Starting last week, and continuing for the next few weeks, we’re discussing odd labor tools. Household items that you may not immediately associate with coping tools during labor. This week is combs and brushes! So how do you use a comb or brush?
Scenario 1: you’re having an induction and things are slow at progressing. You need a distraction from the boredom. A comb or brush! Brushing your hair and fixing it up for the big moment to come can be a great occupier of time. It keeps you from feeling like you’re doing nothing while your body is doing the longest part of labor: the thinning and shortening of the cervix to prepare for dilation.
Scenario 2: during labor you’re finding yourself hyper focused on the power of the sensations of the contractions rather than working to relax and allowing the contractions to work within your body to bring baby down and out. What can help? Combs! holding a comb in one or both hands at the top of the hand can hit pressure points to reduce the sensation of the contractions.
Scenario 3: you’ve tried the pressure point in the top of your hand and it’s not seeming to work as well as you’d like. Now what? Combs or brushes! Using the comb or a brush on other parts of your hands or the tops of your thighs can actually cut off the signals of contractions sensations. It’s called the Gate Control Theory, which states that your brain can only process so many things at once, and feeling the tines pressing into the skin doesn’t register as painful, and the contraction also doesn’t register as intense.
What about your labor plans? Will you be packing combs or a brush in your birth bag to use for pain management? What’s your preference: do you prefer the feeling of a wooden or plastic comb or brush?
DoulaWise 