Better Birth Blog

Information & Inspiration for Pregnancy, Birth & Parenting

Uncontrollable Birth: A Checklist for Thinkers and Planners

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Having a baby is notoriously unpredictable. You don't know when he or she is coming. You don't know how long it will take. You don't know how you or the baby will respond to labor. You don't know when your water will break. You don't know how long you'll need to push. You don't even [...]

Fear-Tension-Pain Teaching Tool

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Inspired by the fear-tension-pain cycle, meditation, Brené Brown, and the concept of holding space, I plotted three aspects of labor experience. Everyone feels each cycle at some point in their labor. The goal, of course, is to spend as much time as possible in labor (and life!) feeling at peace. A high level of fear means more tension, which [...]

Stages of Labor Handout

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Can't do birth class or doula work without covering the stages of labor! Here's a handy stages of labor handout that details all the parts of stage one: dilation. The stages of labor were definitely defined and named by a man. Getting to 10 centimeters feels like three or four distinct phases. I have here so named [...]
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