Childbirth / Caesarean

Tips for controlling pain during childbirth

  • Be accompanied by your partner, a family member, a friend, or a companion.
  • Create a warm, calm and intimate atmosphere.
  • Trust yourself and your instincts.
  • Stay in the present moment.
  • Visualize what is happening inside you.
  • Move and change position according to your needs (do not stay lying down if your condition allows it); walk between contractions.
  • Relax.
  • Breathe slowly.
  • Take a shower or bath.
  • Eat and drink according to your needs if your condition allows it.
  • Be encouraged and comforted by words or gestures.
  • Being touched, massaged or simply having a hand to hold.
  • Have moist compresses available.

For additional information, refer to Tiny Tot to Toddlers – Mieux-Vivre.

Benefits of skin-to-skin contact

Skin-to-skin contact often takes place immediately after birth. This practice is also recommended for all newborns unless there is a contra-indication.

The baby is placed naked (or only in diaper) directly on the parent, chest to chest, skin to skin. If this is not possible, the person who accompanies the birth can. The baby and parent can also be covered with a warm blanket. When the baby is skin to skin, they feel the warmth of their parent, smells their scent, and perceives the softness of their skin. These sensations trigger innate behaviors which will facilitate, among other things, latching on to the breast for feeding  and for the parent, these same sensations trigger the production of oxytocin. This hormone then causes a reduction in maternal stress, a better response to the baby’s behaviors and a strengthening of the parent-child bond.

Several positive effects of skin-to-skin contact have been observed in newborns:

  • Stabilize body temperature
  • Stabilize breathing and heart rate
  • Stabilize sugar levels
  • Facilitate breastfeeding
  • Reduce crying
  • Reduce the sensation of pain

Source: Skin to skin contact «Le contact peau à peau»

Skin-to-skin also has advantages for parents:

  • Improved recovery after childbirth
  • Reduce parental stress
  • Increase the feeling of parental competence
  • Promote attachment