The Secrets to Having a Natural Birth Without an Epidural - Episode 19

Birthing a child can be a challenge being that you have to deal with so much pain. In western society having a natural birth is starting to seem foreign to many yet half the globe in having natural births. In this podcast we talk about coping tools to help the mothers go through the pain without any pain medications and how partners can best support the laboring mother. Join us, as we dive deep in this topic.

Please subscribe. We look forward to reading your comments. ❤️ 💫

TIMESTAMP:
►00:14 - What does Yuntaku mean?
►01:00 - Recent Happenings: We’re Pregnant?
►03:22 - TOPIC: Giving Birth Without an Epidural - Pain management with meditation
►03:30 - What is Meditation?
►07:25 - Meditated through the contraction/pain using Vipassana mediation
►09:50 - Having a mindful and attentive partner.
►13:41 - How Akko Meditated/Meditates

QUESTION: Do you meditate? If so, what kind of meditation do you do?

MUSIC:
► Copyright Chillhop Music - https://chillhop.com

#naturabirth #painmanagement #meditation #relationshipgoals #consciouscouple #riseinlove #realizeyourtruenature

Podcast Transcription

The transcription below is provided for your convenience, please excuse any errors made by the automated service.

Akko 0:00

Every one to scan your body once in a while, whenever you're feeling a very deep emotion so that you can start to recognize where your emotions are located. It's Yuntaku time with Akko and Tamo.

Tamo 0:14

What does Yuntaku mean? It's an Okinawan word from the islands of Okinawa, which means chitchat. We want to invite you to our kitchen table, and include you in our chitchat to explore new ways of thinking, to welcome different perspectives.

Akko 0:33

And we want to share ideas and how to love yourself, love your partner, and shower your children with love.

Tamo 0:40

This is Episode 19.

Akko 0:43

And the topic ofthe day is giving birth without an epidural, and pain management with meditation. Before we get started, please take a quick moment to subscribe to our show.

Tamo 0:54

And for our recent happenings.

Akko 0:57

drumroll please.

Tamo 1:02

We are expecting our second child. Yes.

Akko 1:05

And we are about 27 weeks. So that is reaching our end of the second trimester going into our third trimester. So we're super excited to welcome this miracle into this world very soon. Yeah, enjoying this pregnancy. It's very different from my first one, I have to say the with our daughter was I felt like it was a lot easier. On my body right now I feel pretty heavy. And yes, I have to take care of our daughter. So you know, I'm having to constantly move around, run around carry her when she asks, I really often Yeah, which is, I really tried to be mindful of my body and try to be tactful, as far as how to maneuver her. So I will probably sit on the couch or something and try to carry her and see if that's satisfying, but usually not the case. She's just she just likes to be carrying when we're standing up. So I just you know, I try to find ways to carry her in a less stressful way for my body. And so we're having our second child, we're very excited. We don't know what the gender is gonna be just like what the first. Yeah, yeah. And so it was super exciting. When we waited until the birth. So it was Yeah, it was very exciting. And so we just thought we'd experienced the same type of ecstasy. So yeah,

Tamo 2:27

it was funny. I still remember when we found out it was our daughter. The doctor had asked me a dc dc, but the doc I saw I'm good. And then I shared the good news with a taco. And yeah, it was really fun.

Akko 2:44

Yeah, because one of our things was that Tamo let me know what the gender is going to be. So that's what that was, you know, it was really exciting. And yeah, so we'll see what's in store for us.

Tamo 2:55

Yeah. And with subsequent podcasts, we'll share more as things progress. So and maybe we can share some more pregnant couple tips with you, and share more information as we go along. So

Akko 3:07

yeah, yeah, even our birthing story, because it was it was definitely

Tamo 3:11

unusual. Yes,

Akko 3:12

it was an unusual. Yeah, it was a difficult, unusual birth. So I will definitely love to share that story with you. Definitely, definitely. Great.

Tamo 3:21

And so you said the topic of the day was giving birth without an epidural pain management with meditation. So get started?

Akko 3:29

Yeah. So I just want to get started with meditation. How would you define meditation? Tamo?

