Podcast: Pain in Childbirth with Host, Megan Rossiter
Pain in Childbirth with Host, Megan Rossiter
Season 3, Episode 12
It's a solo episode from me this week, talking in detail about pain in birth.. let's explore together-
What causes pain in labour?
What does birth feel like?
What is the purpose of pain in birth?
Why most conversations about pain relief have got totally the wrong angle!
Which elements of this are within our control?
Everything you need to know, before you can even start considering what sort of pain relief options you might like to use in labour.
Please subscribe, rate and review! So we can get this vital info to as many parents to be as we can!
TRANSCRIPT
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I know right now you have no idea what to expect from birth, what it's going to feel like, how it's going to pan out.
And so what you thought was going to be this glowing experience of pregnancy has turned you into a bunch of nerves.
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Available worldwide for just £40 or $50, sign up now via the link in the show notes.
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Welcome to The birth-ed podcast.
If you're new here, I'm Megan, your host and founder of Birth-ed, the warm, gentle voice you need in your ear when you're navigating this vulnerable time of pregnancy.
The birth-ed podcast brings together world-leading experts in all things pregnancy, birth, postpartum, women's health and parenting, giving you the kind of in-depth knowledge, nuanced conversation and words of wisdom that you deserve when you're preparing for birth and becoming a parent.
I can't wait to share today's episode with you.
Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next one.
Let's go.
Hi guys, welcome back to the birth-ed podcast.
It is me on my own.
There is no guest this week.
I'm going to be bringing you a few more solo episodes.
And in today's episode, I want to talk to you about pain, pain in labor.
Now, if you've not done a hypnobirthing course before, you might think this is quite an obvious topic in the realms of childbirth.
If you have done a hypnobirthing course, not the birth-ed one, another one before, you may have been told to avoid using the word pain, avoid focusing on pain, talking about pain, et cetera.
Personally, I try to reflect the language that the women I'm supporting are using, and most people are concerned about experiencing pain in their births, or would describe their previous experience of giving birth as painful.
Now, I don't believe that the purpose of hypnobirthing, or the aim of a satisfying birth experience should be for it to be pain-free in inverted commas.
So this really isn't a focus of the way that I talk about pain in childbirth on the birth-ed course.
But I do feel like we need to talk about pain before we can start talking about pain relief.
So before you can learn about epidurals, gas and air, breathing techniques, massage, opioids, TENS machines, whatever it is, we need to understand what causes pain in birth and why.
Like what is its purpose?
And I actually asked thousands of women in the birth-ed community to describe what the sensations of birth felt like to them.
And I asked them for detail, something more specific than it really, really hurt.
And we got a huge variety of responses.
So the sensation of pain could be in your bump, it could be in your back, it could go down your legs, it could feel like a cramping sensation that kind of comes and goes, it could feel constant, it could feel like period pain, it might feel like a kind of deep ache if you can picture where your cervix is, it can feel like a totally unmanageable pain, or it can feel actually completely doable.
And what you'll find if you ask thousands of women the same question, is that the way that the sensation is described is very, very individual.
It can be different from person to person, and even from birth to birth within the same body.
And it is not just as simple as, we all have different pain thresholds, which is I think what the kind of assumption that we make is, you know, I've got a very high pain threshold, so I'm gonna be fine, or I've got very low pain threshold, I'm never gonna be able to manage it.
And this is actually a really helpful question to ask anyone that you know who has had a baby.
You know, what did it feel like?
And not, you're not looking for the response that it hurt or it was painful, but like, can you actually describe what the sensation felt like?
Where was it?
How frequently did it come?
What did it feel like in between?
Can you describe what it felt like your body was doing?
It's really, really revealing.
And if you are speaking to somebody that you can ask lots of questions to, see if you can get any more details about their birth and sort of link that to the way that they're describing the sensations that they are feeling.
And once you have listened to this whole episode and you understand what impacts the level of pain that we experience in birth, you might be able to apply this to inform the choices that you're making for your own birth.
So what we want to kind of understand as a very, very first step is what causes pain in labor or what impacts the level of pain that you might feel when you're giving birth.
And there's sort of five things I would say.
So first of all is simply power.
Your muscles, the muscles of the uterus working at their maximum capacity.
The second one, I'm gonna talk through these all in detail as we go.
The second one is something called the fear, tension, pain cycle.
So basically the way that fear and tension impact the pain that we feel.
