First 5 Nevada County’s Blog

posted by Laurie Chamberlin

“What if I don’t want to practice breathing? It irritates me,” says a very pregnant Marianne during the breathing practice session of our birthing class. I’ve never had anyone say this before and I don’t have an answer right away. So, I take a breath and reply, “It’s probably difficult for you because it is something new. Learning new things can be challenging.”

As a childbirth educator I want to motivate and inspire her to learn. However, my response doesn’t appear to bring Marianne any sort of satisfaction. Some students ears perk up when they hear that breathing helps reduce the pain of labor. How? Breathing acts as a tool to relax muscles and release tension in the body, thereby make contractions easier to cope with. “A relaxed body can cope with contractions better than a tense body,” is a mantra I use during my six week series hoping my students will remember this during labor.  For specific breathing techniques you can visit http://www.babies.sutterhealth.org/

I’m human though, and it bugs me just a bit that I can’t seem to relay to Marianne, and I’m sure other students, just how useful breathing techniques can be to a laboring woman. Always evaluating my teaching effectiveness, I take this comment to heart. I search my soul, my life experience, my birth education for ways to teach this better.

Then it happened. A month or so later I dash into Flour Garden to grab an iced tea. I hear my name and turn to see a no longer pregnant Marianne and a dear little baby girl cradled in her arms. “I wanted you to meet my daughter,” she says. I look at her precious little girl with lots of dark hair sticking straight up sweetly held in her mothers loving arms.

This is what Marianne said to me about her labor.

“I really wish I would have listened to you and practiced the breathing you taught us in class. I was convinced that it wouldn’t help me so I just brushed it off. Even though my labor was really fast and I had a good experience, I wish I’d had my breathing down, especially during transition, it would have helped me deal with the pain! Using breathing techniques would have made my birth experience that much better.”

She is happy with how her labor went overall and I smile. My heart fills with joy. I realize I just found a way to improve the effectiveness of my teaching, by relaying Marianne’s story to future students.