The Essential 'How To' Guide for an EASIER childbirth!!!!!!!

DISCLAIMER - This post contains adorable pics of my first baby, for no real reason except that I'm feeling clucky :)

Well my baby is due next week!!!!  So what better topic to write on than breath and breathing - and the HUGE role it can play in pregnancy, childbirth and life as a parent if you learn about it and use it right!

I wrote the below article on this very topic for Nuture - Natural Parenting Magazine for their last year's Winter edition and have been re-reading it and, with my husband/boyfriend (I don't have one of each - he's the one person but husband sounds better), practicing our breathing for the big event.

Breathing is something we don't usually think about - we just do it automatically - but if you learn how to do it better you will be amazed at the difference it can make to your health and well-being!!! Check it out....

Breathing In New Life

We all know how important it is to allow ourselves to ‘just breathe’ - be still, have some ‘you’ time – especially when we are pregnant. It is drummed into us by friends, family, doctors of all modalities, therapists, counsellors and well-meaning strangers. But sometimes it seems nearly impossible, especially as a parent, to successfully achieve this monumental task!

Firstly, about 75% of women experience breathlessness during pregnancy. Increased levels of the pregnancy hormone progesterone change the way your body absorbs oxygen which results in much deeper breaths, though at the same respiratory rate as before. This, in conjunction with the weight of a growing baby pushing into your diaphragm, can make the task seem quite overwhelming. 

Gentle aerobic exercise such as swimming, yoga and walking can assist your breathing during pregnancy. If you feel dizzy, lightheaded or uncomfortable while practicing your breathing exercises either lessen the extent of your inhalations or take a rest and come back to it later. Make sure you discuss any respiratory conditions such as asthma or any concerns you may have about your breathing with your doctor.

BREATHING DURING AND AFTER PREGNANCY

The benefits of deep abdominal, or belly, breathing are numerous. Deep belly breathing allows more air into the lungs, which allows for more oxygen to be supplied to both you AND your baby. This enriches every single cell in your bodies – your vital organs, muscles, brain function, hair, skin and nails will all benefit. In addition more oxygen to your body will help you to relax, focus and sleep better.

In our normal, everyday breathing we generally find ourselves breathing shallow breaths into our chests and we can actually see our chests and shoulders rising and falling as we inhale and exhale. This type of breathing does not allow for the potential of oxygen we could be bringing into our bodies and will not help prepare us for breathing during labour.

When practicing proper belly breathing, imagine an empty jug being filled with water – the water fills the jug from the bottom up, filling every little nook and cranny before the water level rises. Our lungs work in exactly the same way. Put your hands on your belly, hips and lower back; imagine the air going firstly to the base of your core and feel your body move outwards as the diaphragm allows your lungs to expand, allowing more and more oxygen into your body.

Counting your inhalations and exhalations will help with keeping belly breaths controlled. Slowly count as you breathe in 1...2...3…4, then hold and exhale 1...2...3...4. As you hold you are allowing more time for the oxygen to be absorbed in the lungs and as you exhale you are eliminating carbon dioxide waste from your body. It does not matter what number you count up to though it pays to spend a little longer on the out breath than the in breath if possible. It is important to remember that you can not truly inhale unless you truly and fully exhale.

The further into your pregnancy you are the harder belly breathing will become, so if possible start practicing in the first trimester – starting with 10 deep breaths both morning and night. It may take a bit of practice to master but you will feel energised, refreshed and relaxed once you get the hang of it. Practicing with your birthing partner is recommended if you intend to co-breath during labour.

BREATHING AFFIRMATIONS DURING PREGNANCY

Using breath as a source of affirmation during pregnancy is adapted from the Buddhist art of practicing breath to become fully aware.

Writing affirmations can be personal and you may choose to do this alone. After some quiet reflection write down a list of words you believe will help you during your pregnancy and childbirth journeys, for example: strong, calm, alive, open. Now adapt these to fit with your belly breaths, for example: ‘Breathing in I am strong, breathing out I am strong’; ‘Breathing in I am calm, breathing out I am calm’; ‘Breathing in I am alive, breathing out I am alive’; and so on. Write your breathing affirmations down, illustrate them, make them pretty and then stick them on your walls, next to your bed, above the kitchen bench – anywhere you may be inclined to practice.

Make sure, as you practice, that you BELIEVE what you are reading. 

Take them to the hospital with you, allow your partner to read them to you or with you as you breath, believe in the words as you breath, look at the words as you breathe – however you choose to use your affirmation cards they will become invaluable tools for you during the childbirth journey.

It’s important to ensure your affirmations only contain positive words. Stay away from phrases such as ‘Breathing in I feel no pain’ and replace them with ‘Breathing in I feel my baby’ or ‘Breathing in I gain strength’.

