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| I just got home from the DONA International Conference in St. Louis, MO. It was a lot of fun. I also found it to be very mentally invigorating. I love being around all of those doulas, doctors and midwives who work so hard to make sure that pregnant women are treated with respect and dignity in birth. While I was there I heard a really cool presentation by Patricia Predmore, a nurse and doula from New York, on the hormones of labor. |
She talked about the
basics of labor but also how hormones help or hinder labor. I learned a lot about the interplay of hormones. I loved how she easily broke it into what we can do to help promote healthy labor by simply reducing negative stimuli in labor, like hunger and fear. Her teaching style is also a lot of fun. She had us up dancing, talking about how our bodies were releasing oxytocin and endorphins as we danced and how simple things like that also worked in labor. Something as simple as being tocuhed helps release positive hormones that combat pain and there are plenty of
positions and things we can do to
comfort a laboring woman that involve touch.
Related:
Labor Complications | Birth Stories | Labor & Birth Quiz
