Near the end of my first pregnancy, I remember wondering how exactly giving birth feels like. I’ve hear stories and analogies that honestly sounded extremely painful. There are actually two distinct parts of child birth that are well-known but not often discussed about in detail: The initial contractions, and then finally giving birth.
Step 1: The Contractions
Contraction is essentially the tightening of your uterus, which is the biggest muscle in the body of a pregnant women. And these contractions happen mostly involuntarily. A good analogy here is how the stomach involuntarily contracts when you vomit. However, despite much of the activity being involuntary, it doesn’t mean you don’t feel any pain. The uterus is actually tightening and shrinking in size, which ends up pulling the cervix open (this is known as dilation). The end goal of these contractions is to push the baby into the birth canal, and then eventually out of the mom, at which point she is born into the world.
Now when you are having contractions, you feel the sensations not just around your pelvis, but also up around your waist and even possibly near your lower back. This is because the uterus is not just at the pelvis but also up near the ribs. Not to mention that the uterus is also connected to your lower back muscles through ligaments and the like.
Contractions come and go
Some women have given the analogy that contractions are just like menstrual cramps. However, that is not really the case. Although menstrual cramps are a consistent, relatively dull pain, contractions are short intervals of very intense pain with breaks in between. In fact, the weird thing about contractions is that in between them, women have almost no pain whatsoever.
In the beginning, breaks are between 5 to 30 minutes, which is quite long. However as time goes on, the breaks get much shorter. In fact, in the late stages of child birth, the contractions can come every 2 minutes. And even though there are still some breaks, the pain of the contractions gets most painful. This is also when you really are just letting the contractions do the work for you involuntarily. The analogy of contractions being like waves that you have to endure is especially true at this point. As soon as you’ve finished one contraction, you quickly will experience another one. And the intensity of each contraction also flows up and down like a wave.
Ways to deal with contractions
Although the contractions can be felt almost all over your torso and pelvis, there are ways to limit the pain to a certain extent. The first option is to simply use pain medication, which is a good option, assuming you don’t care about having a natural child birth (A lot of women will forgo pain medication so that they experience child birth to the fullest). You can also immerse yourself in warm water or take a shower to ease the pain of contractions.
You can also get massaged on the lower back and move into positions that help open up the pelvis. Both of these help move the baby off of the lower back, which means less pressure there for you to deal with.
As intense and pronounced contractions are in the process of child birth, that is only the first step. The second step is arguably more painful, but in the end provides you with what you’ve been waiting 9 months for…
Step 2: Giving Birth
Although the “pushing phase” is usually shorter than the “dilating phase”, if you are a first-time mother, you may end up taking up to 4 hours to finish having labor. If you are lucky though, it can only take 15 minutes, but those are rare occurrences for first-time mothers. The length actually is determined by a few factors that happened during your contractions. If the contractions were closer together, the baby will come out quicker during the pushing phrase. This is also true if the mother was actively pushing with the contractions. Other factors such as how you are positioned, how tired you are, and whether pain medication was used can play into how long it takes for the baby to finally come out.
Note that a pushing phase that is extremely fast is not necessarily desirable, as the perineum does need some time to stretch. If your baby is coming out too quickly, the caregiver will let you know to slow down your pushing just a bit.
The pooping sensation
When you are ready to start pushing, you may feel an urge to have to make a bowel movement. The reason for this is simply that the baby’s head is pressing down on their vagina so heavily, that it is also pressing on the same muscles and nerve endings that are triggered when you need to poop. This is where the analogy of pooping out a watermelon comes from.
However, some women don’t feel the urge to push at all. In a lot of cases, that urge to push comes later on when the baby is further down. Or it may be due to the pain medication as well. In any case, if the baby is coming out too slowly, the caregiver will provide instructions for you to push and help the process along.
Inordinate amount of pelvis pressure
Without pain medication, you WILL feel immense pain on your pelvis while the baby is coming out. This naturally makes sense, as your baby is forcing its way out through a very small opening. When the baby’s head crowns, you will also feel a burning, stinging sensation all around the vaginal opening as it really starts to stretch. While it all sounds so difficult to do all of this, note that some mothers will have a feeling of relief when pushing out, especially considered all of the previous pain that they just went through up until that point.
The end result – an adorable bundle of joy in the world
Even though this all sounds incredibly painful and difficult to deal with, always keep in mind that this is a process 9 months in the making. As I’m sure you’ve heard, despite all the pain that a mother has gone through during childbirth, as soon as they see their child for the first time, their pain goes away instantly. Always keep that in mind while you are going through childbirth – the process will absolutely be painful and test yourself physically and mentally, but the end result is worth it every time. Good luck!
