We all know about birth tools like affirmations and hip squeezes, birth balls and birth pools, but did you know that regular household items can be used as tools for pain relief? Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share with you some fun and not-so-commonly thought of birth tools in my birth bag.
Scenario 1: you’re in labor. Your back is where you’re feeling all your contractions. It’s been a long labor, and you need rest. Your poor husband is exhausted and practically fell asleep while doing counterpressure. Your doula is with you, doing hip squeezes and massage and pressing on your sacrum, but nothing seems to be really relieving that pain, even when you’re not contracting. What to do? Tennis ball! If you are sitting in the bed, you can use a tennis ball behind your back to press on your sacrum to help keep your middle pelvis open, allowing baby to move down toward your cervix. During contractions your doula can put her hand behind the ball, forcing it to put more pressure, alleviating some of the intensity of the contraction.
Scenario 2: the labor pains feel like they’re going to crack your pubic bone in half! The baby isn’t moving down, so you want the pressure to be opening the upper part of your pelvis, but that head feels like it’s pressing right on your pubis. What can you do? Tennis ball! Place that tennis ball above your pubic bone, get in a cat/cow variation pose (hands and knees or elbows and knees) and put the tennis ball in a long cloth or rebozo, right where that pain is, or slightly above, and during the contraction have your doula or partner pull back on that cloth, encouraging baby to move into the pelvis instead of onto the pelvic bone.
Scenario 3: labor is intense, and you need to focus on something else during the contractions other than how they’re making you feel. You want to throttle someone when the waves of the contractions hit, but you don’t necessarily want to spend the first hours of parenthood in a holding cell. What is another option? Tennis ball! Squeezing the tennis ball can be a great distraction from the intensity, helping you to use that energy of frustration or tension to put pressure on the ball instead of breaking the bones in your partner’s hand or worse.
What do you think? Will a tennis ball make it into your birth bag? Would you consider this as a possible tool for coping?
DoulaWise 