Oxytocin what is it and why is it important?
Like Herbie was the original love bug…..come on tell me you are old enough to know what or who should I say Herbie is? He is the cuteset little VW Beetle of course! They did do a remake but I have to say the originals are the best! Anyway off the tangent, I am so easily led!
I’m not here to talk about a car, cute as he was, I am here to talk about Oxytocin.
Oxytocin is the beautiful love hormone, it's a hormone found naturally within us all, but it is a shy little hormone that needs nurturing and encouragement to show itself. The hormone itself is produced by the pituitary gland part of our endocrine system. The pituitary gland is found in the brain located just behind the nose. If there was a grand master of glands the pituitary gland would most certainly be it. It releases many of the hormones that control other glands, during pregnancy it controls the Oestrogen and Progesterone levels and during labour when it is time to meet your baby it will play a part in the production of the lovely hormone Oxytocin.
So what is Oxytocin? During labour you need lots of this hormone and the endorphins to flood our systems, this will help your contractions to progress at a nice steady pace, it will help to block your pain receptors so our contractions don’t feel unbearable and will take you right to your babies birthday.
It’s a pretty special hormone and we need to learn how to get really good at encouraging this little hormone to show itself.
There are a few ways in which we can encourage the production of this hormone and they are all really easy to master with a bit of guidance and practice.
Cuddling or holding hands, sounds simple right? but having a cuddle or holding the hand of the person you trust and have entrusted to be your birth partner, having that physical contact with that person brings about a feeling of being safe and when we feel safe we feel calm, wanted and loved. A perfect environment for Oxytocin to flow. It is extremely powerful. This is why you can’t cuddle your baby enough.
Our brains play a big part in how we labour and we must feel safe and secure in order for our labour to progress. Our brain is very complex, it first has a neocortex side, this side is stimulated by light, sound it is our intelligent side. The other side is our Primitive side, it is much simpler in it’s function and found deep within the brain. Your babies are born with this side of the brain functioning, this is why they don’t come out walking and talking. Thankfully, can you imagine! This side of the brain serves us well in labour, it is our primal instincts, it is the reason a birthing mother knows exactly what she needs to do to birth her baby, it will produce the hormones needed to encourage the labour along Oxytocin being one. It is stimulated when we go deep within ourselves. To do this we need to shut ourselves off from all the stimulating activity going on around us, we need to close ourselves down and be in tune with our bodies, listen and follow its lead.
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