News & Articles

Yoga Journal: July/August 2004| The Nurture Center Newsletter: Fall 2001

Birth of Mindfulness: Yoga and Meditation Are Helping Mothers-to-Be Prepare for the Ultimate In-the-Moment Experience

Linda Knittel

With eyes closed and paying gentle attention to the breath, eight pregnant women and their partners sit silently in the Oakland, California, living room of certified nurse midwife Nancy Bardacke. For a few moments, they let go of the anticipation of labor, delivery, and their babies to sample the present moment.

These expectant parents are preparing for childbirth, mindfully. Drawing on Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction technique and her own yoga and meditation experience, Bardacke offers meditation instruction along with birthing biology in her eight-week course (called Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Education). Participants practice various pain-coping techniques—meditation, partner massage, saying "ah" or other easy sounds—and breath awareness.

"By staying with my breath and not moving beyond the very moment at hand, I was able to have the most amazing birth experience," says Victoria Tyra, a course graduate. "Now I use the techniques when my kids are screaming or when I'm caught in traffic. It has done great things for my marriage too." Clearly, such results are Bardacke's intent. "The work not only teaches you how to deal with the contractions of labor," she says, "it teaches you how to handle the contractions of life."

Classes based on Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness technique are offered in a variety of formats all over the world. To search for a program in your area, visit http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/mbsr/.

Linda Knittel is a nutritional anthropologist and freelance writer in Portland. She is the author of Soy Sensation (McGraw Hill, 2001).

Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting: Breath by Breath

Nancy Bardacke, CNM, MA

Seventeen people, sitting in a circle with their eyes closed, focus attention on their breath. The group includes seven couples pregnant with their first baby, one couple pregnant with their second baby and me, a nurse-midwife, mother, and instructor for the class. From the outside, we probably look a bit odd, sitting here in silence, appearing as if we are doing nothing. In fact, what we are doing is far from nothing.

In an eight week childbirth preparation program called Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Education, we are practicing mindfulness meditation, a powerful tool to help us prepare for the great challenges that lie ahead—labor, delivery and parenting. Adapted from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., the class is an opportunity to learn a life skill that will serve us not only during this profound life transition, but can continue as a lifelong practice for healthy living and wise parenting.

The essence of the course is systematic, intensive training in mindfulness—moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness—and then learning how we can apply this skill to our coming labor, delivery and postpartum experience. Together, we learn many different ways to use the mind to work with the physical pain of labor, as well as learn how to come to terms with any fears we may have about the many unknowns that lie ahead.

While pregnancy is often a happy and exciting time, it is also a time of great change, which can be stressful. The new but normal body sensations many pregnant women experience can cause or be made worse by stress. Those who are at risk for preterm labor, who experience health problems during pregnancy, who have a history of infertility or have had a previous traumatic birth experience may also experience pregnancy as a stressful time. Research has shown that many stress-related health problems such as chronic pain, insomnia, high blood pressure, migraines, asthma, anxiety and depression can be greatly relieved or eliminated through a regular meditation practice.

Stress or anxiety can also be triggered by the many uncertainties about the future that are a normal part of becoming a parent. Parents-to-be wonder: How will I manage the pain of labor? How can I truly support my partner during childbirth? Will the baby be healthy? What kind of parent will I be? How will the baby affect my relationship with my partner? Can we handle this change financially? Will I really be able to love another child? Through mindfulness we cultivate the inner resources to be able to work with whatever arises in each moment, helping us to maintain or restore balance and calm.

In addition to learning how to work with pain and the unknown, participants find that the practice of mindfulness helps them to work more effectively with the many stresses of daily life. This is particularly helpful for partners, who also learn a valuable skill for managing stress and their own transition to parenthood. As one participant commented, “I am generally much calmer now, not only in my attitude toward childbirth. I have various tools to use that I wasn’t aware of before.”

Whatever the birth experience, the days and weeks postpartum can be incredibly challenging. Here again mindfulness can hold us, even when a situation seems overwhelming. Just remembering to pay attention to the breath can change a situation dramatically. As one new mother who was having breastfeeding difficulties put it: “I was able to use the mindfulness practice to get me and the baby through some really difficult times. I don’t know what I would have done without knowing how to be in the present moment.”

The practice yields different insights for each participant. A father-to-be felt he “found the emotional tools that would help him be truly present with his new child in a way that his own father was never able to be with him.” One pregnant mother found that the training in being with her breath during meditation helped her develop a deep self-confidence for labor that made the birth of her 9 lb.11oz baby a surprisingly easy, positive experience. Another stated, “In all honesty, I thought childbirth was going to be a lot more painful that it really was. By being able to stay in the moment, breath by breath, I found the entire experience extremely tolerable.” And a pregnant mother of two reported an unexpected benefit: “I never knew how much parenting was about being in the present moment. It’s so simple, but boy, it sure isn’t easy!”

Nancy Bardacke is a Certified Nurse-Midwife who has worked with birthing families since 1971. In addition to her Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Education Program, Nancy has taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, CA and Kaiser in Oakland, CA. She has attended professional trainings with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. and his colleagues from UMass Medical Center.

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