All aspects of YOU.
By Amy Towle
Dec 2015
As we all know being pregnant and giving birth are both very much holistic experiences. They impact us on all levels; physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. Sometimes we are aware of these and sometimes they take us by surprise. In order to prepare for the birth you want, it’s important to have a conscious pregnancy. A connected pregnancy, on all levels. To do this you can consciously spend your pregnancy addressing each aspect of yourself, consciously address parts of each and also makes space for them when they come to the surface uninvited.
For your physical self, nourish your body and baby with foods from mother earth. Eating whole, unprocessed, and if possible organic foods, gives you all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and nutrients to stabilise hormone and energy levels. As well as the nutrition your body requires at this time of extra growth. Eat a balance of foods, protein, natural fats and fruits, vegetables, and salads. Treat yourself, love yourself and your baby with the food you eat. Balancing this with physical movement creates a healthy vessel for your baby. Yoga is a wonderful activity for pregnancy because it emphasises flexibility, opening, relaxing and calm. Birth can be very physically demanding, so movement in pregnancy is a great way to look after your physical self.
Be familiar with your physical self. Know your breasts, how they feel, how they change, how to handle them. Ask your midwife to teach you to hand express, this allows you to become familiar with your breasts and your milk so that when your baby arrives you are confident and trusting of yourself and your abilities. Explore your vagina, learn its creases and folds, its limits, its sensitive areas, its strong, thick areas. Experiment with it, do perineal massage. If you have trauma relating to this area of your body, try and work through it, feel what you need to move past it and explore how this may impact on your birthing experience. Mentally think about your vagina, how comfortable with it are you? How do you feel about other people touching it, seeing it? Know your vagina, explore it during pregnancy, so when birth comes you trust it, you know it, and will intuitively connect with it and know what’s right for you.
Mother earth has more to offer you, she has an incredible energy for you to connect with that teaches you to align with nature, follow your natural instincts and to develop these instincts. A large part of preparing for birth, and learning to trust birth, is learning to trust your body and your instincts. To discover how natural giving birth is, and that this is what your body is designed for. Aligning with nature helps to affirm these knowing’s. Often women can be drawn to be with mother earth in their pregnancies, through gardening, nature walks, spending time outside, swimming, gazing at the stars. To physically connect with the earth, to ground yourself is a wonderful way to come in to your body and pregnancy. It allows you to be in the present moment, brings peace, balance, and alignment with mother earth. Being grounded makes it very easy to establish and trust a strong connection with the soul growing inside you. Being connected to your baby is a key part of instinctive birth.
There are also proven physical benefits to grounding or earthing. “Our bodies have an electrical circuit, the earth has a negative charge, when we connect with the earth through grounding, it restores our electrical balance which allows our bodies to self-regulate and heal. Research indicates that regular Earthing, among other things, restores and stabilises a natural state in the electrical functioning of the body, affects many physiological processes, reduces inflammation, pain, and stress, improves sleep and energy levels and aids recovery and healing.” ( http://www.earthingoz.com.au/what-is-earthing-1)
A woman’s intuition, if given the space, snowballs in pregnancy. It is the core to who she is as a woman and a mother. It guides her through a healthy pregnancy in making choices. And is there in birth, guiding her to her strong and powerful self, able to birth her baby. It is then also there as a mother, to walk her down the path of motherhood. If trusted and developed a woman’s intuition never falters. Take the time in pregnancy to develop your intuition. Ask questions of your care providers, if information or ‘requirements’ don’t sit right with you, explore that. Talk with your partner or support people, express how you feel or what you are thinking. Do research, empower yourself with knowledge. This will test your intuition and learn to recognise that feeling when it rises within you and will teach you to trust it. Be guided by your inner voice, by your baby. Having that connection with your baby makes your intuition that much stronger. Trusting your intuition means trusting birth. An instinctive birth allows you to be guided by your body, for you to be in control and for you to birth your baby your way.
Pregnancy is a time of preparation, for both birth and motherhood. Take this time to connect with your true self. It is a journey, it will have ups and downs. But it is a time given to you to connect with all aspects of yourself, as a woman this is your rite of passage. Love and nourish yourself, explore the power of being a woman. What an amazing creature you are.
You have the ability to grow a life inside of you, just imagine what else you are capable of…