Every woman who has been pregnant will tell you that the first time is such a blind experience. You're left to fumble around with guidance from books, friends + family, yes. But, and you'll hear it over and over again, no two pregnancies + births are exactly alike. What's the biggest unknown? Even bigger than the sex of the baby, thanks (or not) to highly specific ultrasound. What has you searching Google for hours on end? What labour is really like. So, I'm sharing my weird tip for a fast and easy labour and delivery.
I've been pregnant and given birth twice. While it's a far cry from the number some moms get to experience, it is an accomplishment, nonetheless. Thankfully, during my first pregnancy, I learned a tip that would save me hours of pain, agony + hysteria.
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I learned a really weird tip for a fast and easy labour and delivery.
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Here's the whole story.
When I was expecting our first, I was also babysitting a few kids out of our home. The little boy I watched was part of a group at our local library called Story Hour.
The librarian who runs it has known me, basically, since birth. She was the librarian when I was a little girl and I have fond memories of those times.
And she has 2 grown kids of her own. This is important for what happens later.
My husband and I kept our pregnancy a secret until I was right around 17 weeks along. *Side note, this was really fun and we wished we would have done so with Pip, as well.
Once we were ready to tell the public, and once our librarian heard the news, we started getting all kinds of comments, congratulations and, of course, advice.
So what kind of advice did we get as first-timers?
- Sleep when the baby sleeps (overstated but so, SO true)
- You'll figure it out
- Say goodbye to your nights out
- Don't ever wake a sleeping baby (you know we don't believe that one!)
While all these tips were genuine and thoughtful, they were also generic and hard to get behind. I'm not one for basic advice.
Tell me babies need to start instant baby rice cereal at 6 months and I'll show you pictures of my 5 month old gnawing on steak.
The one piece of advice I really took to heart, though, was this one. The weird tip for a fast and easy labour and delivery:
Scrub your floors.
When my dear librarian told me this, I probably looked like I had misheard. She followed it up with “I'm serious!” To which I replied “Did you? Did it work?”
She filled me in. She didn't, in fact, scrub her floors, but she did spend a lot of time bent over a stool. (She didn't elaborate, so I can't say why, but my guess is back pain).
And, guess what?
It worked for her.
The science behind it is undeniable. Near the end of your pregnancy, your baby will be starting his/her journey to the birth canal. Ideally, the head will be down and starting to engage. This doesn't happen easily for every woman.
Which is where the floors come in. Being on your hands and knees allows baby to get to his/her destination with a lot more ease. Basically, you're stretching yourself out and tilting your pelvis to help him/her.
So, around 36 weeks, I started scrubbing my floors every day. On my hands and knees. With a rag and pail of water. We had a fast labour. You can read about our first birth experience here.
It works.
So much so, that I used the same tactic with my second pregnancy. I started around the same time, but spaced it out over the course of a few weeks – our house is pretty big. An even easier delivery. It truly is the best unique and weird tip for a fast and easy labour and delivery.
While I can't give you specific statistics, I do know it worked for me and made the entire process manageable. Both times.
If you're looking for advice that works, this weird tip for a fast and easy labour and delivery is it! Go ahead and scrub your floors.
*Disclaimer: I don't think L+D is easy whatsoever. I'm amazed at women who go through terrible experiences and live to tell about it. Not to mention the ones who go through it all again and again! “Easy” in this post is a relative term.
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What's the number one tip you give to new or soon-to-be moms? Is it something you scoffed at your first time?