The third one is the environment that you are in.
The fourth one is the position of your baby.
And the fifth one is labor onset or intervention.
So how does labor start?
What happens along the way?
And some of these things on this list are totally out of our control.
Nothing that we can do about them, the things that are going to impact the pain levels for absolutely everybody that is giving birth.
But quite a lot of them, we actually have like a decent amount of influence over.
And so this episode isn't actually going to be about pain relief as we think of it.
But I suppose on, how can you describe it?
Like pain management.
Now you might be feeling like scared of feeling pain in labor.
You might have given birth before and you found it really hard and you're thinking, oh my God, I can't believe I've got to do that again.
How on earth am I going to be able to manage it?
Maybe you've never been in labor and you're really worried about what to expect and whether or not you're going to be able to cope with the painful sensations that you might experience.
And I want to, I suppose, reassure you that eliminating pain really doesn't have to be the aim.
What we are, what I'm going to aim to do with you in this episode is, I suppose, to reframe the way that we are thinking about pain.
Because pain has several really important purposes in labour.
I'm going to talk you through what they are, but when we get to understand, actually, just how important pain is, it can, I think, alleviate some of the fear that we have around our ability to cope with it, the fact that we might experience it, and give us a little bit of confidence that actually it is part of the design of birth for most people, and that isn't necessarily a negative thing.
So what are the purposes of pain in labour?
First of all, pain tells us how to move and how to behave, what position to be in, where to be, how to move your body.
The positions and movements that feel most comfortable will be supporting the mechanical aspects of birth in some way.
So opening up the pelvis or rotating the baby in some way.
I don't know, if your only comfy position was laying on your back with your legs in the air, this will be because your body needs you to be there.
Maybe it's trying to tip baby back out of the pelvis so that they can rotate.
Maybe it's trying to create a little bit more space.
If you were, I don't know, totally driven to just stamp your right foot through every contraction for a period of 45 minutes.
That is doing something.
It's moving the pelvis in some way.
It is offering some sort of relief.
It's doing something for your baby that is making their passage through the pelvis easier.
Now, these are not pre-made decisions.
We aren't planning in advance what position we're going to birth in or what movements we're going to make.
These are totally instinctive behaviors.
You see women seated, and then as soon as the contraction comes, they have to stand up, or they're getting towards the pushing stage of labor, and suddenly they're going up on their tiptoes, or their knees are turning in.
And you do not need to go away and learn what these things are.
These are instinctive movements that are coming out of your body because your body is responding to painful sensations that it is feeling.
And when we are in an environment in which we feel totally uninhibited, so we can adopt whatever position we want, make whatever sound we want, make whatever movement we want, then we are able to respond to these sensations with ease.
And so that really is the kind of aim, I suppose, for what we are trying to create for ourselves in labor is an environment where we are able to behave in a way that is completely uninhibited.
So that's our first reason for pain, is that it's going to tell us what to do, literally tell us how to behave.
The second reason that pain is helpful to us in labor is that when we feel really kind of strong levels of pain, it causes the thinking cognitive part of our brain, the bit that we're all using right now listening to this episode, causes that bit of your brain to completely shut down.
This causes you to move into the instinctive part of your brain where you don't know what time is, you can't make rational decisions, you can't really engage in conversation.
You are simply driven by instinct.
The best way that I can describe what this feels like is I always talk about it as going underwater.
So early on in labor, in between your surgeries or even during them at the beginning of labor, you're probably engaging in conversation, you might be pottering around, you might be eating, you're very much alert.
And eventually you reach a point where you stop replying to people's questions.
It feels like the rest of the world has zoomed out.
It literally feels as if you have gone underwater.
The sounds become muffled, your eyes instinctively close, you feel like you're in almost like your little birth bubble basically.
So when we are in this lucid state of mind, our bodies are easily able to create the hormones that make labour happen.
So the same essential hormones that enable bonding with your baby after they're born, help establish breastfeeding, stop heavy bleeding after birth, really essential physiological processes that are driven ultimately by our brains.
So being forced to move out of the thinking part of our brain and into the instinctive part by pain is a pretty essential part of labour for most people most of the time.
Now, the third thing that, the third purpose, I suppose, of labour is during, the other bit I suppose that people are particularly worried about when it comes to giving birth is the part where baby is actually born.
Sometimes you might hear things like the ring of fire or crowning, the part where baby is literally moving through the opening to the vagina.