BREATHING DURING THE 1ST STAGE OF LABOUR

Controlled belly breathing during the first stage of labour maximises oxygen levels for you and your baby and is a fabulous, natural method of pain relief. Take a deep breath, filling the base of your lungs with air first, at the beginning of each contraction and slowly exhale keeping your mouth, cheeks and jaw soft as you do so. Focus solely on your deep belly breaths and affirmations during each contraction and relax in between them. Using sound and movement in conjunction with your breath during contractions can really help – never mind how it may appear to those around you, birthing staff have seen and heard it all before!

Try not to allow fear or panic into your mind. When you are tense or frightened your body releases adrenalin, your breathing will become shallow and rapid, and your shoulders and chest will again begin to rise as you breathe. Panic-breathing is a common reaction to very stressful or frightening situations, especially during strong contractions, and though this is normal your body cannot continue in this state for long before becoming fatigued. Recognising panic-breathing and bringing it back to controlled belly breaths will help your body conserve energy.

Birthing partners have a very important task during this stage. They can make eye contact and breathe in time with you, give you water in between contractions to stop your mouth drying out, remind you to keep your jaw, mouth and shoulders relaxed, help you count your in and out breaths to maintain the control and most importantly – remind you to breathe!

BREATHING DURING THE 2ND STAGE OF LABOUR

When it comes time to push your breathing patterns will once again change. You will need to refocus your breath and mind and now use them to assist you push down through your body. Try not to hold your breath during this stage, but also avoid airy, controlled exhales as they will not help you either. Take a deep in breath before each push and use your breath instinctively, with guidance from your doctor, midwife or doula.

Having mastered the skill of breathing, you have on your hands an invaluable life tool. Once the journey of pregnancy and childbirth has passed and you embark on the amazing path of parenthood you will undoubtedly at times hear that little voice again - ‘just breathe’, be still, have some ‘you’ time.

http://www.nurtureparentingmagazine.com.au/

References

Jana A. Czipin, Practice Manual Pranayama: Breathing exercises for Yogis, free divers and pregnant women (Kindle Ed), Books On Demand, 2012

Thich Nhat Hanh, Breathe! You are Alive: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, Parallax Press Revised Ed, 1996

Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, Mother’s Breath: A definitive Guide to Yoga Breathing, Sound and Awareness Practices During Pregnancy, Birth, Post-natal Recovery and Mothering, Sitaram and Sons, 2006

Andrew Weil, Breathing: The Master Key to Self Healing (The Self Healing Series) (Audio CD), Sounds True, Incorporated, 1999

Recommended Reading

Mother’s Breath: A definitive Guide to Yoga Breathing, Sound and Awareness Practices During Pregnancy, Birth, Post-natal Recovery and Mothering by Uma Dinsmore-Tuli

Looking for advice on MELODIC INTONATION THERAPY...

Ok, so this one's just for the music therapists out there, and more specifically for those of you who have experience in using Melodic Intonation Therapy or Modified Melodic Intonation therapy.

I'd like some ideas on how to 'mix-up' the sessions a bit in order to keep the momentum going.

I'm currently running a MMIT program. We work on our musical phrases every session and my client works on them in his spare time but I'd like to also incorporate some complimentary interventions to make the process more enjoyable (whilst continuing to help the neurological regeneration). Our rehab journey is proving to be long and I don't want him to give up.

Obviously not all interventions you have used will suit his needs but please throw me some ideas and hopefully I'll be able to adapt some of them to make our sessions more motivational - thanks in advance!

PLEASE COMMENT BELOW :)

Music Therapy at Camp Quality

My Saturday this weekend was an absolute cracker - running music therapy groups at Camp Quality!

It was SO much fun. We rapped, we stomped, we clapped, we drummed, we danced, we strummed - we even prepared to deliver my baby on site!

Camp Quality is a family cancer charity that brings optimism, resilience and happiness to the lives of families and children affected by cancer.

They provide programs that focus on education, performance, recreation, respite and play throughout primary schools, paediatric oncology wards, recreation venues and homes across Australia.



THE BEST BIT OF ALL??  (Apart from the fact that everything is completely free!)

Camp Quality believes LAUGHTER is the best medicine! (And for anyone reading this you will know who closely this resembles my own ethos on life!) I had an absolute ball!

It's a humbling and special experience to surround yourself with children who suffer such heartbreaking difficulties - and to watch them play, laugh and appear not to have a care in the world was an absolute joy!

So thank YOU Camp Quality for having me - lets do it again sometime!!

Visit http://www.campquality.org.au to find out more about Camp Quality or to throw a donation their way - it's well and truly worth it!!

Happy Aboriginal Easter!!

 Ever wondered why Easter is on a different date each year?

Well it's because Easter ALWAYS starts on the Friday of the first full moon after the equinox...

