaming for air.

And then you finally get to the end of the tunnel and catch your breath, only to find that there’s another tunnel right in front of you. Could you imagine how exhausting that would get? It’d end up being the worst car game ever. But, oftentimes, this is what women expect to do during the pushing stage of labor. And, unfortunately, it’s often even encouraged by a lot of care providers to do.

But in this video I’m going to teach you a different method of breathing that will help you stay calm as you push your body out of your womb and into this world. And that also helps you and your baby get the oxygen that you both need. Listening to your body and breathing alongside the urge to bear down are essential factors in pushing your baby out calmly, effectively, and safely.

So, most of the time when birth takes place at a hospital a midwife, doctor, or nurse will check to see if you are dilated 10 centimeters, and then will continue to manage your pushing stage. Oftentimes, they’ll set you up on your back, often with your legs drawn back or in stirrups.

And then coach you to bear down my taking a deep breath in and holding it for 10 seconds while you push with all your might. Now, having a medical professional check to make sure that you’re at 10 centimeters dilated before you start pushing may help prevent tearing, which could occur if you were to start pushing before you were fully dilated.

Most of the time, however, when your body is telling you to push you’re likely ready or almost ready to begin pushing. So, first, listening to your body will make the biggest difference when it comes to pushing. Once you’re feeling the urge to bear down and are fully dilated pushing begins.

Now, a little side not before we keep going. I do want to mention that even if you have an epidural it’s often better to wait till you have that urge to push, rather than to push just because you’re at a 10 centimeter dilation. Usually, if you have an epidural you’re not going to feel that urge to bear down as soon as your cervix is 10 centimeters dilated. But your contractions are still working on their own to get baby down through your pelvis. And, usually, once they’re low enough you’re going to be able to start feeling enough pressure and the urge to push.

This is typically going to happen when baby’s head is already crowning. So your body is doing a lot of the work on its own without you having to actively push your baby out. Now, it may mean that this stage is a little bit longer. But as long as you and baby are safe waiting this extra amount of time will actually help protect you from pelvic floor injury. Now, I said earlier that most of the time hospital care providers will encourage women to lie on their backs and coach them to push while holding their breath.

Now, the first thing that I want to mention is that unless you have an epidural you can pick whichever pushing position is most comfortable for you. This might be side lying, or sitting, semi squatting, or on all-fours. And if you want a more comprehensive list of labor and birth positions check out this video that I’m linking up here.

In the supine position or the lying reclined on your back with your legs up makes your pelvis smaller. It delivers less oxygen to the baby and is usually the most uncomfortable position to be in.

So choose a position that works for you. This goes along with listening to your body. Now, with that being said let’s revisit our road trip game, where we’re holding our breath tunnel, after tunnel, after tunnel. We’re doing that, it’s ultimately going to lead to exhaustion and oxygen deprivation. Enter J breathing, otherwise known as down breathing.

Or to help you really remember how to do it, moo breathing. These different names will help you remember the function of the breath. Calling it J breathing will help you imagine where the breath is going. In through your mouth, down through your throat to your uterus, through your pelvis, and then out your vagina. Down breathing reminds you where to send your energy, down to your uterus, down to your baby, down to your vagina.

Lastly, moo breathing helps you remember the sound and the feeling of this breath when it’s done correctly. So, how do you do this J down moo breathing, I will tell you. And while we’re practicing I want you to take a deep breath in, but note that while you’re actually pushing during birth you will just follow your instincts. It doesn’t really matter how long or short. You breathe in as long as it feels right to you.

Then, as you breathe out I want you to imagine sending that air down and out through your birth canal.

And I’m going to walk you through how to do that. Now, usually, when you’re breathing out you feel the force of your air exiting your mouth like you’re blowing out a candle. You can test it out by putting your hand in front of your mouth as you exhale. And we can try it together.

(exhales deeply) And you probably feel your air being released, right? But what’s happening when you do that is that you’re energy is being released out this way from your mouth, instead of the energy being released downward through your vagina. Now, obviously, you’re not going to be able to feel your air leaving your vagina while you’re breathing down. But, instead, what you can do to send your energy down is to moo while you are releasing that energy. When you’re mooing your breath is able to focus going down and out.

If you do the hand test like we did earlier when you breathe in, and then moo or down breath, you hardly feel any air against your palms. So, we can try that together now. You’re gonna breathe in. (inhales deeply) And then moo out.

(moos) You can feel a little bit of air against your hand, but not a ton, not like the air where you’re breathing out a candle or blowing out a candle.

And that’s because your energy is focused downward and not being released out of your mouth. Now, you can also do that same kind of breath without making that moo sound if that makes you feel uncomfortable. But I’ve just found that as a good way to help you remember how to make that right and that correct kind of breathing. Practice that as much as you need to. Remember, you want to focus on that, like, (moos) kind of sensation of that breathing, and not so much the (exhales deeply) because you can feel that that releases a lot of energy a lot quicker.

And that mooing sound really focuses that energy and that pushing downward. But pushing doesn’t just end with breathing, although if all you do is breathe while you’re contracting your baby will likely be born on their own anyway without you needing to push. That’s how powerful your body’s contractions are towards the end of your birth.

But, typically, along with breathing you’ll also want to be pushing. So as you’re breathing, as your air is going down with that moo breath and not that (blows air) blowing out a candle breath, imagine your abdominal muscles tightening or squeezing is as that air moves downward.

It’s kind of like when you’re icing a cupcake, and you have to squeeze the bag at the top first in order for the icing to come down toward the opening and then come out. So, as you’re breathing down and mooing, or not mooing, whatever you’re comfortable with, you should feel your tummy tightening from the top to the bottom as you push the air out. So, it’s that tightening and squeezing sensation as you’re breathing that air down and out through your birth canal.

Now, that might be a lot to remember, trying to think of the breath, and the squeezing, as you are pushing. But, honestly, the biggest thing to focus on is breathing.

Because the pushing part will mostly be your body doing the work, and then you respond instinctively. So, at most births that I’ve attended at hospitals a midwife or nurse will encourage closed-glottis pushing or holding your breath while pushing, even if a mom is already pushing using her breath. To avoid this happening to you it’s a good idea to write in your birth plan that you would like to respond to your own urge to push and avoid directed pushing.

This allows you to do what feels best to you when it feels like your body is telling you to do it. And I’ll quickly add that what may feel best to you won’t necessarily be doing this breathing down technique.

Although, for most mommas that I’ve worked with this is what works for them. Maybe you’ll prefer grunting, or groaning, or even holding your breath if that’s what your instincts are telling you. It’s different for every woman. It’s different for every birth. So you have to listen to your body, what it’s telling you to do.

But most importantly, it’s to do what feels good to you, and not do necessarily what your midwife, doctor, or even what your doula is telling you to do.

Bottom line is this, mommas, this is your birth. So you should be the one leading the way. Breathing while you’re pushing can help immensely as you remain calm through the pushing stage and as you send oxygen to yourself and your baby. If this video as helped you make sure you give it a thumbs up.

And if you’re wondering how to breathe through the early and active parts of labor make sure you check out this video. It talks all about how you can breathe from start to finish during your labor. Thanks for watching this video, momma.

And I will see you in the next one..

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