Painful? Meet the mum who found childbirth an unexpected pleasure
OTHER women may recount tales of agonising pain during labour.
But for Rebecca Hanscombe the experience was infinitely more pleasurable – she experienced an orgasmic birth while having her daughter Arwen.
‘I felt so strong, so alive, so empowered that my whole body rippled with orgasmic, sensual feelings,’ she said. ‘Birth can and should be a celebration of our bodies. After all we are designed to make babies. It is a natural progression to be able to surrender into the natural flow of birth in all its orgasmic potential.’
When Miss Hanscombe became pregnant she started planning to have a birth that was both natural and orgasmic after reading about it in a book called Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin.
Research shows that just before she gives birth, a woman’s levels of the pleasure hormone oxytocin rise. This surge of oxytocin – which is also produced during sex – is what drives the orgasm. But oxytocin production will stop if a woman feels self-conscious or there are many people around which is why more women – particularly in a hospital surrounded by medical staff – don’t experience orgasmic birth.
Miss Hanscombe, of Monmouthshire, south east Wales, chose a birthing centre to have Arwen, who is now eight, and asked a female friend to support her because her then partner was squeamish about blood. She prepared for an orgasmic birth by practising breathing techniques, yoga and ‘ecstatic’ dancing.
The teacher of ecstatic dance, a form designed to encourage a meditative state, told Mail Online she spent the first 24 hours of labour at home before going to the birthing centre. But by the time she had been in labour almost 36 hours there was still no sign of the baby. ‘So I just totally surrendered and relaxed, breathed and went with my body,’ Miss Hanscombe, 45, said. ‘It was like my whole body went into this state of “wow”.’ A few moments later Arwen had arrived.
Miss Hanscombe, a mother of one, now encourages other women to share their stories on her Being Ecstatic website. ‘Birth doesn’t have to be painful,’ she said.