Tag: massage

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 )