There’s a tongue twister for you. Say that title three times fast! Scott and I are continuing our Pink Kit work. We’re well into the first book now and have gotten through part of the section on language.
Our review time last night was humorous, as per usual. It’s somewhat annoying to have to try and be serious while my husband keeps making me laugh but it’s good that we’re enjoying it 😉 I found last night’s work to be really helpful. We’d both taken a few days to review a big section of the book and we got to put some of it into practice.
It was really helpful to talk through it. First we looked at parts of the body to relax during labor (all around the pelvic area, where the baby needs to come out.) That was pretty nifty to me because I was able to show Scott how his physiology is basically the same as mine, at least so far as the bones and everything in there go.
If you’re not really familiar with how the pelvis is built and don’t understand how a baby is going to come through there I think it would be helpful to you to take some time with the main Pink Kit Book – Essential Preparations for Your Birthing Body – before you start the language exercises. There are three sections on the pelvis (one on the bony pelvis, one on how the bony pelvis moves, and one on the soft pelvis). These will help you get to know these parts of your body and will make your practice in the language section of New Focus easier and more effective.
Like I said Scott and I saw last night, your basic structure down there is the same as your partner’s – regardless of whether your partner is male or female. So you can both practice the language. In fact, the first exercise has you, the birthing woman, instructing your partner!
I liked that and thought it was a really great exercise. It gave us both a good idea of why language for labor and timing are important (timing being how fast you say things), and it also gave me a good opportunity to think of where I tend to tense up and what language helps me.
For instance the exercise suggested that having your partner use the word “soften” may help more than “relax.” I’m pretty conditioned towards relaxing after having a few babies 😉 But I do think that “soften” may help more when talking about muscles in the pelvic area. The tendency is to make them rigid and hard to try and escape or avoid pain from your opening and the baby’s descent. But the thought of “softening” around the baby and pelvic area is a good mental image and instruction.
We’re going to try and practice using language and such for relaxation a few times a week because I think it will really help in labor. The practice will help us figure out tension and such, and will also help us become comfortable with it so it feels natural and not scripted during labor.
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