Tamo 3:34

Yeah, I think even with meditation, there are quite a few levels of understanding how just like in previous podcast, we talked about how we have unconscious incompetence to you know, there's levels of understanding, right, yeah. And meditation is similar where in the beginning meditation is touted is okay, you can have stress relief, and maybe it will help you relax. So that means it can help control blood pressure and things like that. And then as you go into meditation, more and more, you see that you're able to see what your mind is doing a little bit more, and you're able to understand, okay, the mind has the mind of its own. And a lot of times I'm not in control of that, and you become a watcher of your mind. And then if you continue this, it can lead you to a path of enlightenment, which is a such a big topic in itself. So just like with anything else, meditation has different levels of benefits. And as you go deeper, the deeper you can understand what meditation is, but like you mentioned, in this particular use, it's definitely letting go and relaxing the

Akko 4:38

body. Yeah, so before leading up to childbirth, we meditated daily, and I guess one jumpstart of that was because we actually did have a passion of course, when I was 18 weeks pregnant. And so the passionate is a silent meditation retreat where you are meditating. I think we've mentioned Previous podcasts, we meditate for about 10 hours a day for 11 days straight. And so you wake up 430 in the morning, you meditate for two hours, then you take a little bit of a break a breakfast break, and then you meditate and you take your lunch, you meditate. So you're practically meditating the whole entire day, and you cannot talk to anyone. And that's why it's called silent meditation. Because you can't see anyone you can't talk to anyone. You're with yourself. And so you focus on yourself and meditating. So you're continually going in

Tamo 5:31

within and really exploring and learning more and more about yourself. And yeah, what once that retreat starts, you stop speaking, you don't speak to anyone, you don't even make eye contact with people there. It is quite intense. And I'm surprised that we were able to get through it. Not everyone does, unfortunately, yeah, it's not easy, because you're sitting there, at least for some people do have chairs that they bring. But you know, we're just sitting on the ground pretty much on a Yeah. cushion.

Akko 5:59

Yeah. So I mean, we can dive deeper. But just for the focus of this podcast, we're just going to focus on childbirth. And so definitely a future podcast on our experience with the passionate because it was it was different for both of us.

Tamo 6:12

Definitely one of the most impactful and beneficial things that we've done in

Akko 6:16

our lives. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think this is by far the best thing that we've ever done, or I've ever done. And thank you for encouraging me to do it.

Tamo 6:24

And so yeah, we both went together. And of course, going together doesn't mean we get to sit and meditate together. It's separated. Yes. But we were there together at the same time. And at first going into it. We were quite scared. Yeah,

Akko 6:36

I was. I was terrible. I don't know about terrified, but I was I was very anxious that I won't be able to talk to Tamo or I won't even be right next to him, or I won't be able to see him. And I was like, like what? Yeah, so and you know, being that I'm a very physical person, you know, no hugs, no hugs. No, nothing. Yeah, I was like, Okay, this is gonna be hard. But I overcame that. And I finished it.

Tamo 7:00

Yeah. And so after the passionate meditation retreat, we came back and continued our meditation in the mornings.

Akko 7:08

Yeah. So we would meditate for an hour before getting started with a day. And it really helped us. And this is before our daughter was born. So it was much easier to meditate for one hour. Now it's kind of impossible unless we take turns. Right, right. Yeah, pretty difficult. Yeah. So during my labor, how I use meditation was whenever a contraction comes up, I would meditate through the pain. So in the passionate what they teach is, if a pain or like a pain sensation comes up, what you do is you just keep watching it, you keep watching the pain, and then you watch it until it starts to lessen, eventually dissipates. And so believe it or not, I mean, I've done this, and it actually works. I've tried this at the posh na at the retreat, and it was working. And so with childbirth, with contractions, it's much harder, because the pain is much more intense. But if you really just watch the pain and not fight the pain, it really helps with getting through their pain. So I would say I mean, it was very hard. Still, I would say maybe 30% of the time, I was able to really successfully do this, where I would watch the pain. And I mean, this is like literally about to give birth type of pain. And I would really watch the pain. And honestly, it would disappear or dissipate faster when I just watched the pain as opposed to when I would fight the pain. Because when I would fight the pain, I would just feel every sensation of the pain, and then it would last a lot longer. And it was just really interesting. And you will think, Okay, I'm going to try to do it again. But it is very hard. I'm not gonna lie, it's not the easiest thing. But when you're focused, and when you're determined, it's possible.

