Perfect Pushing for Intervention

Ideally, we all want a natural birth without experiencing pain, fear, anxiety, and stress for a very long time. We want a calm, quick, and easy birth. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.

There are many circumstances, medical, emotional, or physiological, that will require our births to need intervention from the medical staff. This doesn’t mean, though, that you lose all control of your birth. There are still ways for you to make your birth easier and quicker, with the aid of a medical team.

When you’ve decided to birth your baby with medical intervention, you won’t be able to feel “the urge”. This means that you’ll have to follow staff-directed pushing. You can still make it easier and quicker for you and your baby by following this Perfect Pushing technique to experience less intervention during your labour.

Stay Relaxed

If you had an epidural, you may lose many of the feelings of pushing, so it is important to know in advance which muscles to tighten and relax while actively pushing your baby out. With this technique, your shoulders, neck, face will all stay perfectly relaxed and you will easily be able to continue your sense of calm and peace.

You might encounter concerns on whether your baby is too large, you are not going to birth upright, or your baby is not in the optimal position for birth. If so, you will find the Perfect Pushing (for intervention) a very useful technique.

This technique will give you all the muscle power you need to actively push your baby out quickly and effectively. Importantly, by relaxing the pelvic muscles you are creating a resistance free path for your baby to birth easier. By following this technique, there is much less likelihood of vacuum delivery (ventouse) or forceps and tearing. The baby will also benefit and received the full amount of oxygen and as result will unlikely become ‘stuck’ or distressed.

Perfect Pushing (for intervention):

1. Start only when in a surge (if you don’t know if you are in a surge, follow staff prompts).
2. Take a quick power breath in through your nose, quickly collecting all the oxygen for a long out breath.
3. Breathe in 1,2 – tighten the top of your abdomen only.
4. Breathe out 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 – push down firmly with the top abdomen muscles (similar to pushing down on plunger coffee).
5. When you exhale, breathe out “Arrrhhh’’ or “Who” (no holding of breath while pushing!).
6. When you exhale again, direct your breath downwards and forwards to your vagina.
7. Relax and release your pelvic floor muscles at all times (extremely important to do).
8. Be fully relaxed, your mouth and jaw should be soft with lips slightly open.
9. Only push from your top abdomen, vital to be free of tension elsewhere.
10. Repeat as many times as needed for the duration of the surge.

When doing this technique, tighten the top of your abdomen as hard as you can. Then push the top of the tightened abdomen downwards. Remember that it’s important to keep your pelvic floor muscles relaxed!

Not everyone needs to do this technique. Only use this when you require intervention during your birth. If you’re having a natural birth, use the hypnobirthing visualisation techniques.

For detailed instructions on practicing the Prefect Pushing for Intervention technique, watch our video demonstration and stay tuned to our blog for more Hypnobirthing techniques to help you achieve an easier birth.