The Ordinary Doula Podcast
Welcome to The Ordinary Doula Podcast with Angie Rosier, hosted by Birth Learning. We help folks prepare for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy doula practice, helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.
The Ordinary Doula Podcast
E63: Water as a Tool During Labor
Uncover the secret to a more serene and empowered birth experience by mastering the art of using "Mother Nature's epidural"—hydrotherapy! Explore how the strategic use of water during labor can provide a natural, effective means of managing pain and enhancing relaxation. Whether you're considering a soothing bath, invigorating shower, or the calming effects of a birthing tub. This isn't just about comfort; it's about harnessing the power of water to support labor progression, ensuring a positive and memorable birth journey.
In this empowering episode of The Ordinary Doula Podcast, we delve into the versatility of water and how it can be your greatest ally during labor. From creating a tranquil environment with dim lighting and soothing music to the practicalities of handling bodily fluids and choosing the optimal time for hydrotherapy, we cover it all. Learn about different types of tubs and the benefits of buoyancy, alongside tips for hydration and maintaining a cool atmosphere. Whether you're planning a hospital birth or a home birth, these insights will equip you with the knowledge to make informed choices, ensuring your labor is as comfortable and fulfilling as possible.
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Show Credits
Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with Angie Rozier, hosted by Birth Learning, where we help prepare folks for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy doula practice Helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Ordinary Doula podcast. I hope that you can find something useful through listening to these episodes. Kind of my design in doing this podcast is to help all people gain some tools as they prepare for labor, for childbirth, for breastfeeding, for the first little bit of postpartum, which is kind of a big shift in life. So not everyone can afford a doula. I realize that it's kind of a luxury item. There are more and more ways to cover doula services. Some states have Medicaid coverage. Some insurance companies cover doula services. You can cover them with health savings or flex spending accounts in many cases. But my goal is that everyone has the access to what you might be able to prepare with to empower you along your birth journey. So one thing I want to talk about today as you may know, doulas have several different specialties and one of them is comfort measures that can be used during labor, or coping skills, some different tools. There's so many tools available to use during labor. A lot of people just think, oh, I'm just, you know, grin and bear it, we've got to get through it. Or they go in without a plan. They don't have things to do, things to try things to um, to test and to use. So today we're going to talk about one of my favorite gosh. I have a lot of favorites, I don't know if I can say that, but one of the uh yeah, it's a favorite, it's a favorite tool, a very powerful tool, a very effective tool, a very popular tool, and that is the use of water. So it's also known as hydrotherapy. This could be water in the form of a tub, it could be water in the form of a shower. But we're going to talk about different ways to use hydrotherapy, when to use it, why to use it, how it works, kind of some different techniques you can use in and around and surrounding hydrotherapy, or the use of water during labor. So kind of water has a pretty impressive impact. It's also kind of been called Mother Nature's epidural or a water dural, because it can be pretty effective. So water can be used at different times during labor and you kind of want to strategize when to use it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to talk about early labor and why we would or would not want to use the use of water shower tub during early labor. So early labor as you know, the early labor phase can kind of come and go. It can be a little mysterious in that we're wondering is this it? When is it going to take off? So many people are anxious for it to take off, like I can't wait to get going. And they get going. You're like, wow, I wish I could go back to the chill time of early labor. But early labor, when contractions might be sporadic or spread out or kind of short or not very intense.
Speaker 2:If we use water in early labor, it can be very effective at kind of just mellowing mellow labor. So why would we want to do that? Well, it kind of depends on your energy levels and the time of day. If early labor begins at 8pm, we're going into the nighttime. You're probably, hopefully, in a couple hours. The idea is to lay down, go to sleep, get some rest. So you may want to strategize and use labor as a comfort tool to kind of relax things during early labor so you could take a bath before you lay down and try to get as much rest as possible. However, if early labor is starting at 6 or 7am, you may not want to take a bath. If you had a good night's sleep, you want to maybe move around a little bit more. Um, do some things to encourage labor rather than to kind of really relax through it. So be strategic about when you use water in early labor. Now, a shower shower can be used at any time, of course. Um, sometimes it's a nice reset to to use a shower. If you think about the sensations that are occurring during use of water, there, of course, is moisture happening, right. So whatever is being touched by water is being moistened. Um, so that can be good for um, we'll talk a little bit later about, like preparing of the tissues for stretching.
Speaker 2:In late labor, there's temperature involved. Typically it's warm or hot. I don't really know many, too many people who take super cold baths or showers, but sometimes that water does cool off and that can feel good too, as people take a long bath or something. And actually studies have shown that the natural cooling of the water in late labor helps with the extraction of placenta if baby is born in the water. So, and people kind of warm up and that cooler water as it cools off can be a nice tool in earlier labor, or, sorry, in later labor. So water has a temperature to it and that is controllable, right? Some people they want it hotter, they want it not so hot. I've had people in such hot showers. They look like they're baking, like they're just red as can be. Their skin is red and that's kind of what they want. You know they're like no hotter hotter.
