It’s not just obvious fears that cause these complications – hidden fears (and the fears you keep pushing aside, trying to ignore) – can rear up and paralyze you during labor.

Jump Straight to the Offer

Can you do anything to remove these fears and have the excellent birth you’ve been dreaming of?

You bet you can.

I love Birth Outside the Box – it is one of the best childbirth classes out there… and after four babies, plus running a natural childbirth website for over four years, I’ve seen a lot of them.

Deal Effectively With Pain, Confidently Decline Intervention, and Have a Great Birth

Birth Outside the Box gives you effective information:

• Essential comfort measures so you can deal with labor pain
• Labor and birthing positions you must know to move your baby down
• Getting the birth you want – while working with doctors and hospital policies
• Guidance for your birth partner… so he’ll truly be able to help you
• Complete, unbiased reviews of all interventions you may face during pregnancy and birth – and for your newborn baby (so you’re prepared and in control of your birth)

There’s just one component missing in Birth Outside the Box – complete discovery and removal of childbirth fears. Fears can paralyze you in labor – no matter how well you’ve prepared for giving birth!

You Can Have a Fearless Birth

I’ve developed the Fearless Birth Workbook based on the process that helped me remain confident and in control for four natural home births. Imagine going into birth fearless, confident, calm – and ready for the ecstasy of meeting your baby for the first time!

I want you to clear your worries about unnecessary cesarean, too much pain, procedures you don’t want, VBAC complications (or being denied your VBAC!), newborn complications, and any other fears you’re holding… or hiding. I’ve put together a special offer just for you – and here’s why:

Catherine Beier, CBE, MS CCC-SLP/L is the author and creator of Birth Outside the Box. She’ll be welcoming her third baby this month. Natural Birth and Baby Care and Tiger Lily Newsletter readers have been sending me showers of notes to thank her for her hard work and to inspire and uplift her as she prepares for her first home birth.

A Blessingway Bundle

While I’m getting the notes ready for Catherine, I’ve put together a special “thank you” for your awesome support during Catherine’s virtual Blessingway.

Purchase Birth Outside the Box through the link below and I will bundle the 53 page Fearless Birth workbook in – free of charge.

Get Your Birth Outside the Box and Fearless Birth Bundle

I will send your instant download link for Fearless Birth (a $27 value)! This offer is valid worldwide, and with all three BOtB digital offers (12 week, 7 week, or self-paced). Offer remains active until Midnight March 5th 2010, EST! Offer has Ended!

Galen was chronicled on Natural Birth and Baby Care from start to finish (in fact, I started this blog because we were TTC him!) I thought I’d share some highlights:

We’re pregnant: a very faint positive at 10DPO (days post/past ovulation)!

My chart hits 18 days of high temps – a pretty certain sign of pregnancy! (Scroll to the bottom to see my chart)

We discover we’re expecting a son!

I do a marathon freezer cooking session to get ready for baby!  Talk about nesting.  This year I created a freezer meal plan for you based on that session

Scott and I use The Pink Kit to prepare for the birth (it’s excellent!) and I write down all the details for you.

Finally, finally, finally, our precious baby boy arrives – and Scott and I are the only ones to witness his debut!

And now today, one year later, our little man is growing strong.  He has been such an incredible joy and blessing to our family.  I’m delighted he decided to join us   I’ll leave with a parting shot of his first few minutes:

I know this is going to differ based on what country you’re in, and where in that country you’re located.  Midwifery regulations are so different all over the world.

I’m in the United States so my experience of midwifery care is different than what a woman will experience in Canada, the UK, or elsewhere.

But here in the US midwives come in a few different varieties.  There are certified nurse-midwives who go through nursing school and then get additional training in birth.  There are also some states that license midwives based upon guidelines the state has determined; often these midwives are “lay midwives” meaning they’ve not gone through nursing or medical school.  They have, however, trained extensively.  There are also midwives who are not licensed and are lay midwives.  Some of them seek and independent certification which makes them certified professional midwives.  To get this certification they must pass rigorous testing (learn more at The North American Registry of Midwives).

