The Power of Birth Language — Birth Takes a Village

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I’ve always been fascinated with the power of words. As a child, you’d have been hard-pressed to find me at a time when I didn’t have a book in my hand, engrossed in whatever world the words on paper brought me into, aware of how subtleties in language have the power to evoke all kinds of different emotions.

In university, I took a linguistics class as an option course, a break from the human physiology and biochemistry courses I was usually taking. It was one of my favorite classes. The way we use language to convey messages to one another is just so darn interesting!

As usual, I can’t help but compare everything to birth. The intensity of birth makes certain truths about life amazingly apparent. I’ve seen a mom’s contractions stop completely in a matter of seconds because a midwife innocently said “You’ve only progressed another half centimeter”. The “only” in that sentence sent mom on a spiral of “I’m not progressing fast enough, I can’t do this, I’m scared of needing artificial oxytocin to speed up my birth”.

I always say stress is the enemy of birth, and this is a great example. If the midwife had said instead “Great, you’ve dilated another half centimeter!”, would things have been different? It’s impossible to know for sure, but I’m inclined to speculate that if nothing else, her contractions would not have come to a grinding halt right that second. When we are talking about birth, it is so powerful to choose language that carries connotations of safety and confidence. I believe it’s important to do everything we can to keep any kind of stress or fear at bay in order to allow a birthing woman’s body to do its work uninhibited.

In the prenatal workshop for partners I teach, I go over the use of negatives like “no” or “don’t”. I tell my dads / partners to try to say things like “Relax, you’re safe” as opposed to “Don’t be scared, you’re not in any danger”. When we say the latter, moms brains hear the words scared and danger and it has the potential to start them thinking “Am I scared? Am I in danger?”, when what we really want is for them to be focusing on the feelings associated with the words relax and safe.

The importance of language is one of the reasons I really like birth preparation models like Hypnobabies and Hypnobirthing. Both models place a huge emphasis on using positive, supportive, productive language about birth and avoid using words that have negative connotations associated with them.

For example, if the word labour has a negative connotation for you, making you think of upleasant work, Hypnobabies and Hypnobirthing  suggest using words like birth, birthing, or birthing time. If contractions sound like something unpleasant, you can re-frame them as surges or waves.  One of my favorite word substitutions in birth is talking about special circumstances as opposed to complications.

Sometimes different words have different connotations for different people! I’ve had clients tell me they actually LIKE the word contraction, because it reminds them that what they are feeling is their uterine muscle doing some powerful, good exercise. Pay attention to how certain words make you feel, what emotions or reactions you associate them with. As you prepare for birth, regardless of whether you are using any childbirth hypnosis tools, I encourage you to reframe words that carry a negative connotation for you into language that you find more positive and comforting.

I did my hypno-doula training with local Hypnobabies instructors Crystal Di Domizio and Jenn King. Currently, I am auditing a Hypnobirthing course with Alison Longley at Vancouver Hypnobirthing. I also have several births coming up over the next few months with parents who are studying either the Hypnobabies or Hypnobirthing models of childbirth hypnosis.

I’ll be writing an article highlighting the benefits of each and the differences between them in the next month or so. Sign up for my newsletter if you’d like to have the article emailed to you when it’s ready.

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