By Stephanie Schaldenbrand, Birth Doula
So often I am asked, “How are you going to support me through the labor hurdles?” “How are you going to keep me from making the decision to get the epidural?” First of all, let’s define what I mean by “labor hurdles.” Labor hurdles are those moments in a birth where everything comes to a crashing point, feelings of either you are going to “die from this labor” or with support, you find your inner warrior and persevere through the moment. Each labor has these moments.
For those of us who have been in labor, we remember these moments very well. It’s that precious moment when we need our support team to really focus us on what our hopes are for this birth. These are the moments that we were very subjective to being swayed into making a decision that we didn’t want. Before the birth, ask the pregnant mom, "How hard do you want me to push you in this moment? I can get you over this hurdle but do you want me to?” Could the higher epidural rate be a symptom of labor women finding themselves at the labor hurdle and no one telling her she has the strength to make it over? Is there no one willing to stand next to the laboring mom and say, “You can do this. You are doing this.”