Now, if that isn't a Christian tradition embedded deeply in it's Pagan roots I don't know what is - So what better time to celebrate Easter and Mother Nature together!






This year I decided Easter would be a great time to help Maple learn a little of her Aboriginal heritage, so here is her Easter Treat - a nest full of aboriginal inspired painted eggs. I won't have to actually 'teach' her much - she'll ask the "why? why? why? why?" questions without too much prompting!


With lots of gratitude I'd like to thank my major sponsors for this project - My Garden, for literally throwing this nest at me out of a tree I was pruning a couple of weeks ago, the Mersey River, for the perfectly smooth, egg shaped rocks, Australia for her splendid colour scheme and our Aboriginal Ancestry for the inspiration.








Happy Easter from OMMG to all those who celebrate - We wish you much fun, family and dark, raw chocolate! xxx

Young People in Care - where is the line between PATRONISING and OK???

OK music therapists and other therapists out there, I have a question (or a few) for you.....

I'm confused at the moment about the line between 'patronising' and 'ok'.


When someone has neurological damage or degeneration it can be impossible to understand their receptive abilities, the depth of decline in their cognition and their emotional needs - so we go on what we and the broader multidisciplinary team know about them, what we assume they may need and what we assume they are able to engage in or benefit from.
There literally is no other way to do it. 1) OR IS THERE????

When someone has neurological damage or degeneration the spectrum of MT interventions we can use with them can be greatly reduced. (Naturally as creative, fabulous and professional therapists we adapt to make them more accessible but overall the spectrum is reduced). Anything that requires cognitive or fine motor physical engagement can be difficult. Any intervention that requires more than a single session can be difficult. We can't implement interventions successfully if we believe the client is unable to participate in them or understand them. 2) OR CAN WE????

In particular when we work with young adults in this state of neurological damage or degeneration we find ourselves simplifying things, in the same way that we may do with young children or the elderly.  3) WHERE IS THE LINE BETWEEN PATRONISING AND OK IN THIS INSTANCE????

These questions come to mind at a time when one of my 'besties' is admitted to full time care.

I have worked with quite a few clients with the same degenerative condition that bestie has and have found myself using shakers, tambourines and drums and singing songs from earlier times in their lives because I feel they better connect with their long term memories and find those songs to be more familiar. I've found those clients appear to engage positively in this simple kind of music intervention. 4) BUT HOW CAN WE KNOW THAT TO SOME EXTENT ON THE INSIDE THEY AREN'T SCREAMING "COME ON WOMAN, I'M BASICALLY YOUR AGE, THIS IS BULLSHIT!"????

These questions come to mind at a time when the thought of someone shaking a tambourine with bestie makes me shiver with yuckness!

Of course a lot of this is my own emotional response and ruled by the fact that I 'know' her whereas we don't usually 'know' our clients.

Nonetheless it still begs the question... 5) HOW DO WE ASSESS THE LINE BETWEEN PATRONISING AND OK???? And then what do we do about it!

A ridiculously complicated set of questions with too many variables to ever really solve; But come at me music therapists out there - I need some help with this one!

The vibration of the heart chakra.... silly hippy or simple science???

I was recently asked what "AH - the vibration of the heart chakra" actually means. Not in an airy, fairy, hippy, crunchy, earth mama kind of way but in words of SIMPLE SCIENCE!


And truly, it IS simple science.


1) Lets start with what the body is at it's most basic level - a bunch of molecules vibrating around each other (we learnt that in high school - it's indisputable). Hence we actually aren't one solid mass of flesh, organs and other working parts - we ARE vibrational energy!

2) Now, vibrations can happen at different speeds.  We've all seen the picture of what the sound wave looks like...

The vibrations of low frequency (slow) speed waves create low pitched sounds and the vibrations of high frequency (fast) speed waves make high pitched sounds... still following??

This explains how different vibrations create different pitched sounds.

3) Next, the body is full of different types of textures, densities, water levels, tissue types, functioning  levels, mass etc and thus different parts of the body create different vibrations, in turn creating different sounds. (You'd need an excellent set of headphones to hear them but vibrations still do make sounds whether you can hear them or not!)

4) The main 'vibrational headquarters' of the body are called chakras - there are 7 major ones and each of these chakras create their own very distinct sound. Usually when we see pictures of the chakras it's in colourful illustrations (see above and below left), as opposed to scientific-looking text book like diagrams (see below right), which is why of lot of folks instantly think "airy, fairy, hippy, crunchy, earth mama" instead of "wow - it really is basic science"!

5) When we produce the sound 'AH', (as in poke out your tongue and say....), we are creating a sound wave that matches the sound wave of the heart chakra (the vibrational mass that happens where your heart is.

And THAT is why "AH" is a vibration of the heart chakra!