So baby is coming through the birth canal in this kind of expulsive stage of labour, and pain during this stage of labour actually has a really, really important purpose.
What it is doing is the sort of, it's giving us feedback on how the body is starting to stretch open.
And when we feel pain, our reaction is to hold back a little bit.
And what this enables us to do is to basically gently stretch the tissues of the perineum, protecting us from tearing.
So ideally, we want to remain as undisturbed as is humanly possible during this part of labour.
So the only feedback that we are tuning into is our own.
So even if the support that we're getting at this part of labour is very encouraging, because of the part of the brain that we are in when we are giving birth, we can basically start to second-guess what these words mean, what this information means.
You might be kind of told, oh, you're doing really well, we can see baby's head, oh, they've got lots of hair.
And this happened to me actually in my second birth, and because you have no idea whether you have been pushing for five minutes or five hours, I heard, oh, you're so close, you're so close, we can see the baby, they're right there.
In my head, I was like, oh, they're telling me that like, he's so close, just hurry up, please, just do it a bit better, a bit quicker.
And the intention was so kind and so helpful, but that is what my brain lept to was, oh my God, has it been ages, does he need to be born right, right, right now?
And it can sometimes disrupt the actual really tuning into what does your baby and your body need?
What pace do they need during this part of labour?
And if you are listening to this, and perhaps this is the first of our podcast episodes that you've listened to, maybe you haven't listened to loads on, you haven't done much of your birth prep yet.
What I'm talking about might be going against completely everything that you think about this kind of pushing stage of labour.
You know, watch any movie ever, and we go, take a deep breath, turn on your chest, and we scream, and we scream, and we scream.
And what we know is that that kind of pushing, basically directed pushing, somebody else telling us how and when to push, makes outcomes worse for the baby and increases the rate of tearing.
So it's definitely something that we want to avoid.
And wherever possible, really, really tuning in to our body's own sensations.
And when we feel pain, and that pain is telling us to move to a different position, to push a little bit less, to hold back, to breathe deeply, whatever it is, then pain has a very, very helpful purpose in this part of labour.
Fourth thing that pain can do for us in labour, the fourth purpose of pain, is that pain tells us if something isn't right.
When the pain is too unbearable to manage, it is not giving us a break, or it appears to be in a strange place.
It can be indicative of another issue at play, like malposition or a complication of some kind.
So pain is your body's way of communicating this with us, telling us something isn't right.
It does this every single day.
Normally when we feel pain, day to day, it's because something isn't right.
So with regards to pain telling us something about baby's position, we have a fantastic podcast episode back in series two.
I think it's called Something Like Your Baby, Your Pelvis and Labour Dystocia with midwife Molly O'Brien, where we talk about specifically what kind of pain or sensations to look out for.
Now that episode is particularly good listen if you have had a baby before and you experienced back pain, felt like your pelvis was exploding, you had a very long labour, or you had an unplanned cesarean or an instrumental birth.
And I think a lot of people find answers in there about things that they have been wondering about for a very long time.
So certainly sometimes pain can be a sign that baby is not maybe in such a good position.
And it might mean that then we can do something about it.
So it might mean that we can, you know, find a new position, do a particular stretch or release or something to then get baby into a better position.
Most of the time, if we just listen to our bodies, our bodies are very good at correcting baby being in a difficult position.
It might ask you to do some very strange things like lie with your legs in the air or do little nudgy pushes in an earlier part of labour.
I don't know, go on your tiptoes, take deep squats, lunge, run around, stamp your feet, whatever.
But often our bodies are very good at correcting it.
And if they aren't, there are potentially things that we can do to intervene to correct malposition.
Similarly, pain that doesn't sound described like labour pains is a really important flag for complications of labour.
Like if you were having a V-back, a vaginal birth after a caesarean, and you felt really constant pain with no let up in between, this could potentially be a red flag for something like eutridicence or rupture.
If you're feeling pain in a certain part of your back, it might indicate kidney issues or something going on with your bladder.
And don't worry, you don't have to be able to diagnose these things in yourself, but a good midwife should be able to look at an entire clinical picture and pick up on whether or not the pain you are feeling, that you're experiencing, that you're describing, whether that is normal and expected or not.
Maybe it's giving us a clue about something else.
So those are the reasons why, in my opinion, pain is actually a very normal and helpful aspect of experiencing labour.
