Secrets to Shortening Your Labour (BEFORE it Begins!)

What can I say? Nothing motivates me to sit down and blog more than having my kids home for Springbreak 🤪 Interested in potentially shaving some time off your overall birth? There’s not shame in that, sister. Most of us are! Well, here are some proactive steps you can take, before your birth begins, to maybe, just maybe, make that happen!

Red Raspberry Leaf

When taken prenatally, red raspberry leaf has been shown to help strengthen and tone the uterus. It is most commonly consumed via capsule or tea - although capsule is said to be a more potent (read: effective) dosage. You might be thinking “A tea? To shorten my labour? “ Sounds weird, right? Not so weird when you consider that red raspberry leaf works as a uterine toner. In other words, it strengthens your uterus and subsequent contractions. And a strong uterus is an efficient uterus!

Dates

The research on dates to shorten labour is actually pretty impressive. Studies have found that those who ate 6 dates daily from 36 weeks had, pretty significantly, shorter labours than their non-date-eating counterparts. They also had a higher instance of spontaneous labour onset! If you’re like me and can’t stand the taste, you can mask the taste by blending them up in your daily smoothie!

Exercise

As a doula, I always get a little giddy when I work with a client who is committed to exercising both throughout her pregnancy and during the lead up to her birth. I have seen, first-hand, the benefits of women who maintained their fitness during pregnancy and how that positively impacted their births (highly recommend!). And studies have found that women who maintained regular antenatal exercise can shorten their labour by up to one hour. Plus, there are all the other residual benefits of maintaining your exercise program during pregnancy: less likely to be diagnosed with gestational diabetes, more physical comfort during pregnancy, healthy weight gain, better sleep during pregnancy; more stamina for labour, more likely to have a spontaneous onset of labour, less likely to need a cesarean, less likely to use pharmaceuticals - and all the other things that come along with those!

Your Little Passenger’s Position

It’s more than just head down, people. Some birth basics: part of the labour process involves the rotation of the baby to a position that is considered “optimal” for birth (your baby’s head is facing your back, their chin will be tucked). And to be fair, it is this position that nearly all babies end up in order to facilitate their subsequent birth. But… what if babe STARTS labour already in that optimal position? A-ha moment, right? Starting your labour with babe already in that optimal position will mean you don’t have to spend the time labouring while baby rotates. The end result is going to be a shorter, likely easier, labour. Read my post How to Help a Posterior Babe Rotate Before Birth Begins for tips and tricks to get your baby into an optimal position before your birth starts.

Chiro Adjustments

Spend any time reading any of my other birth prep posts and you will notice a recurring theme: regular chiropractic care is a must in the lead up to your delivery. Adjustments, with an experienced chiropractor licensed to work on pregnant bodies, will help with body balancing and creating room in the pelvis to help baby get into that good position pre-birth (if you’re still wondering why that matters, re-read the point above!). For the record, “regular” adjustments equates about 1-2 a week, if you can manage.

Pelvic Floor Therapy

By now you know how significant a role our pelvic floor plays in the birth process. Too tight a pelvic floor and we may baby may have trouble navigating it. So, if t’s a muscle we’re going to depend so heavily on during our births, we really need to A) be familiar with not only its role in the process, where exactly its located within our pelvis and how it functions from a biomechanical standpoint and B) we must be able to connect to it almost as if it’s second-nature. A Pelvic Floor therapist is going to check all these boxes!

Squatting

Ina May Gaskin once said: "squat 300 times a day and you're going to give birth quickly." And while I have questions (Why is 300 the magic number? Does it really have to be 300 squats a day? Where did she get that number from? What happens if it’s only 100 a day?) the fact is that, regardless of the specific number: doing a few sets daily can help lengthen and strengthening your pelvic floor, aligning and opening up your hips AND stretching tight muscles. Plus, there’s a good chance you’ll spend some of your labour in some form of a squat position so, some training beforehand means your muscles are less likely to seize up and fatigue.

Massage Therapy

Regular massage therapy with a registered massage therapist, licensed to work on pregnant bodies, will help promote muscle relaxation. You’ll reap the benefits of these sessions during labour as your body and muscles will be able to relax, and loosen, more quickly, in between labour sensations. Loose muscles means easier passage.

Actively Reduce Birth Anxiety

Stress, or anxiety, causes our adrenaline to spike. And in the birth process, adrenaline is not our friend. Is it because we’re mean people? No. It’s because adrenaline slows labour. Spend time intentionally shaping your mindset as your birth approaches. The easiest way to do this is to learn about birth so that it’s not new, scary territory when you find yourself in it.

Hire a Doula

It’s not even a bias, it’s SCIENCE! Research shows that having a doula attend your birth shaves off, on average, 40 minutes from your birth. You might not think 40 minutes is anything to write home about but, hey, when you're in labour, every minute counts!

There you have it. 10 easy steps that can help you shorten your labour. Before signing off, one last thing I want to do is to encourage you to approach the potential length of your labour with a realistic mindset. The reality is, for the large majority of us, especially first-time birthers, birth is long. While these steps are shown to help reduce some of the time we spend in the labour process, we are not talking about shaving days or hours off of our birth. My suggestion? When your labour starts, approach it as you’re playing a “long game.” Try to refrain from putting any expectations on how long you’ll be “here” for. If anything, assume it will be several days and if it’s less than that - whoop, whoop, bonus!