Tag: birth

17 Fantastic Facts About Oxytocin in Birth

Oxytocin is often referred to as the “love hormone” or “cuddle hormone” because it’s associated with social bonding, love, and trust. It’s produced by the hypothalamus in your brain and is released into your body by the pituitary gland.

Oxytocin is produced in large quantities during birth where it helps to stimulate and strengthen contractions. These contractions help to push your baby down the birth canal and into the world. Although in labour your body naturally produces increasing amounts of oxytocin, there are things that you can go to help promote the production of the hormone in your body.

17 Facts About Oxytocin in Birth

  1. Oxytocin stimulates the muscles of your uterus to contract, and these contractions help to dilate your cervix and push your baby through the birth canal.
  2. Oxytocin can’t coexist in your body with stress hormones; we know that if we can reduce the stress, anxiety and fear you might be feeling, we can reduce stress hormones and promote the production of oxytocin. This also breaks the fear-tension-pain cycle.
  3. Once oxytocin levels start to rise in your body, a positive feedback loop is created. The cervix is pulled up and over your baby’s head which drops your baby down, triggering more oxytocin receptors to release oxytocin, resulting in stronger contractions which pull the cervix up and over baby’s head…
  4. Oxytocin helps to reduce your pain during labour by stimulating the release of endorphins, which are natural pain-relieving hormones.
  5. When oxytocin and endorphins mix, you enter a hazy dazy birth bubble where you zone out of the world. Peace man.
  6. An oxytocin and endorphin fuelled labour can reduce your need for pain medication during labour (although, of course, it’s still available for you if you want it…)
  7. …however, note that epidurals can impact the release of your own oxytocin, which may impact the strength of your contractions.
  8. A good amount of oxytocin in the system makes labour more efficient and effective, ie shorter!
  9. An increase in oxytocin levels during birth can lead to you feeling like you had a more positive birth experience.
  10. You’ll have the most oxytocin in your body in your lifetime just after your baby’s born but before the placenta arrives.
  11. Skin-to-skin contact with your baby can help to enhance oxytocin production and promote bonding. This goes for partners too!
  12. Oxytocin is responsible for the feelings of love and bonding that are often experienced between mothers and their babies during the postpartum period.
  13. Oxytocin helps to stimulate the release of milk in the breasts by contracting the muscles surrounding your milk ducts.
  14. After birth, oxytocin helps your uterus to return to its pre-pregnancy size and shape by contracting and reducing its volume.
  15. Oxytocin has been shown to have a calming effect on babies, reducing stress and promoting a peaceful and restful environment. Wearing your baby in a sling and having skin-to-skin contact can help with this.
  16. Oxytocin has also been linked to improved sleep patterns in both parents and babies, promoting overall health and wellbeing.
  17. Oxytocin production in your baby helps to organize neural circuits in the brain, as well as promoting a sense of attachment, security and confidence in them.

Oxytocin is an important hormone that plays a crucial role in the birthing process and in promoting the health and well-being of both the birthing person and baby. Its many benefits, including shortening labour, promoting bonding, increasing pain tolerance, and reducing stress, make it a vital hormone. By enhancing oxytocin production during labour, you can promote a positive and empowering birth experience, and create a strong foundation for the future.

To read more about oxytocin during the birth process, head over to Sara Wickham’s site where she looks at the evidence.

15 Ways To Boost Oxytocin In Labour

Oxytocin is produced naturally in your body during birth where it helps to stimulate and strengthen contractions. These contractions help to push your baby down the birth canal and into the world. Although it’s produced naturally and in increasing quantities in labour, are things that you can go to help promote the production of the hormone in your body.

