Breathing During Childbirth

Breathing during childbirth

Breathing plays an important role during childbirth. Proper breathing helps a woman relax, relieve tension, concentrate and relieve pain. There are several breathing techniques that are recommended to be learned in advance during pregnancy.

At the beginning of labor, it is useful to use abdominal or chest-abdominal breathing. As you inhale, the stomach protrudes slightly, and as you exhale, it retracts. This allows you to gently massage the abdominal organs and stimulate labor.

As contractions intensify, they switch to more frequent shallow breathing. As you exhale, make the sounds “ha-ha-ha”, which help relax the muscles.

In the pauses between contractions, you need to take deep breaths and exhales to restore your breathing.

During pushing efforts, you should hold your breath and press the diaphragm on the uterus. When there is not enough air, they exhale incompletely and hold their breath again, continuing to push.

Proper breathing during childbirth helps saturate the body with oxygen, relieve tension and pain, and also shorten the duration of labor several times. Therefore, it is important to practice breathing techniques in advance in order to apply them intuitively.