Pregnancy Massage for Childbirth Preparation
Written by Summer Greenlees LMT, CYT, CIMI, Star-Doula and Photos taken by Larissa Nicole
Among the alternative complementary therapies recommended by prenatal healthcare providers, massage therapy is by far the most common. Clinical reviews have shown that massage therapy helps reducing prematurity rates, pain levels, labor time, depression, and the need for medication. Also known as “touch therapy,” this clinical-based strategy mitigates cortisol stress hormones elevated by maternal anxiety. Whether caused by pain, mood, or environmental factors, these hormones cross the placenta into the baby’s blood supply making mom and baby vulnerable to stress. Pregnancy massage benefits the resiliency of both the mom and baby’s physiology.
Receiving pregnancy massage, especially weekly in the last trimester, is a real opportunity to prepare for your birth experience as you practice your capacity to let go, surrender, and release.
The immediacy of touch therapy appeals to the wisdom of self-acceptance, wellness, and resilient capacity in the pregnant mom. Touch with its cellular origins is incomparably familiar to us – even in the very first days of our own conception when we were merely a bundle of cells we join the uterine wall of our mother, orient our self-to-be to that touch and physically organized our cells towards security, nourishment and comfort as we began to grow. Amazing! How great is the implicit feeling of comfort of welcome touch? Just remember when as a child we fell down and our mother (or father) figure simply places their hand over a hurt knee and “makes it better”.
In a supportive and therapeutic setting, the mom receiving touch practices in her unique embodiment, the essential art of letting go, creates alignment for a larger moment to come. By preparing her body for relaxation, her body yields to the subtle experience of herself, finding surrender, and release. It is shown that a birth partner trained to give 20-minute massages, twice weekly in the last trimester, may significantly improve the mom’s neonatal outcome, especially prematurity, labor pain and labor time.The guidance of touch therapy offers a deep practice as a prelude to birth. As contractions come, we embrace the process more readily without losing sight of who is fulfilling the birthing process.
We will all have our own birth story and it will be personal. In Travis County the most recent records available (2006) indicate 16157 live births with 1 in 4 inductions, 1 in 3 c-sections, 1 in 10 pre-term, where generally 50% of women suffer back pain and 20-40% will present depressed prenatal with 25% depressed three months postpartum and newborn infants mimic the biochemical profile of the mother for better or worse. Regardless of all your preparation, what if your birth experience isn’t the one you wanted? As women, we are susceptible to unfairly grade ourselves. It is easy to get caught in a net of hard expectations. Remember that birth is primal and unpredictable even if you’ve had a child before. To go beyond those expectations it’s important to prepare and process our experience. Amazingly 50% of women who show depression will dissolve all their symptoms with support from their peers during the pregnancy. An attitude of self-care and community revitalizes our wellbeing.
Pregnancy massage provides a great and recommended resource to both prepare for birth and the postnatal recovery process. If during child-birth we bond with a message about our womanhood that we are less than wonderful we do a measure of harm to ourselves and will unconsciously pass on that story as received wisdom. The resiliency of touch therapy practices as you adopt them as your own may well evoke the rebound you’re seeking from difficult feelings and somatized pain and let the healing happen or be the gift you can offer your loved one. As massage doulas, we know these benefits as we assist with births and are available to supply touch and support to moms. From birth to delivery we see the difference in pacing, relaxation, pain response, bonding, and labor time regardless of whether the birth is at home or hospital.
We are fortunate in Austin that Kate Jordan, NCMBT, who teaches one of the most highly recognized pregnancy massage training in America visits us each year to offer certification in Bodywork for the Childbearing Year training licensed therapists in safe and proper technique and update us on latest research. When seeking pregnancy massage, it is fair to ask therapists their background in pregnancy massage or contact Kate Jordan for certified therapist listings.
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About the Author:
Summer Greenlees, LMT, CYT, CIMI, and Star-Doula provides holistic touch and movement therapy in a calming, professional atmosphere. Her Embodiment Arts Maternity Yoga and Massage practices nurture moms and birth partners for the continuum of needs throughout the child-bearing years— promoting bonding, health, and wellness.
Visit: www.summergreenlees.com or contact her at (512) 944.9924
2 Responsesto “Pregnancy Massage for Childbirth Preparation”
Great stuff here