15 Ways To Boost Oxytocin in Labour

  1. Gentle touch and massage can help to stimulate the release of oxytocin, reducing stress and promoting a sense of wellbeing. Massage can also relieve sore muscles of tension. There’s also research that shows that oxytocin rises in the person giving the massage, which is a great way to promote calmness in your birth partner.
  2. A warm bath or shower can reduce stress hormones and enhance oxytocin production.
  3. Deep breathing can turn off the sympathetic nervous system’s stress response, allowing oxytocin to relax your muscles and calm you down.
  4. Having an emotional support person who’s there solely to focus on you rather than anything medical, such as a partner, doula, or close friend, can help to enhance oxytocin production and reduce stress during birth.
  5. Cuddles! Research shows that oxytocin starts to be produced 20 seconds after a cuddle starts, so some lovely long hugs are bound to help your oxytocin levels.
  6. And on the subject of intimacy…orgasms produce oxytocin too. Just make sure you’re somewhere private first!
  7. Nipple stimulation triggers the release of oxytocin, whether this is from your own hands or your partner’s.
  8. Laughter – it really is the best medicine!
  9. Essential oils and other smells that trigger feelings of love and happiness can boost your body’s production of oxytocin.
  10. Music has been found to boost oxytocin levels, so crank your labour playlist up! Some people like to have a calm playlist and a more upbeat one – as long as it’s music that you enjoy do whatever suits you best.
  11. Start eating dates; it seems that the fruit influences oxytocin receptors and stimulates the muscles to respond to your body’s oxytocin.
  12. Creating a peaceful, supportive, and nurturing environment can help to enhance oxytocin production and promote a positive birth experience.
  13. When you’re stressed you produce stress hormones, inhibiting oxytocin. So if you’re feeling stressy during labour figure out the cause and get rid of it, allowing the oxytocin levels to rise.  
  14. Showing love and affection towards your support partner can boost your oxytocin levels; meaningful connection while bringing new life to the world, can there by anything more worthy of the love hormone?
  15. Avoiding unnecessary disturbances can help promote an oxytocin-fuelled environment. If someone’s constantly bringing you out of your hazy dazy birth bubble the oxytocin production will be disrupted – yuck.

Oxytocin is a crucial hormone for the birthing process. It has many benefits including reducing the amount of time your labour lasts, increasing your tolerance to pain, promoting bonding and attachment. By enhancing oxytocin production during labour, you can promote a positive and empowering birth experience, and create a strong foundation for the future.

For more information about oxytocin in birth, head over to Sara Wickham’s page where she looks at some of the evidence.

15 Non-Pharmacological Pain Relief Options For You To Choose In Child Birth

For those that would prefer not to use medication, or want to try other options first, you might be wondering what on Earth is available to you. Well don’t worry, you have plenty of pain relief options!

Many of these are things that will naturally enable oxytocin and endorphins to work in your body, creating a hazy dazy birth bubble that protects you. All people respond differently to different things so it’s worth putting the work in to think about what might boost your oxytocin (the love hormone) and your endorphins (your pain relieving hormones).

The brilliant thing about these is that there are no negative side effects and you can layer them up like a little pain relieving onion, and take them away when they no longer serve you. In no particular order, I bring you 15 non-pharmacological methods of pain relief during childbirth:

Breaking the fear-tension-pain cycle: Fear leads to tension, tension leads to pain. By relieving the fear you can reduce the physical symptoms of tension, ie pain! So think about some of the things that help you reduce fear and anxiety – things like deep breathing and oxytocin boosters like aromatherapy can help, as can a big cuddle from your partner!

Concept of purposeful pain: Giving birth isn’t like breaking a bone. For a start, it usually comes on gradually and builds in intensity, unlike the sudden sharp shock of a break! It’s not a something’s wrong type of pain. Reframing the lens through which you look at labour pains and understanding that each contraction brings you one step closer to your baby can help transform the way you react to the pains. Instead of being something you fear (that fear-tension-pain cycle again!), they can become something you welcome.

Breathing: Deep breathing can help encourage your physical and emotional body into a relaxed state, promoting a healthy blood flow to the birthing muscles so they work effectively. A calm, relaxed body and mind reduces the pain you experience – yep, it’s that fear-tension-pain cycle again!

Visualisations: By creating images in your mind, especially when they’ve already been anchored in your brain to a time when you were relaxed and pain-free, can help reduce your experience of pain and give you a way to handle each contraction. Many people use the concept of a wave as your contraction during labour – the wave swells and with it so does the contraction in your body, and the wave washes away as the contraction releases; you can tie this in nicely with long deep breaths.

Hot water bottle: One of the oldest and cheapest methods of pain relief!

Laughter: Laughing produces endorphins, endorphins are your body’s pain killing hormones. Easy as that!

Bath/shower: Water promotes oxytocin and endorphins, helping that birth bubble be built around you. Being submerged in water can relieve stress hormones and muscle tension, while showers can be used to massage the sore bits.

TENS machine: These send tiny electrical impulses into your body, disrupting the pain signals that you’re experiencing from your contractions. You CANNOT use this with any pain relieving method that involves water.

Massage: Getting hands on can be a great way to reduce the pain your experiencing! Massage can relax painful muscles, relieve stress and promote oxytocin, especially if it’s someone you love doing it.

Music: Music isn’t just a good distraction in birth, it can actually disrupt your brain’s pain pathways meaning your pain is reduced! Also, when else can you listen to entirely your choice of music without someone moaning?!

Rebozo: Rebozo sifting is a really gentle way to move muscles and joints, bringing relief from any pain stored up in them. It’s not a very well known concept in the UK but one that people tend to love if they do use it.