Speaker 2:In some hospital settings we have a challenge with getting hot hot water coming out of the pipes, or it takes a while anyway for it to warm up. So be aware of your surroundings and if you're going to use water to prepare for that, so get the water going. Honestly, sometimes it takes several minutes in a hospital for that water to get as hot as it can be, which isn't usually as hot as you want. At home we sometimes have limited hot water use. Like it might be super hot, but it's going to run out.
Speaker 2:I was at a home birth a few months ago. It was a water birth and this mom was just loving the hot water. She was in a bath with a shower running on her. That was her main coping mechanism. She was leaning on it super strong. It was working very well, but we ran out of hot water so we had to kind of give it a break. Do something else before we got back to the hot water. If you have a tankless water heater, awesome, all the better. You're not going to run out of hot water. So we have temperature.
Speaker 2:And then a very impactful part of hydrotherapy is tactile sensation. So water, whether it's in a shower or, even more so, in a tub, the body is submerged. Water is gonna be touching so many places right, like when you submerge in water. Just I want you to feel, if you know, some people are bath takers, they love taking a bath, other people don't. But kind of sense, when you submerge in the perfect temperature water hopefully it's a nice deep, you know, pool or tub where you can get really well submerged just kind of imagine that sensation that comes over your whole body, right. Water's touching your toes, your legs, your buttocks, your stomach, your back, like you can move in the water and there's a buoyancy that comes to the water that a lot of people like. It kind of takes off some of the pressure that we feel as a heavy baby is in the pelvis and making their way down. So some really cool physical sensations there to water. So strategies to use water in later labor.
Speaker 2:I kind of like to save that tool in my back pocket for when things get tough, like if somebody is just swimming along nicely through labor. They're coping really well. I'm not going to say, hey, let's get in the tub. You know, I'll kind of wait till maybe they're struggling a little bit, maybe things are getting a little bit intense, and then we can use that tool when things are getting more intense, because it is so effective. I've had, I love if I could write a little recipe for labor. It would be to get in the tub.
Speaker 2:About seven, eight centimeters, spend transition in the tub. That buoyancy, that warmth, that moisture, we're preparing the tissues to stretch, we're bringing blood flow to the area. The tactile sensation of water is phenomenal. And then we if you're not having a baby in the water we get out of the tub and most tubs. You are going to be doing a nice big step over the side of a tub. If it's at home it might be a shorter step. If it's a birth pool, that's a pretty high step which is so good for the pelvis at that point as we're helping a baby to navigate.
Speaker 2:So the movement even of getting in and out of a tub can be helpful and I wish most people like wish they could. If they want to spend time during transition in the tub because it's so effective. Then we get out and we push. You can even push, start pushing in the tub. Some providers, some hospitals staff, get pretty nervous about that. But again, if you're gonna be pushing for one, two, three hours, it's probably fine to start pushing in the tub and then to get out of that tub and continue on, just smoothly, move right into that pushing phase. That's a great place to spend that time.
Speaker 2:So how can other people help when someone's in the tub or in the shower? I've gotten pretty soaking wet before at births, for sure, um and helping people. I've had partners, you know, get in this a swimming suit or um, get soaking wet themselves as they help in a shower or a tub. So sometimes rubbing the back, that's like with fingers, with hands, having a nice big cup to pour water over. Sometimes the temperature control can be interesting in that the tub can make you pretty warm. So sometimes we want to stand up to cool off like a quick stand up. Again, great movement, great gravity, use of gravity there, but standing up can cool you off pretty quickly. Sometimes people are cold. They get cold when they get out, you know, if their shoulders out and their shoulders, their shoulders cold. So there's that you want to be aware, if you're helping someone in the tub, to kind of be aware of temperature sensations and some people are much more sensitive to temperature changes and sensations than others. But be aware of temperature control and helping someone with a nice cup of water pouring that over them adds a tactile sensation to places that might not be submerged in the water, that are not very good for submersion. We can add more tactile sensation and temperature sensation with a cup of water that we're pouring over the belly, over the back. It adds kind of a nice rhythm to it and gives the partner something to do.
Speaker 2:Always, always have something to drink when someone's in the water, because they warm up. You can burn a lot of calories, you can burn off a lot of. You're sweating some people will sweat in the tub. So have drinks ready. I always have a cold drink handy and we're going to offer it quite often when somebody's in the tub, also because they warm up, I'm going to have some cool washcloths, even ice cold washcloths, sometimes right ready near the tub. So maybe a little bowl of water If you're at the hospital, a little emesis basin or something with, or a little basin, a little tub with ice water in it and three or four washcloths in that. Those are going to warm up as soon as they're on the body. They're going to warm up, so have them always at hand to be cold. Maybe you put them on the neck, maybe put them on the forehead, maybe some people hold them in their hands, but our access to someone in the water does change, right, like we can't access them for double hip squeeze as well, but still try to get access to the back when you can Also use other things in the tubs, things such as towels, pillows.
