My Favorite Type of Breathing to Prepare the Pelvic Floor Muscles for Pushing
Pregnant and worried about pushing? I get it! Pushing a baby out is one of the most mysterious parts of labor. Keep reading to learn my favorite breathing strategy to prepare your pelvic floor muscles for more efficient pushing.
Not all pushing is the same. There is coached pushing, purple pushing, breathing the baby down, etc.
Each type of pushing effects the Pelvic Floor Muscles differently. During the pushing stage, the pelvic floor muscles need to lengthen to their max. Each strategy, for instance "purple pushing" or holding your breath is going to have a different reaction down at the pelvic floor muscles. The most efficient type of pushing syncs the breath and the pelvic floor muscles together. So how can you actually do that? Let me teach you!
How to connect your breath and pelvic floor for more efficient pushing?
Learn how to breathe into your ribs, AKA 360 breathing. Most of us aren't doing this! Let's break it down!
Inhale: feel your rib cage expand in all directions (front, side and back)
a strap, or your hands on your ribs are very helpful
Exhale: keep your pelvic floor muscles relaxed, and imagine them moving down toward the bottom of your pelvis (sitz bones).
I love the visual of a french press- picture those pelvic floor muscles pushing all the air and pressure down to the bottom.
The exhale with relaxation and lengthening is intentional, as most of the time the pelvic floor muscles and diaphragm will recoil and lift back up as we exhale.
How does this help with pushing?
Learning to keep the pelvic floor muscles lengthened on the exhale allows you to use the strength and power of your breath during pushing to help create space for baby to exit! The Pelvic floor muscles are trainable and adaptable just like any other muscle, or group of muscles. We can't expect these muscles to lengthen to their absolute max capacity for the first time when we are pushing a baby out. That's way too much to expect of these already incredible tissues. The best thing you can do is practice. Practice now, practice often. Pelvic floor muscles that have learned to yield and lengthen are less likely to tear during birth. If you're ready to start feeling empowered about pushing, check out this FREE class below that goes over two different breathing strategies for pregnancy. The "down arrow" breath as it's called in BODY READY METHOD, or "French Press Breath" as I love calling it, starts at 5:43. Looking for more educational prenatal exercise classes to support you? Become an Aligned and Empowered member to access the full library of self paced pregnancy strength, birth prep classes more!
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