As my contractions intensified and I got closer to giving birth, I remember starting to feel the sensations. It was the most incredible feeling that began in my pelvis and rippled through my entire lower body. It was wave upon wave of what can only be described as pure pleasure. My pelvis began pushing downwards involuntarily and my legs were trembling as I experienced a prolonged orgasm that lasted what seemed like hours, although during birth your concept of time is very different.
I know now that it was probably more like a series of orgasms over an hour. My husband said afterwards that I was shouting, “Oh my God, it’s so beautiful, it’s like making love”, over and over again. I was trembling and smiling. The doula said my clitoris was pulsating and I kept closing my eyes in ecstasy with each passing wave as the baby moved downwards. My husband was open- mouthed. He didn’t quite know what to say. He said later that it was obvious what was going on.
My baby arrived, without any pain relief, three hours later, and my recovery was incredibly quick because I did not tear or need stitches. I felt wonderful, but was slightly confused and embarrassed about what I had experienced. I also felt somehow guilty that I had felt something usually associated with sexual intercourse during the birth of my daughter. But when I went online, I found hundreds of women blogging about similar experiences.
How can birth bring pleasure when it is usually described as painful?
If you say “birth” to a group of women and ask them what they associate with that word, the first reply is usually “pain.” Dreading the pain that is strongly associated with birth, women learn to dread birth itself.
This fear can be strong enough to make women want to avoid experiencing contractions during labor. They expect to ask for pain medications or an epidural block long before they enter the labor room. Others are so terrified at the thought of experiencing the pain associated with labor that they choose a cesarean section, thinking this will spare them pain, although recovery from a c-section is often longer and more painful than from a vaginal birth.
Pain and pleasure ride on the same pathways to the brain. They give a signal to the neocortex, which interprets the experience as either pleasurable or painful. The way we perceive the signal and how we interpret it has a huge influence on our ability to cope with the experience. Most of the women in my research on sexual experiences of women during childbirth described contractions not as pain but as intense, wild, powerful sensations. Using sexual stimulation and connecting intimately and sexually with themselves and their partners during the birth enabled them to reframe their expectations from painful to pleasurable and helped them through labor.
How does sexual stimulation reduce pain in labor and birth?
The same hormones that are present during childbirth occur in all other episodes of women’s sexual lives, including lovemaking and orgasm. These hormones, when allowed to flow naturally and without disturbance, help reduce the pain of labor.
Think about how your body feels when you are absorbed in a sexual encounter. You are relaxed and open . . . your body is receptive to touch . . . and the more aroused you become, the more stimulation you can handle. Actually, you desire it! The greater the arousal, the more a woman enjoys vigorous penetration and intense sexual stimulation.
This adjustment and growth in desire are supported by our hormones. The desire for intense stimulation is nature’s way to make sure that a woman will be a willing and excited participant in making babies. Researchers have found that pleasurable stimulation of the clitoris and some areas of the vagina reduces the perception of pain.
Stimulating the release of the same hormones during birth reduces pain during contractions and helps the woman to relax and open up. In my research on sexual experiences of women during childbirth, women reported that sexual stimulation during contractions helped reduce their pain.
How can a woman plan for a “passionate birth”?
Most people wouldn’t use the words birth, pleasure, and sex in the same sentence. The open minded can learn how well those words fit together.
If you want to have a passionate birth, you must acquire a new way of thinking. You must also prepare and plan.
Begin by checking your belief system to identify your personal beliefs about birth.
Next, educate yourself about the physiology of birth (how it works physically) and the psychology of birth (how it works emotionally). Understand what happens in the birth process when a woman experiences fear and learn how different it can be when she focuses on pleasure rather than pain.
A passionate birth is more likely to happen in some settings than in others. When doing research on women’s experiences during childbirth, I found that women who planned for a passionate childbirth chose to give birth at home. They knew they could feel safe there and express themselves in any way they wanted.
How can I have an orgasmic birth?
The preparation for orgasmic birth is as individual, and in many ways, as subtle as opening to orgasm in sexual activity, but many of the components are the same.
