How To Be a Great Birth Coach … I Mean You!

You and your wife/partner are pregnant and later this year she’ll give birth to your child. Talking about the birth, she says to you. ‘You’ll be there for me, won’t you?’ And you think to yourself. ‘Hum, women have always had babies, she must know how to give birth.’ So you wonder ‘What does she mean ‘be there?’

You know she wants this answer so you say ‘Sure I’ll be there’ (hidden meaning … physically present) but you have a suspicion she means something else. In fact you wonder what your job should be. You figure women know how to birth and the doctor or midwife will take care of her. What's left? Your wife or partner reassures you to 'just be there for me.' 

Pregnancy advances … as it does. Your wife or partner reads lots of books, encouraging you to do the same but they all seem to be about her. You’ve got a very clear message something IS expected of you. The classes are full of information and decision making. You also discover your role is to ‘support’ her in labour. Ahha! 'Being there and supporting her' must mean you help make a Birth Plan? 

You've placed your hopes on the childbirth class to teach you how to 'be there and support'. Sure you can hold her hand, rub her back and wipe her back, but in the back of your mind you know your wife or partner is telling you she has high expectations of you. 

The Big Day approaches … as it does. You start to refine your birth role by asking your wife ‘What exactly am I supposed to do?’ Your wife or partner’s response is often hardly enlightening … ‘Just be there for me and help if I need help’.

Well, that’s the clincher.

What does ‘help’ mean? But you reassure her you’ll help when the time comes. Inside you still have a nagging conflict ‘If she doesn’t know how to birth, I’m not a woman, men have never given birth so how am I supposed to know what she’ll be feeling?’ In an unsettling way, you know birth will be a monumental experience but you don't really feel prepared even with all the preparation.

Help and How-to is on the way. 

What you need are great coaching skills!  Childbirth is very energetic not unlike an athletic effort and yes, you need to coach rather than support. Giving support is great but it lacks the quality of being able to help. Coaching combines supportive factors such as ‘being there’, holding her hand, wiping her forehead and giving a massage with the ability to give guidance when labour pains are intense. Women do not want to feel out of control or overwhelmed by the naturally occurring pain of childbirth.

Your wife or partner wants you to know how to help her cope.

Men have great natural tendencies.

1. Men love to do practical and how-to things.

2. Men have great seeing and hearing skills.

3. Men share the same body as women … same bones and muscles and we all blink, cough and can tighten up or relax our muscles.

4. And here’s a secret. All men were born from a woman’s body so birth is hardwired within men’s cells. No woman has ever been inside a man’s body.

Here’s another secret.

Women don’t ‘just’ know how to birth. It’s a learned experience. Certainly 100% of all pregnant women will give birth one way or another but the experience can range from manageable to being the worst experience ever. Everything depends on how much pain a woman experiences. 

Birth is ‘manageable’ when a woman doesn’t feel overwhelmed by the pain. When there is a lot of pain and without a set of birthing skills, women often feel totally out of control (meaning … experiencing too much pain and not knowing what to do for herself). She is looking for help … from you! That’s what she means when she says ‘You’ll be there for me, won’t you and support me?’ She wants practical and useful help.

And, no that's not your doctor or midwife's job. That is yours.

Truthfully, there is no way to know beforehand what type of birth your wife or partner will have. So, if you know how-to coach you will play a significant, positive role by helping her work with the naturally occurring pain in childbirth rather than feel overwhelmed. 

Knowing how to coach, first requires knowing ‘when’.

How to #1 … Internal Relaxation.

If a woman is tense inside her pelvis (you have a pelvis too!), it’s harder for the baby to come through. Her tension is both a response to pain and increases it. It’s really hard to relax when you experience pain, but unlike most painful experiences in Life, childbirth requires women to do just that.

First the 'When' … ‘See’ The Tension:

In labour if you see your wife or partner’s forehead wrinkled, her body language is telling you that her pain at the moment is sharp and challenging.

What Not-To-Do:

DO NOT  tell her to ‘relax’ or even ‘relax your forehead’.

She KNOWS she should relax and is trying! Be objective. It’s important for her to relax inside her pelvis.

What To Do:

1) Give her this specific sentence. ‘Soften inside your right hip’.  YOU DO THE SAME.

Use the word ‘soften’ because this seems to trigger our ability to change the soft parts of our pelvis better than the word ‘relax’.

2) Continue to give her these ‘what to do’ instructions: ‘Soften inside the bone in your sacrum (* the back bone of your pelvis); soften inside your left hip and soften inside your pubic bone (* the front bone of your pelvis). YOU DO THE SAME IN YOUR OWN BODY WITH EACH INSTRUCTION.

This is how you can help and what she wants from you.

It's important you soften inside your own pelvis. If you don't then you will rush the instruction. When any person hears an instruction, it takes time to process the instruction and then do the action. When you soften or relax inside your own body you will ‘feel’ when to give her the next instruction because your body is ready to soften some place else. All humans speak a common body language. You have just learned a great how to use coach skill specific for childbirth.

She’ll love you for being able to see when she needs help then giving her a reminder to keep softening inside her pelvis. This works with your baby's efforts to be born.

Now ‘hear’ when to help

How to # 2 ... Breath

Breathing doesn’t stop when a woman is in labour, so listen to the sounds of her breathing. Is she experiencing pain? If she is breathing in a way YOU would find relaxing then she is coping with whatever painful sensations she is feeling inside. But if her breathing sounds stressful or in pain to you, then you know it’s time to help immediately. This is the 'when' about breathing.

What Not To Do:

Don’t tell her to breathe better or just 'relax'. 

What To Do:

Model a relaxed type of breathing for her.

1) Breathe in your nose in a relaxed manner.

2) Exhale out your mouth in a relaxed manner.

She’ll follow you. Your wife or partner will love your how-to coach skills. 

Your obstetrician or midwife might not know that you’ve learned how to coach. What they will see is a father who is ‘there and supporting’ his partner. And they love that.

You’ve moved from not knowing how to be 'there and support' to knowing exactly how to help because you can now and see ‘when’ to help and 'how-to'. 

Remember to pass these simples how-to birth coach skills to your son so he doesn't have to feel so uncertain of his role.

Biography:

Wintergreen is a trustee to Common Knowledge Trust which produces The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better®. If you want to know more about how to be a great birth coach then go to www.birthingbetter.comand look on the right hand menu for ‘podcast’ and you’ll learn more how-to skills.