Tamo 8:47

And as a partner. So when a girl is giving birth as a partner, I'm there to support her and meditation, since we're bombarded with daily life, which is you know, your your phones, all these emails that you have to respond to all these notifications popping up. Our focus is not super strong as it could be right. And so as a partner, it's what I did was to remind her to get back into the zone. Yeah, because it's very easy to get distracted with the pain or whatever that's happening during childbirth. So it's so you want to gently say or her to focus, come back to the focus and to the meditation. And for us, we we like to use the word Ninja, a ninja, which was taught to us in Vipassana is kind of impermanence, impermanence of anything in life, right? from pain to whatever it is, everything is impermanent. So that's something that we said to each other to kind of bring each other back to the present moment so she can focus exactly,

Akko 9:46

because you know, you can lose yourself in that pain. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And so Tamo How to Be relaxed as well, because if he's anxious, like that energy will be transferred onto me. So another key to our successful epidural. lis childbirth was the fact that he was calm. And he was just really attentive to me.

Tamo 10:05

And so that's one of the reasons that we're talking about this today. On our podcast, we really want to focus on relationships, committed relationships, relationships with someone that you love, and you're in it for the long haul with and this is part of it. Right? So when we went into childbirth, we did it together. It was a was teamwork. Yeah, as as much as ACO is focused on what she's doing. I'm there to support her 100%. And like she mentioned, I had to stay calm myself, and then do everything else that she needed me to do outside of her focusing on giving birth. And so yeah, I have a few questions. Yeah, maybe you can answer those. So when you were watching the pain, were you also relaxing your body?

Akko 10:49

Yes, I was also relaxing my body. Because if it's tense, then you're again, you're kind of getting into the pain again. So I will try to relax it as much as possible. Take deep breaths, and just kind of breathe through the pain. And I can imagine how

Tamo 11:01

tough that is. Because when something hurts, you tend to contract right? Like, it's like, ouch. So you, you tighten up your muscles. And that kind of pain, you're probably tensing every single soul.

Akko 11:11

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like going to a mazouz. And they're like pressing really hard because they're trying to work on this knot. And the counterintuitive thing is that you have to relax. You know, because the first thing you do is all this hurts, and then you just tense up, but you just really have to relax the best you can so that you can release that knot and the outcome would be far greater. So that's what you have to do. And then I don't know if I can compare it to childbirth, but that's kind of like the concept. That's interesting.

Tamo 11:39

So it seems like you know, you're letting go, I guess from the tension, not just from your mind, but your body

Akko 11:45

both together. Yeah, both Absolutely. Both together. Yeah. Yeah. So and then you're breathing through this. You're just taking deep breaths. During this time, we had a meditation music. So Tom was great about making sure the meditation music was on and he helped me as much as possible to help me relax. We did a lot of aroma therapy, where I would know certain sense. So citrus is really good for relaxation. Lavender is really good for relaxation. So those two cents,

Tamo 12:13

so I believe we brought three was the third one. Yeah. And we cycled it. You're like, Okay, this is good for now. Give me this or whatnot. And I think I made a combo. Yeah, you there is and peppermint. I think

Akko 12:27

it was nice. It was nice. So that and then really what topped it like a cherry on top was a wet towel on my face like that, just so yeah, that was it just kind of did the magic. Like I felt me relax even more so and so I was able to rest a little bit. And you need to rest whenever you get the chance both of you guys have to write Right. Yeah.

Tamo 12:47

So yeah, going back to a little bit more of the meditation, maybe if you can share some tips on this other passion of meditation. And if you're listening to this podcast, you're already awesome. And we highly recommend Vipassana if you haven't done it, they do have I think three day course. I think

Akko 13:03

they do they have a shorter retreat.