So what are my thoughts on this?  I definitely think that women called to be midwives should not be required to go through nursing school first.  I  may be biased because neither of my midwives have gone the nursing route.  But in reality, in the US at least, most women who choose home birth are going to give birth with a “lay midwife” because most certified nurse-midwives deliver only in hospitals or birth centers.  Very few attend births at home.

I think that a lay midwife can and (in general) will know birth as well as a certified nurse-midwife.  They train extensively under midwives in the oldest way to learn a trade – apprenticeship.  A midwife will have attended many, many births before she begins to see clients on her own.

As for my thoughts on licensing:  I do not think a woman must be licensed to be a competent midwife.  However, I am in favor of licensing such as the Certified Professional Midwife licensing.  I believe it gives a level of assurance to the family seeking a midwife’s services.  It causes the midwife to keep current with studies, techniques, and literature.  It shows accountability and professionalism.

State (or national) licensing varies and at times it can be a hindrance – some states may say that women seeking a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) cannot attempt a home delivery with a state licensed midwife.  Others say no twins.  A midwife who doesn’t follow state protocols for things could be penalized severely.  However, in general state licensing again provides a measure of reassurance to the family.  It creates accountability for the midwife, and can help bring midwives together into a unified network.

I am, in general, in favor of licensing midwives and I feel good about midwives who seek to be licensed in some way.  There are sometimes restrictions placed on these midwives that they (or their clients) would rather not have.  But in general licensing is a good thing from the viewpoint of the client.

Of course there will always be unlicensed lay midwives.  There will always be unassisted childbirth.  Women have the freedom to choose what they want.  But I do think that licensing is generally a good thing for families, and a good thing for midwives.

If you have an opinion (if you’re a woman using/considering a midwife, or if you’re a midwife) feel free to comment on this thread or contact me

One year ago today I was completely giddy with excitment.  I woke at 6am and made my way to the bathroom, shaking the whole way.  I continued to tremble as I tried desperately not to spill a cup of precious “FMU” (first morning urine, for those not hyper-focused on trying to conceive), dipped that little pregnancy test stick in the cup, lifted it out, and waited.  3 minutes later I convinced myself there was nothing.  I went back to bed.  Fast forward a few minutes and I couldn’t help but look again.  To see this:

A very, very faint line. But a line. I didn’t really believe it until I saw four more lines. Yes, I took five pregnancy tests. My temperature stayed high. No period arrived. I was thrilled to be pregnant.

One of the first things I started to think about was birth. 9 months off and it was at the forefront of my mind. I still think a lot about birth now, with my baby 3 months old.

I love the quote I put at the top of this post. It’s so true. Women are strong, and we are able to give birth to our babies.

I do think women should be able to give birth how they want. And if they want to be in a hospital, that’s fine. If they want to be with a doctor or midwife, that’s fine. If a woman really wants to elect a c-section or have drugs during childbirth, that’s really her prerogative.

But I think a lot of women and coerced. I think a lot of women are even lied to. The medical industry and even our governments hide the truth behind scare tactics.

I don’t understand why it’s so important to hide from women the fact that birth is an awesome experience. I love the women on my birth videos page. Even though some of these women are feeling pain while they’re giving birth you can see the incredible ecstasy on their faces as they hold their new babies.

It’s an awesome experience. Women are made for it, and to do it in full awareness. But our culture lies to women and says there is no purpose to the pain, and that the pain is inevitable.

I wouldn’t call Galen’s birth “orgasmic” or anything like that. “Orgasmic birth” has made a lot of headlines lately. But ecstatic? Yes. His birth was awesome. It was work. It was a lot of work. I even had self-doubt creep in. But what an amazing experience. It was awe-inspiring for me to know that I was opening up to welcome another human being.

While I was opening for Galen I kept telling myself I wanted it to get stronger, heavier, and I wanted to open for my baby. I was able to welcome what I was feeling and be totally part of the experience. I got to be aware of just what was going on, even getting to feel Galen’s head just before he began his descent.