Movement: Keeping mobile helps you move and sway into contractions, relieving your body of tension, stiffness and soreness as you go. Being able to choose which position you get into and move around helps reduce your experience of pain, as well as increasing the self-efficacy you have. Choosing upright positions can help wiggle your baby down into the cervix, helping trigger oxytocin to be released into your body and stimulating effective contractions. Win win!

Acupressure: Certain acupressure points can reduce pain intensity. One of the increasingly common ways of using acupressure is to hold a comb in your hand with the teeth pointing just below where your fingers meet your palm.

Aromatherapy: Olfactory stimulation can result in pain reduction. It can also be used to promote oxytocin and reduce stress. Some essential oils are contraindicated in pregnancy/birth so do check what you’re using with someone qualified.

Personalised oxytocin boosters: We’re all individuals and respond to different things in different ways. Have a think about what makes you feel loved up, joyful, ecstatic and on a natural high as they might be just the thing to help you in labour!

(And to finish off, if you do choose pharmacological pain relief then that’s perfectly ok! You can choose to do your birth any way you want! <3 )

Where Can You Give Birth: Your Birth Place Options

Women and birthing people are supposed to be informed of their choices about where they can give birth and, crucially, are supposed to be supported in their choice. But we know this doesn’t always happen – according to the CQC Maternity Survey Results published in January 2023 a fifth of women said they were not offered any choices about where they can have their baby. Even if they are, the choices are often presented as a list rather than a proper discussion about them. How can you pick something as important as where to birth your baby if you don’t know what each option means?!

Read on for an overview of your choices of where you can give birth.

Home Birth

A home birth is exactly what it says – you give birth at home. Midwives come to you when you’re in labour and stay until you’ve given birth. They examine you post birth, help you with a shower, feeding, and tuck you into bed and go on their merry way. There is NOTHING like getting in to your own bed after giving birth and not sharing a postnatal ward with several other mums, partners and babies.  

You’re supposed to be told that home birth is a good choice for ‘low-risk’ women as there’s a lower intervention rate and the outcomes for mums and babies is no different to in a hospital setting – there’s lots of evidence for this. You’re also supposed to be supported in a home birth if you’re ‘high risk’. You can choose to birth at home whether you’re low or high risk.

To hear more about what I’ve got to say about home birth, click here or here.

Birth Centre / Midwife Led Unit

Midwife Led Units (MLUs) are generally called Birth Centres. They come in two variations:

Alongside Midwifery Unit (AMU) – these are alongside the obstetric unit, ie on the same hospital site. Because they’re on the same site if you need extra support such as certain types of pain relief or necessary interventions, it’s a short trip usually taking a matter of minutes in order to receive it (and doctors do also have legs and can come to you if it’s really necessary!).

Freestanding Midwifery Unit (FMU) – these are on a separate site to the obstetric unit. Because they’re not in the same place it will take more time to receive extra help. If you needed that support you would need to be transferred to the local obstetric unit.

Midwifery Led Units are, as the name suggests, led by midwives rather than care being shared between midwives and doctors. They tend to be a little bit more ‘home from home’ like than labour wards and often have birth pools, twinkly lights and pretty murals on the wall. If it’s a particularly well-equipped one you might even find birth ropes, birth stools and other exciting birth equipment.

You have the right to choose to give birth at a Birth Centre if you wish, however sometimes this may involve a negotiation as your trust literally hold the keys and may encourage you to believe that it’s ‘not allowed’.

Labour Ward / Delivery Suite / Obstetric Unit

On Labour Wards care is shared between doctors and midwives. This is generally where those who are expected to have a complicated birth are recommended to give birth, however sometimes your definition of “expected to” may differ from your caregiver’s definition! It’s also where caesarean births take place.

The environment tends to be more clinical looking and less oxytocin-promoting than at home or in Birth Centres, which is a bit silly because people having complicated births are arguably more in need of oxytocin promotion! There is access to more significant pharmacological pain relief such as opiates and epidurals if you want them. By definition, more interventions happen here – because they can’t take place at home or on the Birth Centre.

You have the right to choose to give birth in a Labour Ward either vaginally or by planned caesarean section if you want to. However, you should be advised that unnecessary intervention is more likely to happen on a Labour Ward than either at home or Birth Centres.

So there’s your whistle stop tour of where you can give birth. Where you choose to give birth to your baby is a really important decision because even planning to give birth in one place but actually giving birth in another can change your birth outcomes. So make sure you really consider it and don’t dismiss any of the places until you’ve thought about them properly. And remember, you can change your mind at any point before your baby arrives!