Consider the basic biology of sexual activity: it takes energy, stamina, focus, and relaxation. Another aspect to finding sexual pleasure is having privacy. As birth involves the same hormones as sexual activity at even greater levels, privacy is of utmost importance.
Yet another critical factor is environment: we know how to set the stage for romance, and, not surprisingly, this matters too when it comes to knowing ecstasy in birth. Many women long for the comfort and intimacy of having a baby at home but choose hospital birth for fear that something may go wrong, not realizing how much the stress commonly generated by hospital procedures and routines can undermine hormones of birth. This can lead to a cascade of interventions that not only make orgasmic birth unlikely, but threaten vaginal birth.
Some women planning hospital birth think it’s just a matter of being strong and keeping their determination firm so these interventions don’t happen. This would be like trying to stay alert for a important phone call in the midst of making love! The key to orgasmic birth is surrender, just as is true of orgasm in sexual encounters. Women need to be in a place, and with attendants, that honor and protect their need for privacy.
How is birth part of a woman’s sexual life?
Oxytocin is a hormone we release with foreplay, orgasm, and breastfeeding. But it is also released at the mere thought of making love, and sometimes, in anticipation of nursing or when our baby cries. This is why it is called the love hormone.
At no time in our lives are oxytocin levels higher than during labor, birth, and the moments immediately after when we greet our newborn. Oxytocin is the hormone responsible for uterine contractions, so it naturally follows that we can enhance labor, strengthen it, and make it go more smoothly, by feeling safe and loving with those around us.
As oxytocin levels increase, our response does too, bringing on sensations and behaviors that are sexual and may become orgasmic. In addition, there is tremendous sensation in the vagina with birth, much engorgement of the tissues of labia and clitoris with intense pressure from the baby’s head.
Many women do not realize that artificial oxytocin (Pitocin) used to induce or stimulate labor stops natural oxytocin production. Our brains have no receptors for Pitocin, so if it is used, the ecstatic, loving, orgasmic dimensions of birth disappear.
Using a minimum of interventions is key to experiencing a sexual and orgasmic birth. Many women who have this experience claim it changed them forever, dramatically increasing their self-confidence, their trust in themselves, and, not surprisingly, their ability to experience new heights of sexual pleasure.
When the laboring woman feels undisturbed and relaxed, her hormones can flow easily and help both her and her baby. Oxytocin will be released efficiently from her middle brain, enhancing the efficiency of labor and adding safety factors for her and her baby. Beta-endorphin, along with oxytocin, will provide natural pain relief. These and other hormones will peak at the moment of birth, giving pleasure and reward to the new mother and helping her to attach to her newborn and the newborn to attach to her.How does sexual stimulation reduce pain in labor and birth?
The same hormones that are present during childbirth occur in all other episodes of women’s sexual lives, including lovemaking and orgasm. These hormones, when allowed to flow naturally and without disturbance, help reduce the pain of labor.
Think about how your body feels when you are absorbed in a sexual encounter. You are relaxed and open . . . your body is receptive to touch . . . and the more aroused you become, the more stimulation you can handle. Actually, you desire it! The greater the arousal, the more a woman enjoys vigorous penetration and intense sexual stimulation.
This adjustment and growth in desire are supported by our hormones. The desire for intense stimulation is nature’s way to make sure that a woman will be a willing and excited participant in making babies. Researchers have found that pleasurable stimulation of the clitoris and some areas of the vagina reduces the perception of pain.
We held one another in our candle-lit lounge room and swayed back and forth, our hips danced together. My face buried into his body during the labour rushes. When the rushes subsided we stood together, our foreheads touching, we embraced like we were the only two people in the world.
Earlier in the labour when I wanted to rest lying down made my body tensed. It was uncomfortable and painful, unless my baby's father laid by my side, then I could let go. Whenever he touched me my discomfort eased, he was better than any heat pack.
The line between pleasure and pain is very fine indeed. I sang my birth song, a low moan, and he sang with me. I was surprised by how much birth sounded like sex! But it made sense. Conception happens by making love and birth is part of that lovemaking continuum.
Shakira is very hot and she sings, but I'm not putting her up here because of that, the fact is that she exudes sexuality, shes the perfect Icon..shes our mascot!
Shakira in all her glory