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Research has shown acupressure to be effective for pain relief. In this free video, Red Tent Health Centre practitioners Rebecca Mar Young and Naomi Abeshouse share their knowledge and advice on using acupressure during labour.

Research suggests that the majority of women want a physiological birth — a ‘natural birth’. The stats show us just how rare this is, not just in Australia but in so many settings around the world.

In my books I talk about the complex causes behind these stats, and the emotional and relationship dynamics readers need to be aware of that will affect their labour and birth in these care settings. But the key message I always have for my readers is not to see those statistics and think there is something wrong with our birthing bodies. What makes physiological birth so hard isn’t the birth process itself. It’s how we have come to support it (or not).

Births occur in a context. In my second book, Beyond the Birth Plan, one woman who wanted to avoid medical intervention memorably describes her experience of being offered an epidural eleven times. All the deep-breathing exercises in the world won’t help you if your caregiver is doing that! Research shows most women want a ‘natural’ birth but say they aren’t able to in hospital. My books unpack why that is so, and what women can do about it in their birth preparation.

This is what I mean when I talk about medicalisation. I am not saying we do not need medical intervention ever. I am saying that we need to support physiological birth by recognising it is most often a healthy life event.

You are hoping for a physiological labour and birth. What’s your biggest worry?

It’s probably no surprise that pain is a major theme of my birth preparation courses for parents-to-be. In addition to identifying their own attitudes to pain and pain tolerance, and practical strategies for working with pain in labour, what we go deep on – the core of my work – is what I call pain dynamics.

I’m assuming you are here because you have a yearning for physiological birth, a yearning to work with your body, your baby and the powerful building intensity of birthing energy. That you are working for a birth directed by the evolutionarily honed hormonal dance between you and your baby.

It’s estimated one in three Australian women will experience some kind of trauma during and after childbirth. While sometimes physical trauma is unavoidable, psychological trauma can have lasting effects. 

In fact, one study showed more than 10 percent of Australian women show signs of post-traumatic stress 12 weeks after childbirth.

‘Pain is my friend, pain is my friend, pain is…’, such a common mantra repeated over and over on the lips of so many of us as we work towards our health, wellbeing and fitness goals, or strive for peak performance, personal best achievements, or whenever we work with the functional physiological pain of our body striving. We know it takes working with physiological pain to pursue these goals.

Issues of patient autonomy and appropriate care bring us to the importance of ensuring you find a carer who is a good ‘philosophical match’ with you. Ideally, if physiological birth is your intention, you’ll find a match with caregivers who are woman centred in their practice. Woman-centred practitioners also want to work with women who are fully aware of the personal responsibility required of them when giving informed consent or refusal.

The call came through at 1.55 in the morning, ‘We’re heading to the hospital’, explained the soon-to-be-father of baby number four. ‘Great’, I replied, ‘I’ll

Before I had my first baby in the late 1970s I was a physical education teacher, swimming instructor and outdoor adventure instructor. Since having that