Speaker 2:Some people will want something depending on what kind of tub they're in. Some rentable tubs or birthing tubs are going to be nice and soft all the way around, even on the bottom, so we're going to be comfortable leaning on that anywhere we are. Other tubs have some real hardness to them, so we might want to be ready with towels for foreheads or knees or back if the person's semi-reclining. So sometimes positions in tubs shift. Of course, very common people might be kind of semi reclined.
Speaker 2:We a lot of times like to avoid semi reclined or reclined during labor, but in the tub a little bit different rule because we're buoyant so it's not terrible to spend some time, if desired, kind of semi-reclined Sitting to a side. Sometimes people lean with right shoulder, left shoulder, kind of elbow up over the edge of the tub. They'll have their right hip down, their left hip down or switch between the two. A lot of people, however, will kneel in the tub. They will kind of kneel. They're nice and submerged. If they have a good spot to kneel over. They'll kind of drape their arms, elbows over the edge of a tub and let their spine be long, kind of let the belly hang in the water. The knees may be spread out wide, but movement in the tub can be good too. So encourage someone in the tub. If it's you yourself, kind of consider moving every few minutes also in the tub.
Speaker 2:Some people get in the tub and spend 20 minutes and they're done also in the tub. Some people get in the tub and spend 20 minutes and they're done. That's it. Other people get in the tub and don't want to get out. They may be there for a couple of hours. They may get in several times, totally cool.
Speaker 2:Be cautious of water temperature. A lot of times we might be warming it up over time. Sometimes we might have we include nice dim lighting. With that we can include music. Some people have little candles. You know battery powered candles they can put around the tub. So do something to make your water experience like. Add to it that's music, dim lights, touch, massage, drink for sure. Maybe it's something lovely to taste, a refreshing drink to hydrate and keep cool. Um, maybe there's music is playing as well. So you can take that powerful tool and add a lot of other powerful components to it. Um, I'm trying to think of some fun tub experience which we have.
Speaker 2:Sometimes the water breaks in the tub and you can see a little kind of puff of fluid which is amniotic fluid. Sometimes there's meconium from the baby in the tub. We can see that in the water. Or the mom has a bowel movement in the water. A lot of places birth centers, hospitals are going to be prepared to take care of that. They usually have a little net that they'll just get rid of that.
Speaker 2:But consider the water as a tool. Some people are, like I said before, are, bath takers. If that's already a tool in their life, it's going to be a really nice tool for labor. Other people don't take baths very often but it still can be a pretty powerful tool for them. Sometimes in the shower we may have a birth ball. You can sit on the birth ball in the shower. You can kneel on some towels and kneel onto the birth ball, kind of lean onto the birth ball that way to get kind of creative Again, depending on the space you have.
Speaker 2:Whenever I get to a labor space I'm going to check it out and see what kind of bathroom are we working with, what kind of lighting are we working with, what's our water situation, what's available to us? If I'm at a home birth, I'm going to check that out. Some people have beautiful, awesome home birth tubs. I got to admit, when I'm in anybody's house for any reason, I see a good tub, I'm like, ooh, that's a good place to have a baby. But some home tubs are very small and don't work as well. But a good, nice, deep garden tub is going to be pretty, pretty awesome. Some hospitals have jets, some home tubs have jets. Some people like them, some don't. That adds a sound component. Some people like that kind of a white noise. Other people find it distracting.
Speaker 2:But consider, consider water shower or bath as a really good coping school tool. Use it strategically. Use it for later labor usually, or early labor if you need to kind of relax and rest during that early phase of labor. Hopefully this has been helpful to you. Hopefully it's been a good tool, something you can consider and to use during your birthing time. See what your options are.
Speaker 2:You may need to ask for a tub room at certain hospitals. Some hospitals have one tub room. Some have a shared tub for all the rooms, others have a tub in every room. So kind of see what it is you're working with and as you get into it you know what your options are. But it's a great option to have and I want you to know, even if your water's broken beforehand, you can still get in the tub. It is totally fine to do so.
Speaker 2:Good luck to you with use of water. It can be a pretty great tool, pretty powerful tool. Hopefully that helps in your labor preparation, as you prepare for the work and the awesome awesomeness of bringing a baby into the world. Best to you. Hopefully you can go out today. Do something kind for someone else, even if it's just a wink or a nod to a stranger, or call up an old friend. Make a human connection today. That will bring joy to you and joy to them. Good luck to you and I will see you next time. Again, this is Angie Rozier signing off with the Ordinary Doula podcast with Angie Rozier, hosted by Birth Learning.
Speaker 1:Episode credits will be in the show notes Tune in next time as we continue to explore the many aspects of giving birth.