Tamo 13:04

Yeah. But you know, do the 10 day one I

Akko 13:07

tend to love it's I think it's 10 days, but it's really Ivan days called I believe,

Tamo 13:11

10 days, but yeah, go Go for it. And it's not easy. No phone, nothing.

Akko 13:16

Nothing. No journaling, nothing.

Tamo 13:18

You can't even have that. Nothing. It's just you few pieces of clothes, sandals or shoes if you need that. And then of course, your meditation. So yeah, definitely. But we do recommend that it will be a catalyst to more increased self growth. And this is something that you can't really put a price on.

Akko 13:35

Yeah, absolutely not. So if you have a chance to go, we highly recommend it. Yeah.

Tamo 13:40

So before giving childbirth, you mentioned that, you know, we were meditating together. Yes, we were What did that meditation look like? So what did you do?

Akko 13:48

So every morning, we would meditate, sit at first, I would focus on my breath, just to get me started. And just to get that focus started. And any thoughts that came through, I would just see it and just welcome it, let it go on its path, take deep breaths. And then what I would do is I would scan my body. So that's what they teach in a passionate you scan your body. And

Tamo 14:09

that's what we're passionate is it's the body scan.

Akko 14:11

So what you do is from head to toe, you scan every part of your body and you have your own system, you get to get accustomed to your own system. And what I would do is from start from my top of my head scanner down through my shoulders and went down symmetrically, I went down my shoulders, then my arms, then I went back up and then it just went to the core of my body and then I was just scan it down all the way down to your length and then come back up and down and up and down. Like literally just continually continually up and down. And what you're trying to do at this time is you're trying to see if we can find any sensation and what we mean by sensation is any pain or any itch or any tingling, Enos any sensation that you feel, you see it and you just keep watching it and then you will see that every single time you're scanning your body and you're seeing that sensation That sensation eventually disappears. And that's kind of what my meditation when so you're just focusing and you're practicing how to watch all these sensation. And so for childbirth, I did the same thing. The sensation was a pain the contraction. So what you do is you watch it, you just keep scanning it, you just watch it, and then eventually ill will go away. So that's what I've done. And that's what really helped me. And I'm glad I got that practice a month before, because had I not had that. I don't know if I would have been that successful as far as not getting an epidural. I don't know if I would have given it. I don't know, because it didn't happen that way. So I'm not really sure. But the thought didn't even crossed my mind to even get an epidural.

Tamo 15:39

And I think that's the point. Right? One thing that we know for sure is it would have been more difficult.

Akko 15:45

Yeah, yeah, definitely without meditation. Yeah, absolutely. And, and Tamo could have been a little more like scattered and anxious, had he not been meditating. So it's a win win situation for both.

Tamo 15:56

Right, right. Yeah, I can imagine just because, you know, even imagining, like, knowing that you're in pain, but I'm sure my mind would have been even more scattered. And just maybe I would have felt helpless, right. But we had a much better handle on the mind. Yeah. And our body because of the meditation we've been doing.

Akko 16:15

And we were able to focus on what we needed to focus on.

Tamo 16:18

Right, right, what was important and then helping each other keeping that focus. Exactly, exactly. So we hope that this story of childbirth and meditation gives you a little insight on what meditation can do. I mean, meditation is such a broad topic. It's very far from just sitting there with your eyes closed in a certain posture. Yes, that is part of it. And in the beginning, it will look like that. But more and more meditation does transform into something different, especially if you practice it for many, many years, like we have. I think I've been practicing for six years now. Yeah. And just now I feel like Okay, I'm gonna really push my meditation, more pushing it so that I can meditate about two hours a day. That'd be really nice. Yeah, so it's not easy with a toddler. And you know, I want to support you as much as I can. So of course, the scheduling, we work that out, but it's that beneficial for life. So for the question of the day, do you meditate? If so, what kind of meditation do you do? And if you have any questions regarding meditation for us, please let us know. We'd love to chime in.

Akko 17:26

Yeah, so please come and say hi on our new website, by going to une duck time.com.

Tamo 17:32

That's Y U N T A K U Yuntaku time.com

Akko 17:38

All right. Thank you for listening. Alright, bye.