My Birthing story and Acupressure during labour.

My first blog post! Yay! How does one decide what to write for their first blog post? Well, I figured it's probably best to start from the beginning of this crazy journey called parenting. That which is childbirth.

I gave birth both times completely au naturel. It wasn't totally planned that way, I was open to the idea of drugs and pain killers - you name it - but my husband and I figured we'd give it a go at our home with a midwife and see what happened. The hospital, after all, was only 2 blocks away from our house should anything happen. We joked that he could push me over to the ER in a wheel barrel if need be. In the meantime, we got a birthing pool, took hypno-birthing lessons to "breathe your baby out", and prepared with soft meditation cd's. Well, after 10 hours of labour and some incredibly painful contractions, I was ready to throw those cd's out the window and hop in that wheel barrel! Exhausted, I begged the midwife to take me to the hospital and let doctors take over. She insisted, however, that we try a few alternatives first. She checked my baby's position and found that her head was tilted and therefore stuck on the inside of my pelvis. With just a few acupressure points, we should be able to open my hips enough to allow the baby to cruise through my vaginal canal - no problemo. So I lay on the bed and waited for that intense pain to hit with a contraction. When it did, I could feel my midwife pushing hard on my sacrum right around what is called the liao points. These are 8 bilateral points (4 on each side: BL31-34) in the indentations on the sacrum (tailbone). Everyone's got em, it's just a matter of digging deep and finding them. My midwife also pulled on one side of my pelvis to help open my hips and, voila, released my baby's head from her stuck position. With that, my first daughter was born only 29 minutes later, in a pool of water in our living room. Magic.

Acupressure is effective and anyone can do it. That's why I love it and always recommend as well as practice at home on my kids. Acupressure, like acupuncture, can help with a number of issues but when it comes to pregnancy, it's especially good at encouraging labour and pain relief during. Here is a great resource for those pregnant mamas out there, courtesy of the ever so lovely Debra Betts: Natural pain relief techniques for childbirth using Acupressure.