Posts Tagged ‘breathing’

Take one contraction at a time

Posted on November 22, 2009 - by Bradley Hebdon

At 35 weeks pregnant, we’re now approaching the final straight. As part of the final preparations we attended a 9-5 compressed course at Long Beach Memorial, that shed light on labor, breathing, birthing, drugs, etc.  While there was an enormous amount of information and graphic video footage, the thing that stuck with us most was the instructor’s simple statement: “Take one contraction at a time”. 

Well that and one of the couples joking about the birthing video we had just watched. Let’s just say the star of the video was not the most attractive of women. So when they inquired as to whether any of videos included couples more like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, it underlined the subject’s unattractiveness and the fact we are in Los Angeles. We had to admit, they were only saying what we were thinking.

We’ll probably forget some of the breathing techniques, but what we will remember is that it’s all about creating a distraction from the pain.  And most importantly we’re confident that we have the tools to manage pain: humor, breathing, visualization, focus points and drugs IF needed… one contraction at a time.