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This episode is brought to you in partnership with Hot Tea Mama.
As you edge ever closer to meeting your baby, I always recommend creating a little evening ritual to connect with your baby, find focus and relax.
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But why is it then, Megan, why is it sometimes too painful?
And how do we manage this?
Now, most conversations around pain management in labour involve a list of things you can reach for to reduce the pain you are already experiencing.
So this can be anything.
They might be holistic things like a pool or massage techniques, or they might be pharmacological things, opioids, gas and air, epidurals, essentially what we are doing here is waiting for the pain to reach a level that we can't manage and then reaching for a sticky plaster to try and squash it back down again.
And this is absolutely helpful and probably a welcome aspect of pain management in labour for a lot of people.
But for me, this is only half the picture.
The bit that is missing here is, I suppose, the anchoring down of the pain in the first place.
So rather than pain rising and us trying to squash it back down again, how can we get a hold of it before it even starts to grow to really minimise the amount of pain that we ever feel in the first place?
Now, I'm really sorry.
This doesn't mean you're going to be able to guarantee a pain-free birth, though a number of women using the birth-ed method have genuinely described their experience as powerful, not painful, less painful than they expected.
And even in my own birth, two completely different birth experiences, both really positive.
My first was an induction in hospital.
Lots of amazingness about it, but I would still to this day describe it as very painful, even with all of the hypnobirthing tools and techniques, everything that we teach in the birth-ed course, utilize all of those, I would still describe those sensations as painful.
My second labor, well, the circumstances were quite different.
I had an induction in my first labor.
Second labor was spontaneous and was at home.
I was essentially completely undisturbed for the whole of the labor.
And it was a shorter labor.
Then I basically was waiting for it to reach the same level that it reached the first time, and it never got further than what I would describe as a six out of ten.
And by the time we got to a six out of ten, he was born.
And then that was it.
It was all a big surprise.
But so what utilizing these tools and techniques will do is ensure that you remain comfortable for longer and that the pain you do experience is as minimal as it ever needs to be.
So it may still be something that you describe as really painful because not every aspect of birth is going to be in our control.
But it will mean that you're not just layering on any totally unnecessary pain.
So let's recap.
What causes pain?
The power of contractions, literally the muscles working at their maximum capacity, the fear, tension, pain cycle, the environment that we are in, the positioning of our baby when we are in labour, and labour onset, how labour starts.
So I'm going to talk you through these in a little bit more detail.
So first of all, the power of the contractions, the muscles working at their absolute maximum capacity.
This here is ultimately not within our control.
The muscles really are going to need to work very, very hard.
And we can avoid the buildup of things like lactic acid in the muscles by ensuring the muscles of the uterus have everything they need to work well.
So for our muscles to work well, they need glucose and oxygen.
This can be supported in labour by staying well fed and hydrated, breathing techniques, avoiding any adrenaline triggers, which I'll talk about in a bit, and our ability to manage the endurance of labour.
The longer we can ignore it, the shorter labour is going to feel.
The less attention we give it early on, the more comfortable it's going to feel because it's literally going to feel shorter.
So those aspects of it are within our control, but in terms of just how hard the muscles are working, that is something that absolutely has to happen for labour to work.
The next thing on the list was the fear, tension, pain cycle.
Now, this certainly is something that we do have control over to a point.
What we mean by the fear, tension, pain cycle is imagine right now that you are feeling afraid of something.
What is going on in your body?
Say right now, I've got my fists clenched, my toes curled, my teeth gritted, my shoulders are up.
This tends to be the kind of physicality that we adopt when we are feeling afraid.
Now, if we go into labour and we are feeling afraid of anything that is happening or of labour itself and we really tense up, we hold this tension throughout our body, when we hold tension in our muscles, it literally makes our muscles harder to do their job and makes, when the muscles are doing their job, makes them feel more painful.
I actually supported a family, and there must have been years ago now, who were both professional swimmers.
And when I was talking to them about this, they were saying, oh, this is exactly the same as swimming.
And I imagine you can translate this to any sport, where essentially, the harder you try, the more tension you put into those muscles, actually, the less fast you swim, the slower you swim.
And you need the relaxation in the muscles for them to perform at their best.
And we can translate this totally over to birth, so basically we need those muscles to be relaxed.
And the way that this is within our control, this is where the birth-ed hypnobirthing techniques essentially come into their own.
