Model Marriage by Bishop Dag Heward Mills

Three Stages of Labour

How You May Feel during Contractions

Contractions are muscular pulling sensations that come in waves. You can feel the beginning
of each contraction, and the feeling gets stronger and reaches a peak before fading away. There
is then a rest, quite often a long one, before the next contractions. As labour progresses,
contractions become longer, stronger and are now closer together. To begin with, you may feel
a contraction every ten or fifteen minutes that lasts about thirty seconds. This may then step up
to every five minutes, with contractions lasting between fifty to sixty seconds. In the last hour or
so of labour, you may have contractions that come every three minutes and last for about a
minute.

You may feel the contractions mostly as backache that gets stronger and intensifies as labour
progresses. Occasionally, the contractions may lead to “referred pain” in the legs or thighs, but
often the strong pulling sensations are felt low down, just behind the pubic hair, which is where
the cervix is. Many women say that in the first part of labour, the contractions feel like very bad
menstrual pains.

How to Help Yourself When You Are in Labour

It is important to know how to help yourself during this stage of labour. Being frightened only
makes you feel more tense. This makes you experience more pain which results in more fear. It
is important to understand what is going on in your body so you can help yourself.

Relaxation

Learning to relax while you are in labour is essential. Not only will this bring down the
intensity of pain, it also means that you can save your energy for the hard work of pushing out
the baby instead of wasting it fighting against your body. Do the things you usually do when you
are tired or in pain e.g. take a leisurely bath, listen to soothing Christian music, let your husband
hold you, etc.

Position

Holding yourself upright and moving around can make the contractions less difficult to bear
and at the same time make them more effective. You can try sitting on a chair (facing the chair
back), with a couple of pillows against the chair back, so you can rest your arms and head on
them. Leaning forward helps a lot, because it takes some of your weight on your arms. Try
leaning on a table or on the hospital bed. If you have backaches, kneeling on all fours can help
greatly. This may be because the baby’s spine is lying alongside your spine, and lying in bed can
feel very uncomfortable. Roll over on to all fours, so that the baby’s weight drops off your spine
thereby reducing the feeling of pressure.