One of the most often overlooked elements in the preparation for your baby’s arrival is time spent contemplating and planning how to create a sacred birthing space that will be conducive to peace and calm for your baby’s birthing day.
This space will hold the energy for everyone in the room, including your little one making his journey earth-side, so it is important whether you are at home or in a hospital that you feel completely at ease and supported in your birth space.
Birth is a truly sacred event and so your birth environment should allow you to feel safe, comfortable and relaxed so that you can labour uninhibited, release endorphins naturally and achieve the most natural, positive and empowered birth experience possible.
The following are a few suggestions on how you can create a sacred birth space:
Use a Space Clearing Mist to clear the energy of the room. The “ Space Clearing Mist “ from The Australian Bushflower Essences is a perfect choice for this. http://www.ausflowers.com.au As you spray the room, set the strong and positive intention that your birthing will take place with calm, ease and confidence.
Soften the lighting. Turn off any lights and draw the blinds if it is daytime. If it is nighttime, dim or turn off the lights and if you are in a hospital environment then use flameless or battery operated candles. You can also take a coloured scarf in your favourite birthing colour and throw it over any lampshades.
Create a couple of music playlists. One playlist can be dedicated to your Hypnobirthing conditioning CD’s and affirmations, and the other can be full of songs you love that have special meaning to you. Be sure that the majority of your birthing music is soft, healing and calming in nature. Music for meditation is ideal.
If you are birthing in a hospital, bring your own pillow. Hospital pillows can be so stiff, if you want to be super comfortable, bring your own pillow and even a special blanket as well.
Make an altar. Take things and put them up in your birth space that inspire you, calm you, and give you focus and strength. Pregnancy photos, affirmation cards, baby’s ultrasound picture, visualization cues such as opening flower pictures egg the Lotus or Australian Red Lily are a great idea. Other suggestions include pictures or statues of deities and goddesses that watch over birth such as Lady Quan Yin, Diana and Lakshmi. Crystals raise the vibration of any environment, moonstone, rose quartz, black onyx, orange calcite, and unakite are all traditional childbirth gemstones that you could consider taking to your birth. Take whatever or whoever it is that inspires you, centres and motivates you.
Use an electrical aromatherapy oil burner and 100% pure essential oils. Aromatherapy is a very powerful modality well suited to lending positive support to the birthing environment. The olfactory signals activated from inhaling pure essential oils, target the limbic structures in the brain including the hypothalamus, they can therefore exert a very calming and positive effect on the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. Essential oils in the delivery room can both disinfect and create a relaxing ambience. A balancing and relaxing mix to add to your burner could be: lavender, chamomile, and frankincense, lemon, geranium. As a warm compress, a combination of jasmine and lavender could be placed on the mother’s lower back. Clary sage has been found particularly effective for supporting muscular activity and can be simply dropped onto a handkerchief and inhaled throughout your birth.
Be discerning about whom you allow into your birth space. Every individual holds a certain energetic signature, and everyone’s presence in the room is making a contribution to the dynamic and energy of your sacred birth space. It is important that you only allow the people around whom you feel positive and wholeheartedly supported by into your birth environment. This will ensure that only a truly loving and unconditional birth team surrounds you and you will feel safe. When preparing for your baby’s birth, make it a priority to create a nurturing and familiar birthing environment that can support you to relax, go inward and achieve a calm, satisfying and joyous birth experience!