Sometimes, options for labor pain relief can’t quite take the edge off the way you’d like. However, using your five senses as a way to distract or move your mind elsewhere can be a good way of managing the pain.
Hearing – Music & Silence
Music helps provide relaxation during birth and relieves tension. With music, your support people are also more likely to be relaxed and quieter and minimise their own conversations so you can go into your own private birth space inside your head without interruption. Check out some Top Rated Pregnancy Music
.
Taste – Long Lasting Foods
Using a variety of long lasting foods, particularly ones that you can suck on such as hard lollies, is a great way to keep distracted as well as keep up your energy while you labor. Try and go with lollies on a stick, so you have something to both bite on and have less choking risk if they’ll be in your mouth for awhile.
Although some hospitals have a policy that women cannot eat during labor, this is actually based on outdated information that has been disproved in multiple studies. Not eating and drinking during labor can lengthen your labor and wear you out faster.
Touch – Massage, Light Touches, Romance
Romance during labor? Yes! Touch has many benefits during labor. Physical contact including touching and kissing releases oxytocin, which can help speed up labor and ease the pain. If you are tensing a muscle, just a light touch from a support person on that muscle can help you subconsciously relax it.
Massage can help with labor pain, too. A simple to use product like Nukkles is a great way to provide even pressure without wearing out your support person too fast.
Sight – Making Yourself At Home
Medical equipment can look sterile and uninviting. Bring along some things you can look at while you labor – whether it’s a pillow in a brightly patterned case or some family holiday photos. Photos in particular can help you visualise a different location in your mind as a distraction from pain.
As labor progresses, you’ll want to internalise and go into ‘labor land’. Darkness helps with this, so turn out the lights and close your eyes.
Smell – Sweet and Memorable
Smell is often a forgotten sense but it’s no less important, especially during labor. Strong hospital smells can be unnerving and subconsciously impact on your relaxation during labor. You can bring along an item that has a memorable smell that reminds you of something you really like or look into doing Labor Essential Oil Aromatherapy
and using a range of oils to relax and calm you during labor.
Susannah is a certified Birth Doula through Childbirth International and the founder of Trimester Talk. With a background in journalism and digital strategy, she combines evidence-based research with real-world knowledge to create accessible content about pregnancy and parenting. She’s a mother of two and stepmother of two more, all of them now teenagers.