From a Doula called Mia on HOW TO HANDLE PAIN DURING CHILDBIRTH (very interesting read!!)-
Forget your fears. There is a connection between fear and pain. The efficiency of the magnificent uterine muscle depends upon your hormonal, circulatory, and nervous systems all working together. Fear upsets the balance of these three systems. Fear and anxiety cause your body to produce excess stress hormones that counteract the helpful hormones your body produces to enhance the labor process and relieve discomfort. This results in increased pain and a longer labor. Fear also causes physiologic reactions that reduce blood flow and thus oxygen supply to the uterus. An oxygen-deprived muscle tires quickly, and a tired muscle is a hurting muscle.
Women can easily be taken by surprise at the intensity of labor. Some decide they do not like it one bit and wind up resisting the forces when fear takes hold.
Understand the importance of releasing and surrendering to your body during labor. Are you determined to assume whatever position works for you rather than tensing up, resisting the labor process, or becoming a passive patient and spending a lot of time in the horizontal position?
Learn to relax your birthing muscles. Relax is more than just an empty word for helpless bystanders to throw at a mother who is experiencing the most intense physical work of her life. But relax is what you must do to help the work progress.
Relaxing all of your other muscles while only your uterus contracts eases the discomfort and speeds the progress of labor.
If there is tension anywhere in your body, especially in your face and neck, this tension will spread to the pelvic muscles that need to stay loose during a contraction.
Tense muscles hurt more than relaxed ones and they tire sooner. Chemical changes within an exhausted, tense muscle actually lowers the muscle's pain threshold, and you hurt more than if the muscle were working unopposed. When tight muscles resist the relentless, involuntary contractions of your uterus, the result is pain. Exhausted muscles soon lead to an exhausted mind, increasing your awareness of pain and decreasing your ability to cope with it.
Learn to relax to balance your hormones for birth. Two sets of hormones help you labor efficiently. Adrenal hormones (also called stress hormones) give your body the extra power it needs in situations that call for tremendous effort, like labor and birth.
These hormones are often referred to as the "fight or flight" hormones, and are there for the body's protection. During labor your body needs enough of these stress hormones to help you work hard, but not so many that your body becomes anxious and distressed, causing your mind and muscles to work inefficiently. Stress hormones may even divert blood from the hardworking uterus to the vital organs of the brain, heart, and kidney.
Relax to boost endorphins- Another kind of hormone also works for you during labor – natural pain-relieving hormones, known as endorphins. (The word comes from endogenous, meaning produced in the body, and morphine, a chemical that blocks pain). These are your body's natural narcotics, helping to relax you when you're stressed and relieving pain when you're hurt. These physiologic labor assistants are produced in the nerve cells. They attach to pain receptor sites on the nerve cell, where they blunt the sensation of pain. Strenuous exercise increases endorphin levels, and endorphins enter your system automatically during the strenuous exercise of labor, as long as you don't do anything to block them. (Tensing up blocks endorphin release. )
Levels are highest in the second stage of labor (pushing) when contractions are most intense. Relaxing will allow these natural pain- relievers to work for you. Fear and anxiety can increase your levels of stress hormones and counteract the relaxing effects of endorphins.
Endorphins stimulate the secretion of prolactin, the relaxing and "mothering" hormone that regulates milk production and gives you a psychological boost toward enjoyment of mothering. Studies have shown that endorphin levels are increased by laughter.
