Safe & Sound Births Blog
Mindful Birthing in Anne Arundel County: HypnoBirthing, Meditation, and Local Doula Support
A gentle, honest guide to mindfulness in pregnancy and birth in Anne Arundel County, from a certified HypnoBirthing doula. Learn how movement, meditation, and awareness can change the way you give birth.
So many people have this version of birth in their heads from all the fictionalized accounts of birth they’ve seen over the years through movies and television where it’s screaming chaos with so much pain. I won’t tell you that it’ll be pain free, but that version of birth does not have to be your version. The more you can start to frame the labor process not as a terrible trial to go through, but as this great journey of transformation, a trip that’ll be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but one of the best things, the more prepared you’ll be when the time comes.
If you don’t already practice some form of mindfulness in your life, now is a great time to start. It’s a way to connect to yourself and to help you to stay grounded. At its core, mindfulness is the practice of being here in this moment, offering yourself reflection, emotional regulation, and compassion. Mindfulness isn’t about always feeling peaceful–it’s about meeting whatever’s here with awareness and care.
The Best Yoga Poses for Pregnancy, Labor, & Birth
A meta-analysis by multiple institutions revealed that women who yoga during pregnancy experienced up to two hours of shorter labor and were 2.5 times more likely to have a vaginal birth. These women also had comparatively higher comfort levels than those who did not do yoga (Boopalan et al. 2023; Corrigan et al. 2022).
I’ll break down the following poses and explain what muscle groups they help and why they matter for your birth.
A pelvis that moves in pregnancy is going to be a pelvis that moves during labor. We need you to be able to move your body to help move your baby Earthside. You can do it!
Protecting the Pelvic Floor- Breathwork & Movement Through Yoga in Pregnancy & Birth
Not only can yoga help with pain prenatally, it can help with your labor! If you’re already in pain before you’re even in labor, think about how much worse labor will feel. You have to address those issues before you go into labor. Yoga will help with this.
During labor, your powerful amazing uterus will be contracting like a beast 60 pounds of pressure per square inch-all to bring your baby Earthside.
A pelvis that moves in pregnancy is a pelvis that’ll move during labor.
We need you mobile, loose, and limber for labor. If your hips are tight during labor, you’ll have a harder time getting into lunging positions that’ll help your baby move down into your pelvis.