First of all, working throughout pregnancy on alleviating any unfounded or unrealistic, irrational fears or anxieties that we have got about birth so that we don't go into labour and then literally feel afraid of things that we don't need to feel afraid of.
So that is things like hypnosis, guided relaxations, affirmations, those kinds of tools.
And then also tools for actually helping you physically relax your body.
So that might be guided relaxations, talking you through the physical relaxation of your body.
That might be breathing techniques, massage techniques, literally alleviating tension in the body.
The next thing that is on our list is environment.
And we do have a lot of control over our environment.
Now, the reason that environment is important when it comes to the amount or type of pain that we are experiencing is, first of all, if you go back, don't go back now after this episode, go back if you haven't already and listen to the second podcast episode in this series, which is another solo episode from me on the birth-ed approach to hypnobirthing, where I talk through in a lot of detail the nervous system and the hormones that we need in order to give birth.
Now, in an absolute nutshell, in order for the hormones that we need to give birth to work, we need to feel safe, relaxed, unobserved and undisturbed.
So when we feel safe, relaxed, unobserved and undisturbed, we are quite easily able to create the hormones that we need for birth.
So, namely, oxytocin, which I'm going to talk about in a minute, and then melatonin, your sleepy hormone, that aids physical relaxation.
And we know that physical relaxation makes us feel more comfortable.
And also endorphins, they're your body's natural pain-relieving hormone.
So simply being in labour is going to get your body to produce endorphins.
But we need to be in this state where we feel safe, relaxed, unobserved and undisturbed in order for these hormones to be created.
So when we're thinking about the environment, we're thinking on like a big scale, like actually where are you giving birth?
Are you giving birth in a hospital, on a birth centre, at home?
Where do you feel safe, relaxed, unobserved and undisturbed?
And then thinking slightly more micro, the actual space that you are in, what does that look like?
Who is in there?
And really simple things can completely transform how a space feels.
If the lights are on and there's lots of people staring at us, we're very unlikely to feel unobserved, undisturbed, relaxed.
If the lights are turned off and the only people in that space are people that we know and trust, then we're much more likely to feel relaxed and able to behave in a way that is kind of totally uninhibited.
So that is what we need from our environment to ensure that we are creating hormones that make us feel comfortable, to ensure that we can move in a way that makes us feel comfortable.
So quite literally reducing the pain that we are feeling before it's even happened.
The third thing that is on the list is positioning.
So this is positioning of your baby when you are in labour.
So I've talked through this a little bit above, and so it's definitely worth going back to listen to that podcast episode with Molly O'Brien.
And there are things that we can do to control this to a point.
Things like mobilising in pregnancy, so remaining active if you are able, like bodywork in pregnancy.
We've got another great podcast episode with an osteopath that can talk you through like physical therapy, osteopathy, chiropractic, women's health physio, those kinds of things, just to kind of check that everything is well balanced and in order.
And then it goes back, I suppose, goes back to environment, creating an environment for us to labour in, where we are uninhibited enough to be able to choose our own positions, to be able to move however we need to move in order to give your baby the opportunity to get into a good position.
So mobilizing and labour, not laying on your back in a bed, unless for the one in a hundred women, where that is genuinely where they feel most comfortable, giving yourself an environment that has got plenty of options, plenty of places you can go, plenty of ways that you can lean on, ways that you can move.
And that is, regardless of where you actually intend to give birth, go now and look around your house and think, if you're going to spontaneous labour, most of your labour is going to be in your home.
So go and look around your house and go, actually, where can I lean?
How can I sit on this sofa?
Can I lean over the back of the sofa?
Can I kneel on the floor and put my hands on the sofa?
Where can I create a little nest?
Where do I feel most safe?
Where do I feel most private?
You might want to lock yourself in the bathroom, in the shower.
Wherever you feel most comfortable is very, very important for labour.
And then the final thing is labour onset or intervention in labour.
So what I'm referring to here is whether or not labour starts spontaneously, like on its own, or whether labour starts with an induction, and whether labour progresses on its own or whether it is sped up along the way using some of the steps of an induction.
Now, I'm not going to go into tonnes of detail on induction here, as we do talk through that in terms of what is involved in loads of detail on the Birth Ed Online course.
But we do know, and it is something that should be shared with you as part of decision making, it is in guidance that it should be shared with you around decision making for induction of labour, that contractions in an induction feel physically different to contractions that start in our bodies naturally.
