How will I act in labor?

Television and movies seem to support the idea that you never know how a woman is going to respond to labor. You may even have heard it from friends and relatives, "You just go crazy, yelling and screaming in labor, threatening everyone." What a very unpleasant expectation some people have of labor.

But giving birth does not send a woman into psychosis, and it does not change your identity. You will still be yourself when you give birth. In fact, you may be more yourself in labor than at any other time in your life.

Every day of your life you are faced with obstacles and challenges. The way you THINK about these obstacles is the key to your personality, not the way you HANDLE these obstacles. Why? Because the way you handle obstacles and challenges is a filtered version of what you really think and believe. The filter is your mind deciding what is and is not appropriate behavior.

As an example, think about driving with a very poor driver in the lane next to you. He swerves, almost hitting your car, then pulls in front of you and drives away. You might have gotten red faced, maybe yelled. But your thoughts probably went much further. You might have thought about speeding up to hit him as a payback, but know you would never actually do something like that. You might have thought words that you would never let slip from your lips.

That is the filtering that your mind does every day of your life. Your actions are filtered versions of your thoughts. Both your thoughts, and your filters are dependent upon the beliefs you have. For some women, their internal filter would prevent them from making eye contact or flirting with a good looking man, for other women, their belief system sees no harm in this behavior and so they flirt away.

Laboring, however, takes all your energy. You have no spare effort to spend on filtering your responses to what is happening around you. So rather than asking the other people in the room to talk quieter, you do the least energy zapping thing and shout, "Shut up!"

How will I act in labor?

So, how will you act in labor? The key to this question lies in really understanding who you are as a person. Are you someone whose thought life is very different from your filtered life that everyone sees? If so you may appear to be a completely different person in labor. But you are not really, you are simply more of yourself.

For insight into how you might react to labor, take the Birth Style Quiz.

You May Also Be Interested In: Learn what normal labor is like. Practice your new labor skills with virtual labor. The Natural Childbirth Directory can help you find more information about birth and locate childbirth professionals. The Coach's Notebook helps you learn tools and techniques to manage labor.

© Copyright 2000-2008 Jennifer VanderLaan and Birthing Naturally

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