Essential Key to an Ecstatic Birth: #3 Pleasure

Let’s explore how you can best holistically support the natural process of birth with PLEASURE.

You read that right. Pleasure.

Pleasure is the most holistic birthing tool there is.

How is that possible when 90% of women associate birth with pain? Well, your birthing body and your sexual body are one and the same.

Babies and birth are not separate and distinct from sex, but rather they are the culmination of the sexual process.

This can feel a little weird given our current cultural messaging which tends to categorize all things sexual as “dirty” or “perverse.” Just look at all our foul language.. an overwhelming majority of “curse words” are sexually based.

There is no doubt we need a deep cultural healing around our sexuality. Let’s begin today by reclaiming our sexuality as an integral and sacred part of our beings. It is through our sexuality that we connect most deeply with another. It is through our sexuality that we bring forth new life into this world. There is nothing more sacred than that.

From this perspective we can revisit this idea that our sexual body and our birthing body are one and the same. A lot of the same body parts are being stimulated and a lot of the same hormones are secreted. Everything just happens at a much bigger level- the sensations are bigger, the energy flow is bigger, and of course we open much bigger and wider.

Sex can be highly pleasurable or… not, depending on the circumstances, right? Birth is no different.

Just like a woman can enjoy a sexual experience, or not, a woman can enjoy birthing or not.

Think about the conditions that allow you to open up and surrender to the pleasure available to you in sex…

For many women, a general list looks something like this:

Feeling safe
Dim lighting
Clean, comfortable environment
Feeling beautiful, sexy
Love
Privacy
Feeling free and unhurried

But you are uniquely you- What turns you on? Under what conditions are you most likely to open to orgasmic bliss?

How can you incorporate these things into your birth environment?

Setting the stage for pleasure is incredibly important- this is something we talk about at length in OBABY!, my signature Ecstatic Birth Training Program for Expectant Mothers.

Pleasure is incredibly calming to our nervous system and puts us in receptive, surrendered energy which is exactly the state we want to be in during birth. Pleasure also triggers the release of oxytocin which is a major player in the birthing process.

Oxytocin is known as the hormone of love and bonding and is released during arousal and orgasm, stimulating that feeling of closeness to our partners. After birth, the body is flooded with the most amount of oxytocin a woman will experience in her life. This enables her to fall in love and bond deeply with her baby.

During birth, oxytocin triggers contractions. In fact pitocin, what is used for birth inductions and to speed up labor, is a man made attempt to replicate oxytocin. It works well to trigger contractions, but doesn’t come with all of the goodies that our natural oxytocin brings.

Pleasure can be sourced in birth from the outside and from the inside. From the outside means that you can give yourself pleasure, and surround all your senses with pleasure. From the inside is a shift in orientation, in how you experience the world. It is the opening of your pleasure pathways from within your body, so you can always locate the pleasure within.

To source pleasure from the outside, consider these questions:

What are some things that turn you on?
How do you experience pleasure in each of your senses?
Under what conditions can you surrender to maximum sensual pleasure?

Then incorporate some of these things into your birth preparation and planning!

If you desire support, book a complimentary Pleasure Training Strategy Session with me here.