I’m so glad for the births of each of my children, and I’m so glad that I was able to seek out women who told me the truth – that I am strong, and that birth is an awesome experience. I want more than anything to help other women realize that birth can be something to look forward to, something to empower them, something to grasp in awareness and confidence.

A year ago I could look forward to the dance of birth with my newly-conceived baby because I know the truth. Birth is good. And women are strong.

Charlie, my midwife with Cassidy, Asher, and Brennan was absolutely adamant that mothers should spend their first week postpartum in bed with their baby.  They should get up to use the bathroom and have a shower/sitz bath.  Other people  should make the meals, clean the house, do the laundry, etc.  That can’t always happen though – I’ll address what to do when you must be the one to take care of the household.

I’ve tried to take this week with each of my babies.  I think it’s important for new mothers, though many mothers disagree or say they couldn’t possibly find a way to have a lying in period.  Others say they’d go crazy.  I have always been eager to be sitting back in the den with the family at the end of my lying in, but I’ve really enjoyed the time to be pampered and especially to spend getting to know my baby.

Enjoying Lying In

If you’re hoping to take a lying in period but aren’t sure how you can I have some tips for you.  Firstly, if you’re worried that you’ll go crazy by being in bed that long, consider how good for you the period is.  It lets you rest postpartum.  You’ll be able to catnap when baby rests.  You won’t be overdoing it because you won’t be up to be tempted to do housework.  You can devote your time to working on your nursing relationship and learning your baby’s signals.  Overall it’s just a good time.

If you’re worried about being bored get some books and magazines together.  Bring your laptop in to chat with other ladies with new babies.  Or stock up on DVD’s to watch.  Have a phone by your beside so you can make calls and chat.  And of course… plan to sleep!!

Having Food to Eat

Take some time while you’re pregnant to freeze a week’s worth of main dishes.  Keep your fridge stocked with deli meats, cheeses, yogurt, etc. in your last few weeks of pregnancy.  Have your cabinets stocked with canned meats, nut butters, nuts, dried fruits, etc.  Keep bread and bagels on hand – you may want to freeze some too (if you’re like my family and don’t keep bread due to celiac disease  keep rice in the cupboard and buy a rice cooker!)

Keeping things stocked up like this mean that even if you must do the cooking after your baby is born it will require minimal effort.  Eat yogurt, bagels or scramble eggs for breakfasts, and eat sandwiches for lunches.  Put your frozen meal in the oven in the late afternoon to have a hot casserole for supper in the evening.  Plan now so you can relax then.

Don’t Clean!

I highly recommend letting the cleaning go if there’s no one to do it for you.  That’s right.  Just forget about it.  Let the house get dirty.  Buy paper plates, plastic cups and utensils, and use those while you’re in your first week postpartum.  Just toss them.  Save your sanity!  Don’t worry about dishes!

Try to do minimal laundry.  I know babies use a lot of clothing up, but chances are you’re going to get a lot of baby clothing as gifts.  Or let people know while you’re pregnant that you’d love hand-me-down baby clothes.  Or go shop for baby gowns, onesies, and t-shirts at yard sales and the thrift store – stock up so you don’t need to do much laundry.  You can pass the clothing on to another baby after your baby has outgrown it.  Again… plan and prep now!

Taking Care of Your Older Children

If you have older children you will have to look after think of activities now.  Coloring books, story tapes, videos (if your children watch them), new small toys, etc. are good for young children.  A new book, audio books, videos/games (again if your child is allowed), a board game to do with you, legos, etc. may be good for older children.  Stock up a special box for after the baby is born to help keep them occupied.  Go to the library and check out lots of books just before your due date.  My kids had a box full of a couple new coloring books each, a tape player and several story tapes, homemade playdough we made together, finger puppets, and a new toy Slinky for each child.  I also cut them out some Berenstein Bear paper dolls and had a few other goodies in there.

