I &hearts Dancing for Birth&trade!

The Dancing for Birth™ training was awesome! I learned so much! I am currently planning on finishing up certification and teaching the classes, in addition to my Hypnobabies courses, but we will see if it works out.

In a nutshell, Dancing for Birth™ is a prenatal and postpartum fitness class and a birth and new motherhood support circle, with bits of birth empowerment and childbirth education incorporated into it. There is a basic flow to the structure of the classes, but the content is flexible--instructors can choose what to include each week based on the needs of their students. There is a huge list of benefits to dancing during pregnancy, birthing itself, and the postpartum time. Not to mention it is a whole lot of fun!

I had a wonderful time bonding with all of the other women who were at the training. It was a very passionate group, and the nature of the workshop allowed us all to become close very fast. Most of the other trainees were doulas, but we also had some midwives and belly dancers. One thing I really liked about the workshop was the opportunity to practice some comfort techniques, including the double hip-squeeze and several rebozo techniques.

I found that the vast majority of what was taught was very compatible with Hypnobabies. We talked about how having "sensation" is necessary to follow your instincts in childbirth, but there was not talk of "preparing for pain." There was some of the idea that "you don't birth in your brain, you birth in your body," which is not what we teach in Hypnobabies, because we teach that you most definitely do use your mind during birth--it is where your birthing hormones come from. However, I think "birthing in your body," it is just different wording for a concept that is taught in Hypnobabies--birthing in a state where our conscious, analytical thinking is pushed aside, a state we call hypnosis, but other people have different words for it. Dancing is a naturally hypnotic activity, so it makes sense that dancing during your birthing time would promote the ideal mental state.

We also did a game where music plays and everyone dances, then the music fades and people pretend to be having pressure waves (most people chose to stop dancing and lean forward onto something, which would work with using the Hypnobabies lighswitch), then the music fades back in and everyone gets up and dances again. This exercise reminded me a lot of something we do in Hypnobabies called a "birth rehearsal," and I could see how the techniques of both programs could work together as we did it.

We did another exercise where we compared the measurements of the pelvic outlet (from pubic bone to tail bone) in a deep squat (with hips below knees) versus a standing squat (hips above knees, pelvis tilted back, upper body leaning forward). I recommend trying this yourself--you may be surprised at what you find!

All instructor training workshop participants take home a copy of the Dancing for Birth™ DVD, and I have been practicing with it every other day since I got back. I have difficulty sticking to exercise routines, but since dancing is so fun, I'm more likely to do it (plus, I'm trying to get a good grasp on the moves for teaching it, if that works out) I am looking forward to having dance to use along with my hypnosis during this baby's birth!

I'm going to the Dancing for Birth training!

Ever since writing my Dancing Your Baby Out post, I have been really interested in dance as a form of prenatal exercise and as a comfort and positioning measure during childbirth. I have always loved to dance. Although my parents never signed me up for classes when I was growing up (I'm sure they had good reasons) and my high school did not offer dance as an elective, in college, I took a ballet class, a modern dance class, and two ballroom dance classes, and I loved all of them. My husband took ballroom classes, too (he is actually better at ballroom than I am!) Since marrying into a Tahitian family, I have also tried to learn Tahitian dance. Tahitian slow dances probably have some some things in common with what is in prenatal dance classes.

Performing Tahitian dance at a family wedding reception (I am second from the right)

I think that teaching pregnancy dance classes would be a great way for me to combine my interests in dance and birth. It also will be an opportunity to expand my market (women who typically might not be looking for a Hypnobabies class or a doula might come to a prenatal dance class and then might find out about my other services that way), and will give me another birth-related thing I can do that won't disrupt my family life too much. Like teaching Hypnobabies, it is something I can schedule around my husband's work schedule, which avoids needing a babysitter, and since classes are for both prenatal and postpartum women, who can do the dances while wearing their baby, I will be able teach it while babywearing.

When I first learned that there was going to be a Dancing for Birth instructor training at the Simkin Center for Allied Birth Vocations at Bastyr University in Seattle, I wasn't sure if I would be able to go, even though I wanted to, because I had a doula client whose due date was about 10 days after the training. She gave birth at 37 weeks gestation last week (I will write more about that experience later, if I get permission from the mom), so I looked to see if they were still taking registrations, and they were! So, after discussing it with my husband, I decided to sign up! I will try to write a blog post about the training after I go!

Traditional Birth Secrets: Dancing Your Baby Out

When a woman is giving birth, moving her hips can be helpful for her to feel more comfortable and can encourage rotation and descent of the baby. In childbirth education, we try to teach women how to do "hip circles" during pregnancy, but it usually feels a bit awkward. Some cultures have got it figured out: teach these movements to girls long before they ever become pregnant as part of fun dances, and then it will be natural to do it during birth. Many traditional cultures have dances that teach movement of the hips or abdomen, including the hula and other dances from the Polynesian Islands, the various dances of Latin America, and Middle Eastern "belly dancing."

Dancer discovers link between birth and "belly" dance in 1961

Morocco (Carolina Varga Dinicu) is a world-renowned dancer, choreographer, dance researcher, and dance instructor in the Mideastern and North African styles of dance (she does not use the term"belly dancing," because she considers it offensive. She prefers the traditional name, Raks Sharki, or its correct translation "Oriental Dance"). Creator of the acclaimed dance company and school, Morocco & the Casbah Dance Experience, Morocco has won multiple awards for her work. She has dedicated over 50 years of her life to studying, performing, and preserving traditional dances from these regions. Morocco says she hopes to keep performing, teaching, writing, and lecturing "'till 6 weeks after I'm dead."(quote from Morocco's bio, used with permission) Click here to see a video from 2006 of Morocco dancing the Bahlam Beek and Drum solo.

In the 1960s, Morocco had some interesting experiences that allowed her to discover that two of the movements in Oriental dance, the "flutter" and the "camel," were based on movements women instinctively do during childbirth. She learned that these movements were historically part of childbirth rituals, a tradition that was continued only in small villages at that time, where women surrounded the birthing women and did these movements so that she could easily imitate them. In 1967, Morocco had a rare opportunity to witness a birth in a Moroccan village where this tradition was still practiced. The entire (very interesting) story is told in her article, Dancing the Baby Into the World.

Videos of Women Dancing during Birthing

The video below shows Elisa, who stars in The Perfect Pregnancy Workout, Vol 3: Belly Dance for Labor narrating video footage of herself in the hospital during the birth of her first baby. She talks about how her dance training and practice helped her remain mobile and comfortable during her birth.


In this video, Catherine is about 8 cm dilated with contractions 2 minutes apart. She is using a TENs machine, so you can see when her contractions start and end by when she pushes the button, but she doesn't stop dancing! She danced for much of active dilation, and her baby was posterior before the dancing, and rotated anterior during it.


This video shows Alexandria, in the hospital a few hours before the birth of her first baby, dancing to a lullaby version of the Guns 'N Roses song Sweet Child o' Mine. She took a class that combined moves from various types of world dance. She has two contractions during the dance, and keeps dancing right through them without missing a step! I can't even tell when she is having them!

You can read Alexandria's birth story by clicking "show more" beneath the video on YouTube.

If you are interested in finding an instructor near you or in getting certified to teach a prenatal dance class that focuses on birth empowerment and incorporates dance movements of traditional dances from around the world, including the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean (the method Alexandria in the last video took her class in), visit www.dancingforbirth.com