Words Matter: The Importance of Positive Environment and Affirmations in Labor

by Teri Nava-Anderson, PhD, CD

Last week I saw a quote attributed to neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor that said, “Please take responsibility for the energy you bring into this space.”  While I was thinking to myself “Yes! We all need to do that”, my husband was looking over shoulder saying aloud “That’s bitchy.”  It was a curious moment in which our perception and response to these words was completely different.  I was thinking about labor and how easy it is to affect a labor simply by changing the energy in the room and the words we use.  He was thinking...something different.

Research shows that it takes between 5-10 positive comments to neutralize a negative one.  This is in part due to the fact that our brains process negative experiences and comments more thoroughly, and in a different part of our brain, than positive experiences and comments. This results in us being able to remember the negative events more clearly and in more detail, to respond more strongly or viscerally, and to resist reclassification of the experience as a positive.  For example, all of us know how difficult it is to reverse a bad first impression.  Negatives have a greater potential to sink in and stick, even in people who are otherwise positive thinkers. This is why keeping a positive environment and using positive affirmations is critical in the birthing room.

Well meaning supporters, whether family, friends, or care provider staff, often express empathy in ways that undermine a person’s will in labor.  Statements like “you don’t have to be a superhero”, “there’s no prize for doing this without pain medication”, “you don’t have to work so hard” seem innocent enough.  They all however, almost always, forget a critical ending to the sentence: “if you don’t want to”.  “You don’t have to work so hard if you don’t want to.”  It’s important to know IF a person wants to.  If they want to work hard, be a superhero, get the prize of self-satisfaction, etc. their supporters should cheer them on and support their determination.  It's just as easy to say “you’re a superhero", “go for your goal and get that prize”, and “it’s hard and you can do this”. So, say that instead.

Worse than the words that undermine will are the ones that undermine ability and plant seeds of doubt.  By its natural design, labor elicits its own hormonal rushes which can stimulate a fight or flight response, that is, times in which one has to decide if they can do it or if labor needs to stop to get to a safer place.  At those times, especially during what I sometimes call “transition talk”, it’s common to hear “I can’t do this.”  The right response to this statement should lift a person up and give them strength and belief in their abilities.  It is “yes, you can,” not “I don’t think you can either.”  That should be obvious, right?  But sometimes the response isn’t as blunt as that, and yet it still implies the same thing.  

Many doulas have found themselves having to diffuse doubt bombs left by strangers, friends, family, and care providers early in labor or perhaps long before labor even began.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a client planning a non-medicated labor who didn’t have at least one person express uncertainty about it (which is often followed by their own negatively charged and sometimes scary story).  Hopefully, not everyone has to deal with more serious doubt bombs, but many do. These are comments such as remarking that a baby is possibility being too big or a pelvis is possibility too small. While these again are usually well meaning comments, meant to prepare someone for what another might think is the likely or inevitable conclusion, nothing is ever inevitable until the conclusion itself has played out.  

If you’re a care provider and you’ve ever once thought it was helpful to tell someone working hard in early labor that “baby might not want to come out that way,” please reconsider and instead encourage her to walk or lunge, or just offer a positive affirmation or a cool cloth.  If you’re a care provider and you’ve ever thought saying “this room is cursed, everyone ends up with cesareans in here” is useful knowledge to a person in labor, please rethink your encouragement strategies. When people infuse negativity and doubt into a birthing environment, it changes the entire dynamic of a labor.  Words, even looks or posture, have the tremendous power to get someone to stop thinking “I can do this” and starting thinking “maybe I can’t do this.”  No one should have to labor like that.  No one should have to prove they can to anyone but themselves.  Use your words wisely.  Take responsibility for the energy you bring into this space.

Use words that encourage:

• You’re making progress
• You’re doing great
• You’ve got a right to be proud of yourself
• You’re a wonderful mother/parent
• I’m here for you
• I love you
• I’m proud of you
• You’re beautiful
• You’re amazing
• You’re strong
• You’re powerful
• I know you can do this
• You know you can do this
• You can do this

Getting Ready for Motherhood: Beyond the birth

If you're like many of our clients, you've invested a lot of time into preparing for having a baby.  Friends and family may have done their share to welcome baby by presenting gifts of clothes, toys, and necessities.  You've gone about nesting and finding just the right place for everything.  All the diapers are neatly stacked and waiting by the changing table.  All the clothes are washed, folded, and put away (unless you listened to your doula who said to wash only what you need for the first two weeks and keep the tags on the rest, in case baby grows out of that size before he or she has had a chance to wear every outfit).  But what about you?  Have you gotten your home ready for the postpartum you?  If not, we have a few tips for preparing your spaces.

1. The Nursing Nook

If you've purchased a rocking chair where you plan to nurse, don't be too disappointed if its most common use is as a gathering spot for dirty clothes or clothes that need to be folded or put away. Many moms don't want to be isolated from the family, hidden in the baby's room every two hours to nurse.  Prepare yourself instead to have a mobile nursing kit to bring to whatever spot in which you may find yourself nursing -- the sofa, the living room floor, the kitchen table, your bed, the bathroom (yes, most moms will eventually have that moment of needing to use the facilities and having a nursling who just will not wait).  Your mobile nursing kit should include anything you think you might need when you're sedentary and unable to get up for 20-40 minutes.  

In our kit, we have:

            * A water bottle (nursing moms need about half their body weight in fluids each day)

            * High protein snacks

            * Fresh fruit

            * Reading material

            * Chargers

            * A phone

            * A burp cloth

            * A pencil and sticky notes

            * Breast pads

            * Nipple cream (in this case our favorite go-to: plain cold-pressed coconut oil)

If you have a toddler or preschooler at home already, make them their own mobile play kit.  This gives them something so they can occupy themselves while you're nursing, wherever you are nursing.  Change the toys or activities out every few days to keep it fresh and boredom-free.

2. The Bathroom

Your time in the bathroom might be limited once you're a new mom.  It also won't likely be behind closed doors.  Still there are some things that need to be taken care of.  Once baby is here, your uterus continues sloughing off lochia for a few weeks.  This might look like a heavy period for a week or two and tapers off as your body heals.  If you're being too active, you might notice the flow increases.  If this happens, listen to your body and slow down (moms with stairs might want to consider having a changing table on each floor of the house to minimize stair climbing postpartum).  Aside from bleeding, there might be swelling and soreness.  Pushing too hard during labor might have caused hemorrhoids, which are uncomfortable and need to be kept clean to heal properly.  If you tore and needed stitches this will have some extra discomforts as well.  It's important to keep the tools you'll need in any bathroom you might be using regularly or have a mobile basket, lest you need to run through the house with your pants down trying to find what you need (don't worry, we've all been there).  

In our cupboard, we have:

            * A peri-bottle, for a bidet-like rinse (a spray bottle will do too)

            * Postpartumsitz bath herbs to help with swelling, soothing and healing (we make a concentrated tea to add to peri-bottles or you can use it in a sitz bath)

            * Sanitary pads (you'll want heavy duty ones for at least the first few days)

            * Bottom balm and bottom spray (in case you don't want to DIY with herbs)

            * Witch hazel for help with swelling and itch (put some on sanitary pads to have in the freezer for the immediate postpartum)

            * Large wipes for cleaning or using as a compress with sitz bath herbs or witch hazel

            * A towel

            * Reading material (should you get a few extra moments)