Is Play in Your Birth Plan?

When is the last time you played? Maybe you played with your children rolling around playing airplane on the floor landing in a cloud of giggles. Maybe you played with your partner intimately, who surprised you with a new intimate movement or a new position taking you out of your comfort zone, out of your head, and into your heart and your partner’s hands – responding with your senses.

How do you respond sensually and with giggles to prompts at birth? Who is their to help you get out of your head?

Ina May will tell you to “let your monkey do it!”

So is play in your birth plan? Do you have something that will get your out of your routine and out of your comfort zone and into uncertain footing where you can rock on waves of pleasure and joy? Even in birth – which challenges us to trust and travel on uncertain footing – we can still try and hold onto routines and comforts so it is important to have someone or some things that will help you out, traveling into the unknown.

Some ideas how to put play into your birth plan… Dance with your doula. Do lap squatting. Kiss- big open-mouth kisses with your partner, zone in on your breathing and mesmerizing songs from your playlist, let your partner jump in the water with you- floating and playing both physically and metaphorically.

With your music playing and a safe place to move, take a minute to write your name with your pelvis. First middle and last name, swaying your hips, write your baby’s name, write yourself an affirmation of love and when you are ready begin to move around your room expanding into the space and allowing yourself to dance your dreams for birth.

In Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, she talks about “shaking the apple tree” and writes that “Laboring women often appreciate how relaxing it is to be jostled rhythmically.” Have you surprised a mother by gripping her thigh muscles and shaking? “Sometimes the woman’s partner shakes her bottom up and down or side to side; sometimes we roll the backs of her thighs.”

This can also be done with a rebozo with the Rebozo Tushi roll by taking a rebozo or long piece of cotton fabric, wrap the clothes around a woman’s bottom from her lower back to her upper thighs. Make a candy wrapper handle on either side, twisting the material so that the cloth is snug. Holding both handles, jiggle them gently creating swaying movement of the hips.

The movements often bring a smile, or a laugh. In between surges, I offer massage and touch or continue swaying her hips. When women smile, relax, move and visualize, these all are elements of moving from pain to pleasure. I often say we can see the rebozo look of pleasure on her face as she softens, releases and the relaxation is visible. This is play.

How will you work play into your birth wishes and preferences? Please share with us here in the comments.

Come play with us in our Online Childbirth Class! Let us guide you to find more fun and pleasure in birth! Learn more now.

Enjoy this video – especially the ladies in exercise class who break into spontaneous dancing – this is play. Shylah Ray Sunshine -in her song ‘ Existence” sings one of my favorite lines: “You are so powerful! You are the one you have been waiting for!” “Guided by instinct, intuition, don’t think.”