So in short, this is to do with the way that oxytocin is produced in our brain versus how synthetic oxytocin is pushed into our bodies.
So when we go into labour spontaneously, so our body has decided we are ready to go into labour, this is oxytocin is made in our brain, and there are a few key differences.
So first of all, because it is made in our brain, it affects our brain.
It literally makes us feel good emotionally.
Second of all, when it's created in our brain, it's created in waves.
So essentially pacing the messages that the uterus receives, making it easier to manage.
And thirdly is that it is made as part of a cocktail of hormones that make labour feel better.
So things like endorphins and melatonin that literally make us feel more comfortable and relaxed.
Now, on the flip side, synthetic oxytocin.
You might see this if you're American or you have read stuff online.
Sometimes you see it called pitocin.
In the UK, we call it centocin.
This is pumped into our bodies at a steady rate.
So what this means is we can go from 0 to 60 very quickly.
Basically, it's turned up until we're having three to four contractions in 10 minutes.
So we don't get that nice buildup that you frequently get with a spontaneous labor.
We don't get the lovely cocktail of hormones that help us manage what we're feeling.
They're literally just giving the synthetic oxytocin, which is basically the thing that causes the uterus to contract and relax.
And it doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier.
So it's not going into our brains.
It's not making us feel good in the way that labor, oxytocin created in our brains does.
Now, is this in our control?
Yes and no.
Yes, in the sense that induction is always our decision.
We are seeing it used at a tremendously high rate, much higher than can possibly be necessary.
We have a fab podcast episode with Dr.
Sarah Wickham at the beginning of Sarah Series 3, which is so worth a listen around the decision-making bit, especially that at least half, probably more of us, are going to face decisions around whether or not to have an induction of labour.
So yes, in that sense.
If we have made the informed choice to accept an induction of labour, then less so, not totally out of our control.
We still have control over the pace at which it's happened to a point.
We can always ask for time.
You can ask for it to be lowered or turned off if you wish.
I mean, that needs a whole podcast episode on itself.
And we do discuss your choices around induction in the course as well.
But just because you have accepted it, it doesn't mean that you now hand yourself over until the baby is out.
But in terms of how actual synthetic oxytocin works within your bodies, can we control that?
No.
So this is where you need to start when you're thinking about how to manage this pain in labour.
So it isn't just straight to the NHS webpage about pain relief options, but what choices are you making during pregnancy and labour that will literally be influencing the type and intensity of the sensations that you are experiencing?
Once we have controlled all of these aspects, then we move on to making decisions about what actual pain relieving tools and techniques we may or may not need.
And that is a whole other podcast episode for another day.
And of course, we cover all of these in details on the birth-ed course, everything from the non-pharmacological options like breathing, pool, massage techniques, right through to the stronger medical options like opioids, like pethadine, epidurals.
Something that the birth-ed approach sets us apart, I suppose, from most other birth prep is the honesty and zero judgment in the way that we have these conversations.
So you get the pros and cons of everything, tips on managing the potential side effects or risks of each intervention, and then to feel totally empowered to say either, no, I don't think I want that, or yes, I bloody do.
And the sense of self-trust to change your mind if you want to on the day.
I really feel that, you know, you're a fully grown, intelligent adult.
You don't need my opinions on whether or not you should use certain types of pain relief.
What you need is a decent understanding and a reframing of what pain in labour is for, which hopefully you now have, some really useful tools and techniques to use during pregnancy and to aid decision making about your birth, to minimise the pain that you ever feel in labour, and an honest exploration of all your pain relief options.
So all of that comes in our course.
Then quite simply, to be trusted to make your own decisions.
And I completely trust that once you have those things presented in the right way, you will be able to make those choices for yourself, confidently, in whatever set of circumstances you find yourself in on the day.
So I hope that this podcast episode has really reframed some of the things that you might have been worrying about when it comes to experiencing pain and birth.
Hopefully really given you some confidence in the sensations that you might feel and your ability to manage and control them.
And if you would like to know a little bit more about the actual pain relief options, to dive even deeper into the conversations that we've been having today, then I would really love to support you through our online course.
So head over to our website and you can join us.
You can literally access it instantly today to carry on with this conversation.
But that is all we have got time for.
It was lovely chatting.
Thank you so much for listening to The birth-ed podcast.
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