Ice Ice Baby

Contractions- or Rushes as they are also called- are something that you can't prepare a person for really. . . I mean, I guess they could medically induce some of them and then you could try to get ready for childbirth that way. . .but how helpful would that be. . .

So we started our birth preparation class last night. Of course a key part (but definitely not the ONLY part) of the class is pain management and finding ways to deal with pain. So every week we will try a different pain management technique. But the question is how do you induce pain? What is a small way to cause pain and see how we react so that we can develop tools for coping with pain.

So our class, using a curriculum, based on the book Birthing From Within, used ice to induce pain. I frankly thought it was pretty interesting.

Directions: Hold tightly to a piece of Ice for 60 seconds. After 60 seconds reflect on what that felt like. Then we did it again this time adding a pain management technique. We did 4 times trying the technique 4 times adding elements. 1. Breathing intentionally at the pace your body sets. 2. Trying to think of an image to match the breathing. 3. Add movement of some kind. 4. Do what you think will work for you.

Basically, I thought it was pretty cool. I have no idea if it'll work for pain management during oh say contractions. .. but I think it'll leave me empowered. . . and Sean more empowered to call me to ways that might help.