One of the great things about having this knowledge (now that you do) is how simple it is to use it to benefit your own health well-being. Unfortunately, however, in a bid to keep my posts short so I continue to do them, that, my OMMG friends, is a topic for next time :)

Stay tuned...

I take a break in my holiday packing to bring you this important message....

Well summer is well and truly here...

(If you live in Tasmania you'll know I mean that comment in theory - not in reality!)

So why not bring back the ONE accessory that every summer requires...

The one element of every road trip or family holiday that's fun to prepare for, the 'make or break the mood in the car' tool that every glove box should be overflowing with....

That's right - THE MIXED CAR TAPE!

Seriously! As I pack for our first family holiday I'm finding it kind of tedious. Primarily this is because I have so much to try and remember, and for an unorganised/unpractical thinker like me that's a big responsibility. Also as I pack the only boring things my pregnant me will fit into I'm picturing the 'student/20 something year old' me who used to spend summer in cute summer gear showing off a great tan and a cool, curly afro that wasn't grey! That's a little depressing too! But the main thing I'm missing here - the ONE thing that can automatically boost any holiday vibe is definitely the mixed car tape!

EVEN IF THE SUN DOESN'T COME OUT ON OUR WINTERY TASMANIAN CAMPING TRIP A MIXED CAR TAPE WILL MAKE EVERYTHING OK!

Obviously I don't live in the dark ages - I know tapes are a thing of the past, but to be perfectly honest I've secretly continued with tapes till...um...well...very recently!

Truth be known I only bought my first grown up car last year - in my 33rd year - so up untill now I've gone without CD's and cup holders and have held fast to the car tape tradition. This is fabulously retro and cool in theory but the biggest problem here is that tapes are difficult to maintain - especially with a toddler around!

LEFT - See Exhibit A!!!

Maybe she doesn't like Eddie Vedder (unlikely) or Richard Kingsmill? But whatever the reason there's only so many times a toddler can twiddle with a tape before the pencil trick won't fix it anymore. Add to this the amount of times a song has been rewound or fast forwarded over the years (you know you're not meant to but come on, who doesn't?) and a tape recorder that seems to wreck most things you put into it and you end up with a very fragile, and in general low quality sounding, holiday sound system!

So I propose a compromise - a specially compiled CD (which for the purpose of this post I'm going to continue referring to as a mixed car tape).

The production of a compilation comes with many less hassles than it did in the day.

I come from the master of making mixed tapes (my Dad. See his handywork in EXHIBIT B) and he taught my brothers and I this very particular process in making the perfect tape...

* Firstly we had to tape Video Smash Hits (despite the fact that they never played the song till the very end!) or Rage (back when it was a countdown)

* Peruse the contents and time the songs we liked to make sure they fitted perfectly on each side. This part could be a complicated puzzle. The best thing to do was write down the titles of each song and it's exact length then add up the lengths of the songs to make sure it would fit the side perfectly - for a song to cut out half way through Side A then start in the same place on Side B was the biggest sin of all!

* Next we had to locate a tape we were ready to record over (unless we could find the rare gift of a new multi pack of blanks)

*Cover the holes with sticky tape so it was re-recordable (SEE EXHIBIT A!)

*Play a few seconds past the little tape recorder jingle that happened at the beginning of each side (to make sure we didn't loose the beginning of the song)

*Make sure the stereo is set to VHS and Audio

*Finally, press record and pause at the same time and you're ready to get started!

* Once taping we made sure to use pause in between each song as it made less clicking noises on the final production than pressing the stop and record buttons.

It was a time commitment, the recording of mixed tapes, as it happened in real time! And it took a lot of focus because if you missed the end of the song you were ruined and if you got confused and paused the VHS instead of the audio you had to backtrack!

With all the steps involved in the original process the idea of a 'new aged' mixed car tape (in CD format) is really growing on me! So I now find myself compiling our families first car trip mixed car tape! This time the process is much simpler...

* Go through my music library which is already stored in alphabetical order of artists on computer

* Make a playlist

*Put in a blank CD and press BURN

IT'S AS EASY AS THAT! ALMOST ANYONE CAN (AND SHOULD) DO IT!

There are a few important things to remember when collating your mixed car tape.

You MUST stick to the classics - not the latest craze. You MUST not put multiple songs by the same artist near each other. You MUST think of the family unit, or intended listeners, as a whole and not just put songs for you on it. Finally you MUST have a few different genres on there - none of this "all hip-hop" or "all country". A mixed tape, by definition, must remain a MIXED tape - even if it IS a CD!

BELOW - Exhibits B (very well ordered, looked after and handwritten neatly). A fine example!

Disclaimer - Please don't illegally download or copy songs you haven't already purchased - it's rude and will create bad karma..OOH - Karma Police - better add that to the list!