|| HareKrishna ||

Using the information that you now know about the function of pain in labour write up a lesson
which you would give to a class of pregnant women and their partners describing the function of
pain during labour without using the word PAIN.

At the end of the pregnancy when your labour has started hormones plays interesting music.
Your body starts to prepare for the child birth & interestingly your child is active part of this
process. As ripe fruit drops down from the tree & nobody knows its tree or fruit same like that
happens with our body too.

So when your body is ready & your baby is ready, your body will start preparing for it in terms of
contraction. Contraction means reduced blood flow to the muscles. Due to that there will be
obvious discomfort in muscles of your uterus. It means that your body is giving you signal “Go &
find your safe & comfort zone. Now there is only important thing to do is concentrating on this
event”. When you find that your contractions have started your body will tell you through
discomfort that you need to be aware now. Though contraction hurts good thing is that they are
not constantly hurting you. There is a time in between two contractions in which period you can
relax or sleep or take deep breath to give more oxygen to yourself & your baby. Discomfort at
the starting point is comparatively less than it is at the near end. But it is the time when you can
get emotional support from your family, your partner, your midwife & loving people surrounding
you. You have to always remember that only YOU can do this. Though there is discomfort at the
end result is peaceful, joyful & happiest moment of your life.

You can imagine this event as:

When labour starts hormones plays music in harmony. Loving hormone (named as oxytocin)
comes first in the song. When everybody in the auditorium likes the song they make singer &
musicians to do “once more “same as that. Our body starts producing oxytocin & as it is favorite
song of the body in the stage of labour when the amount of oxytocin starts lowering down - body
gives signal to produce it “once more”. Every once more of oxytocin is helping your baby by
opening the door from which baby is supposed to come. But as it is a song to make it more
excellent & complete other raga’s those are other hormones needs to be played by your body
too. While loving hormone is playing its role with its high peach body takes low peach hormone
in the next verse of the song. Body takes endorphins to reduce stress & discomfort caused by
loving hormone. We can call endorphins as a healing hormone. Healing hormone is there in the
song to give you peaceful experience of relaxing. Healing hormone tells loving hormone “I want
to relax my body please give me some time”. This is the time to relax or sleep or take a deep
breath & be ready for the next raga of loving hormone. Loving hormone & healing hormone are
playing there part continuously in harmony with each other. This play can go for hours & hours
unless & until your body is prepared to welcome your baby with the full open door. When the
door is open one of the important ragas is played & that is next hormone which is adrenaline &
non adrenaline. In this stage of transition we can call this hormone energy hormone. Energy
hormone gives you much energy as upto this point of the song you are tired cause of physical
work you have done. So it gives you PUSH which will be welcoming of your baby into this world.
But the song doesn’t end here more hormones play their role for placenta to come out , for your
baby to breastfeed & relaxing your body after this big concert.

So you know now in this big concert your body has to work hard your hormones are playing
nicely to complete this event & you need a lot of patience, a lot of energy & a lot of love for your
baby. This will help you to achieve success in the concert cause it’s a hard work. You need to
drink & eat well. Sometimes during the concert you don’t take food but you take some juice or
some water to give your body new energy. Sometimes you take break & time to relax for very
little time in which you get support from your loving once. This support gives you energy for next
few hours. And last but not least for this big concert which can last from 24 hours to 48 hours
some time may be 72 hours you need to prepare your mind. Because WINNER of this concert
can be ONLY you & your AWARD is your most precious baby.