If you have a toddler you may want to completely baby-proof the room you’ll be in with you and baby so you can nap with your toddler in the room and know he or she is safe.  If your older child is a young toddler you may consider setting up a playpen in the room to have him or her while you nap with the baby.

Let Others Help

These tips will help you relax if you will still have to take care of your household during your first week or so postpartum.  If you have someone else who will do it for you – let them!!!  I had a real treat after Galen’s birth because Scott took care of everything for us for my first week.  And he took care of meals for two weeks, even after I was back downstairs with the family.  It was really nice and I loved that time to bond with Galen.

One last tip is if you have visitors coming to see the baby ask them to do something while they’re at your home – a load of laundry, sweeping or running the vacuum, etc.  Or ask them to bring a meal with them.   And if someone offers to help don’t say no!

Enjoy your “lying in” period – let yourself be mothered.  If you don’t have anyone else to help, plan during pregnancy to make that period as easy for yourself as you can.  You will be very grateful for your planning as you relax with your baby and enjoy those first precious days!

I chose to visualize the experience I most wanted to have in a lot of detail.  I tried to do all of my imagining from a first-person perspective – so that I was actually in my body, rather than just observing from the outside as if I were watching myself on screen.  I did this because during birth you are of course actually going to be in your body, having the baby yourself – not watching!

I also visualized several other scenarios I thought could possibly happen, just to feel more comfortable if they actually arose (for instance, we planned a water birth but I pictured birthing in our bedroom as well).  I also did some work with my own fears and as part of overcoming that fear I visualized and analyzed the “what if” situation (you can read more about my work through my fears, including c-section, in this post)

So I did imagine quite a few different ways of giving birth to my baby.  But the one I wanted most of all I spent the most time picturing (I tried to make time every day, usually during my afternoon rest time) and pictured in the most detail.  It’s important to let go of feeling foolish, or too optimistic – just let yourself imagine your very “best case” birth, your “ideal” birth so to speak.  You can explore other situations, as I did, but spend time picturing how you really want it to go.

This is a really powerful way to help your mind get ready for the birth.  It can become almost like a rehearsal for the birth, leaving you with the feeling that you’ve been through this before.

I’ve visualized before each of births because I believe it helps.  But I do really think that our minds are a powerful thing.  And I think Galen’s birth is one of the proofs of that.  When I visualized Galen’s birth, I always pictured the birth tub, myself, and Scott.  I pictured Galen coming into the world and being brought from the water in my hands and in Scott’s hands.

Now, in the back of my mind I always thought “the midwives are there somewhere, in the background” and also I generally thought the children would be there somewhere in the background too.  But I found myself unable to picture them actually right there, by the tub – I wanted Galen’s first moments to be for me and Scott, so I didn’t picture anyone else right there.

If you’ve read Galen’s birth story, you know that we ended up with an unassisted birth – in fact, my labor picked up almost as soon as our midwives left (because I was only 3cm).  As I reflect back over this I keep thinking about all the visualizing I did and how I always pictured just Scott and I there, and the midwives were just “somewhere” and never actually in the scene in my mind.  Almost everything was as I’d pictured it over and over again – the tub in the corner, the low light, the position I birthed in.  The only difference was that I always imagined Scott in the tub, and he didn’t have time to get in with me before Galen was born.  He was supporting me and holding my hands from the outside of the tub.

So I do think that what you picture in your mind – condition your mind to expect, so to speak – can have a powerful influence on your birth.  It’s why I think it’s very important to work through and let go of fears, so you can allow yourself to visualize the experience you’d like without fears creeping in.  But that visualization will help you explore possibilities and prepare for your birth in the closest way to actually being able to “practice” birth that you can.  Enjoy!

I’ve put my visualization and journaling exercises together in an easy-to-use workbook. Discover more about how Fearless Birth can help you:

I’ve done a lot of thinking about Galen’s amazing birth in those weeks.  It went really, really smoothly and was a wonderful experience for me.  Scott says it was a good experience for him too.

