Visualization plays an important role. Each woman is guided to visualize her power as a woman, the power of her contractions and most importantly the ability of her body to open and give birth. This builds self-confidence and harmonizes body, mind and spirit. The experience of preparation is a source of joy: apprehension and fear diminish and women tend to feel wholly in touch with themselves. Women are also encouraged to eat well, exercise and stretch with Yoga. Gowri also teaches gentle self-massage of the vagina and perineum, which brings women in touch with this important birth area and prepares it for opening and stretching at birth, acting as a type of biofeedback to release tension.
The Jeyarani programme does not focus exclusively on pregnancy and birth: Gowri also encourages women to consider their transition to motherhood and look ahead to bonding with their babies, and adjusting to the birth of a new family.
The stories in this book speak for themselves and are a testament to the Jeyarani Birth Preparation method, but above all to Gowri and her team, who encourage pregnant women to tune into, believe and exercise their power. Working with Gowri does not automatically guarantee a natural birth, as there are many different variables that affect each baby’s unique entry to the world. It does however, make it much more likely. It is a privilege to attend the labours of women who have been assisted by Gowri, and to celebrate the births of their babies who have been welcomed and lovingly nurtured throughout pregnancy.
I have always been bemused by the fact that, as pregnant women, we spend longer preparing the nursery for the baby, than our bodies. We sigh over wall-paper swatches, pore over name books and coo over cots without once thinking about conditioning ourselves for birth. Perhaps the inevitability of it just leaves us wanting to bury our heads in the sand, anxiously awaiting those first rumbling contractions, or maybe the thought of it is just too frightening to contemplate. After all, birth is packaged to us as a traumatic, painful and undignified rite of passage that nearly every woman – sooner or later – must go through. Who would want to dwell on that? And yet, we must. The statistics bear out these preconceived notions of what birth must be like: a recent survey reported that over 80 per cent of women were frightened during labour and 53 per cent found giving birth ‘far more shocking’ than they thought it would be. It’s a two-fold problem. On the one hand, some women’s expectations are not being managed, so the birthing experience is a raw shock for them; on the other, there are those women who are going into labour fully expecting it to be horrendous, and so it is. A big part of this latter problem is that the vast majority of young women who are now at childbearing age have grown up with the received wisdom that this is how birth is. But it isn’t what I grew up with. Born in Sri Lanka and educated in India, my notion of childbirth was rooted in a far simpler reality – that it is natural, quick and even reasonably gentle. Please don’t misread ‘gentle’ for ‘painless’, it isn’t and I don’t want to imply that at all. But it is manageable and let’s not forget that as a physical function that has been honed over centuries, childbirth is actually what our bodies are best at.
I only met this negative attitude to birth when I came to England and was struck by the irony that the sophisticated technology that has made childbirth safer for women than ever before has also made it harder. Over-stretched doctors, fearful of complications and litigation, are too quick to intervene at the first sign of difficulty, steadily undermining the fact that childbirth is a naturally occurring event that women are fully capable of achieving.
I should know – I was one of those doctors. As an obstetrician working at various hospitals around London, I delivered hundreds of babies. Unfortunately, most of the mothers were rigid with fear, in poor physical condition and emotionally out of control. By the time I saw them, the best I could do was administer an epidural and apply the forceps. The medical community’s attitude towards childbirth was, and is, of crisis management, of dealing with the complications the pregnant mothers were exhibiting once in labour. Very little thought was given to stopping the problems before they started, of getting to the root of the problem. So I began to wonder – could the quality of a mother’s pregnancy determine her labour experience? If she primed herself with physical stamina and mental resilience, could she condition herself for birth, like an athlete training for a race?
That was 15 years ago and today I have refined my results into a concise birth preparation programme that will hone your body and mind for the birthing process. The programme works on three levels. The first tackles your physical condition, aiming to detoxify and decongest your body through a wholefood diet, physical treatments and daily exercise. The idea is to purify your body so that there is no residual muscle tension, water retention or joint stiffness to impede the pelvic opening and loosening that is a necessary precursor for a gentle birth.
The second level addresses your mental attitude and any resistance you may have towards pregnancy – even if the baby was planned – or any fears about the birth. To do this, we move through carefully conceived visualization and self-hypnosis techniques that re-evaluate your feelings, develop your mental strength and give you the confidence to manage your contractions and remain in control of your labour. And finally, we engage on an emotional level – extending a loving welcome to your unborn baby and learning how to bond with your baby in the womb.
The fact that this programme is holistic and yet underpinned by sound medical judgement and experience means that The Gentle Birth Method is a unique approach to pregnancy and birth. However, if I had to stipulate the fundamental difference between this book and many other pregnancy guides, it is that this is a comprehensive programme for you to follow every day of your pregnancy. It isn’t a reference guide to pick up as and when you have a query, or want a homoeopathic remedy to an ailment. Nor is it a theoretical textbook about pregnancy and childbirth. This book goes further than any other by giving you a framework that shows you how to ‘be’ pregnant. The general attitude towards pregnancy is that it is a passive state of being, something that ‘happens’ to you for nine months. But I firmly believe pregnancy is an interactive, dynamic condition that you can nurture and mould to your own expectations. So keep this book in your handbag, in your desk at work, or on your bedside table – you’re going to find it an invaluable aid.
The Gentle Birth Method is for all mothers, whatever their age, culture, religion, or social status. And it isn’t just for the first-time mother either. In fact, in many ways, it is more relevant to those women who have already had a pregnancy or birth experience. If you have had a traumatic first birth and are terrified of repeating the whole experience – and a shocking amount of women are – this book is for you. If you have tragically suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth, then this programme can help you. Of course, it cannot offer cures to the specific clinical conditions that may have undermined the viability of your previous pregnancy, nor can it change your past. But, by giving you a specific weekly framework within which to operate, you can concentrate on nurturing this baby. The difference this time around is that you are now making yourself ready for the birthing experience.
By the time you read the last page of this book, birth won’t be able to frighten, overwhelm or surprise you. You will know how to reduce the amount of pain you feel, and the clever little shortcuts to full cervical dilatation. You will know not only what is happening to your body during childbirth, but also your baby’s. And whilst it’s doing all this, The Gentle Birth Method will cosset you, restore your faith and return birth to you as a joyous, happy event that is neither feared, nor needs to be interfered with.
More than 1200 mothers have followed the Gentle Birth programme and our results consistently show that we have improved birth for women and their babies. Our figures for total time spent in labour, intervention (i.e. epidurals, ventouse, forceps), episiotomies and Caesarean sections dramatically undercut the national averages and are clear proof that