I am so grateful to Molly O’brien @biomechanics_for_birth for sharing her knowledge with us today at her Biomechanics for birth online course. I have known about these movements since I was a student midwife, but I have never seen them in practice. I made the jump into becoming an independent midwife because I understood that there was nothing else for me to learn in the NHS from my colleagues in terms of TRUE midwifery skills. So I figured I had to learn myself.
These are the skills we need in midwifery. I have been faced countless times with women with really slow labours that did not feel right. Some women had long exhausting latent phases with strong painful contractions that went on for 2 days before we “accepted” them in the birth centre. We provided them with the best midwifery care to help them through active labour (low lights, free movement, birth pool, entonox, encouragement, believing in them), but not everyone made it until the end without interventions. Why? Because we didn’t act on the dystopia soon enough, we thought that what they were going through was normal as it’s common. The only tools at our disposal were syntocinon augmentation or pain relief.
Slowly but surely, the biomechanics for birth revolution is coming. Guidelines are being drawn and used in the NHS, more and more midwives receive training on it, so hopefully, we will combat the shocking CS rates that got close to 50% in some hospitals last month.
Of course, let’s not forget that prescribing these movements as ways of midwives taking over births once more will not work. Helping women prepare their bodies for birth the same way they prepare their mind is key. By performing these movements in pregnancy we can relieve tensions, balance the pelvis and make space for babies to get in optimal positions for birth. I still think that the best way on prepare for birth is to connect with our intuition and the wisdom in our bodies, but we also need to free our bodies from years of sedentary life that causes the pelvis imbalances (amongst other reasons).
All in all, I can’t wait to test this knowledge and see long labours resume and resolve. I have always dreaded those labours but now I say, bring it on!