There were two major things that contributed to such a great birth – the first is my careful attention to my nutrition during pregnancy.  I have always felt strongly that good prenatal nutrition is vital, and I’ve written about it extensively in the blog and in articles on the site.   I “practice what I preach” and was really careful to eat well for my baby.  This resulted in him being healthy and vigorous, and in my body being in excellent condition to go through labor and birth.

The second thing I did was work through the Pink Kit with Scott.  All of the Pink Kit was helpful to us.  I used many of the labor positions that we learned.   And the breathing skills were vital for both Scott and I to know.  Scott was able to help me get my breathing under control several times.  I went from 3 centimeters to 10 centimeters and pushing Galen out in about 2 hours – 2 very intense hours.  Having Scott help me breathe turned out to be really important.

The biggest part of the Pink Kit to help us, however, was doing the Internal Work for the last 8 weeks of my pregnancy.  We were pretty faithful about it and worked through the exercise almost every night.  I felt it to be really helpful during pregnancy as I learned to relax all the muscles in my birthing area.

And after Galen was born I knew the Internal Work had been helpful – Galen was born in just two pushes and I had no episiotomy, no tearing, not even any “skid marks.”  I was able to begin kegels right after birthing him and my tissues have recovered much more quickly than they have with any of my other births.

I was able to really enjoy Galen’s birth.  Our Pink Kit work helped me to be really comfortable with myself.  I was able to reach and feel the curve of Galen’s head just before my water broke, and I was able to feel him move down through my birth canal.  I felt a slight sting as he crowned and his head was born and then I was able to feel the joy of his body sliding out and bringing him up into my arms.  I was able to be relaxed and aware, and Scott and I were able to communicate well through the entire labor and birth.  Scott was able to really be a part of things, and really really helped me (especially because it moved so fast and he was able to help me stay calm and working with my labor rather than against it).

Galen’s birth was really an awesome experience for me.  It was everything I’d hoped for and more.  I spent time doing birth visualizations as is suggested in the Pink Kit and many books on birthing.  I feel like that helped prepare my mind for the birth as well and it went very, very much like I’d imagined.  I think there’s a lot of power in preparing your body and your mind for birth.  Galen’s birth was so wonderful because we took the time to prepare – and because excellent resources and knowledge were available to us (and are available to you, too!)

Read Galen’s birth story, more about prenatal nutrition, and explore the Pink Kit!

Click here to read Galen’s story and see a few pics!

I’ll post more pictures and reflections on his birth over the next couple of weeks… we’re still taking it easy enjoying our babymoon and family time

One of our Pink Kit techniques – the Hip Lift – has been really helpful during pregnancy.  I have had some pain in my right hip my last three pregnancies.  It’s pain from my sciatic nerve getting pinched, and it’s a very intense, very sharp pain.  I found relief this pregnancy in swimming.  However, once we stopped going to the bay a few times a week (it got cold way up north here!), the pain returned.

I had the idea to have Scott try the Hip Lift technique because it seemed like it would help relieve pressure on the nerve.  I’m super pleased to say that it did!  We’ve done it twice now, several days apart each time.  It seems to help move my bones enough to let the nerve settle somewhere better.  It’s been over a week now and no pain has returned yet, so I’m happy.  One less ache to think about

We’ve also been doing our Internal Work very regularly.  I’ve found it challenging to learn to relax all the muscles of the birth canal while having pressure applied to them.  But about a week ago I noticed I was able to keep relaxed much, much more.  And the past few nights I’ve noticed the amount of tension I felt in the muscles to be much less.  It could be that birth hormones are starting to kick in even more and soften those tissues.  But I actually asked Scott to work harder on the side muscles last night because I’m used to feeling some tension there – and there was hardly any once I relaxed.

I’m pleased.  I like the Internal Work because it gives me a good chance to focus on the muscles I’ll need to relax as my baby’s head is moving down and out.  I would really like to experience that feeling on a more concious level at this birth.  During my other births I found the pushing stage overwhelming.  I’m feeling good about the Internal Work and think it will help me to feel more in control of helping my baby come down and out to meet us