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

Traditional Birth Secrets: The Rebozo

What is a Rebozo?

A rebozo (pronounciation) is a woven piece of fabric used by Mexican women as a shawl, a baby carrier (similar to the way I use a wrap, but the fabric is not as long), and a comfort and positioning tool for pregnancy and childbirth.

Photo by Luis Marquez
Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries

Rebozo Use during Childbirth

Techniques for the Rebozo in childbirth include:

• "sifting" the mother
  
• to aid in the double hip squeeze
• rocking or dangling the mother
• covering the mother's eyes and ears to block distractions
  
• for the mother to pull on, especially during pushing
  

The "sifting" technique is the most well-known uses of the rebozo in birth. It is a method jiggle a woman, similar to what Ina May Gaskin calls "shaking the apples." The motion promotes relaxation of the birthing muscles, which can aid in rotation and decent of the baby. Here is a demonstration of the "sifting" technique from a doula training:



Here is the above technique being used in at the hospital during a pitocin induction:



The technique used in the above two videos are explained more in-depth at the Spinning Babies website.

In my doula training, I learned how to do a technique called a "double hip squeeze" with my hands to open the pelvis. This video explains how to use the Rebozo to make the double hip squeeze easier:



More articles and pictures:

• The Rebozo: a transcript of a rebozo workshop given by Doña Irene Sotelo and Naolí Vinaver, published in Midwifery Today (more pictures can be seen by following the link below the photo shown)
• "Comfort Measures for Childbirth: Let's do it with a Rebozo"--a collection of images by Patti Ramos taken at a rebozo workshop with Guadalupe Trueba, including images of the rebozo used for rocking , putting it over the eyes to block out distractions, to pull on while pushing, and other uses
  
• The Many Uses of a Rebozo at Birthing Essentials--short explanations with pictures of many of the techniques
  

For more information on traditional baby carriers and rebozos, visit www.rebozoway.org.

"Let them to this and not fear"

I always love reading about traditions of childbirth in various cultures. I have yet to see anything in a natural childbirth book about birth in the traditional South Pacific. My Mother-In-Law is a Tahitian native (now a naturalized American citizen). She had seven natural childbirths before trying the epidural with her last two to see what all the fuss about epidural was about. She was my doula for my daughter's birth. I decided to do some searching on the internet about childbirth in Tahiti, and I found this beautiful passage from the book The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander.

When asked about childbirth in his country, Bligh answered as well as he was able, and enquired in turn how this was done in Tahiti. Queen Iddeeah replied by mimicking a woman in labour, squatting comfortably to her heels between the protective arms of a male attendant who stroked her belly. Iddeeah was vastly amused on learning of the difficulties of Pretanee's women. 'Let them to this and not fear,' she told Bligh, who appears to have been persuaded by this tender pantomime.

I love Queen Iddeeah was "vastly amused" learning how difficult Western women had made childbirth. It appears that she demonstrated a "supported upright position with light touch massage," but all she knew was that this is the technique women on the islands found most comfortable and efficient for birthing. They didn't need a randomized controlled trial of upright verses lying positions or a book on anatomy of the uterus to know about this, they just knew it.

I can't completely know what she meant by "Let them to this and not fear," perhaps that the Tahitian method of birthing would help women not fear birth or that if they used this method and were not afraid, their births would go better. Either way, I agree with her.

This is the first mention I've come across of traditional cultures involving men in the birth process. Most other stories feature women birthing with other women or alone. Even in Western culture, birth was the domain of women until doctors came on the scene. Apparently this was not the case in Tahiti.

Perhaps part of why my husband was good at supporting me during my births is that it's in his blood?