Our hormones and the fear/love interplay

[Becky]

I've been on this forum for a few weeks now and have learnt so much and am grateful for everything that others (you) have posted - thank you. I feel it's time I contributed something, so here is my little bit added to the puzzle that is life on Earth.

As part of my work I have learnt about how our hormones work and the interplay of the LOVE hormone - OXYTOCIN and the FEAR hormone - Adrenaline (this is simplified a bit as there are other hormones involved too...but the interplay of these 2 hormones is very significant).

I work in Childbirth education and teach/facilitate small groups of couples expecting babies how to try to have positive and gentle birth experiences - but i do this with people who are mostly mainstream, and many/most still end up having traumatic births (due to their hospital 'care' and medical interventions) and their babies having a difficult start one way or another, despite what they learn. I am sure this is linked with the whole fear side of things and this does challenge new babies right from the start of being here on earth. The whole system of birth in the 'developed world' is very far from how birth should be - so medical and interfering which damages the mother-baby bonding right from the start and traumatizes most new babies who enter planet earth. i find this so sad. Fortunately there are various movements to try to educate people and enhance womens/babies birth experiences. This interestingly is becoming stronger just as our general spiritual awareness is raising.

Oxytocin is produced in the posterior lobe of our pituitary gland in our brain, and is released both as a hormone into the blood AND neurotransmitter straight into the brain. So it can affect our thinking and make us think and feel in love, or happy, peaceful, blissed out. Oxytocin levels are high when we make love, or just feel safe, warm relaxed and cosy.. and are very high in women who are in labour and giving birth - it is THE hormone of labour. For oxytocin to work well a woman MUST feel safe and very comfortable in her environment and the lights must be dimmed and she must have privacy. This is exactly the opposite of the hospital birth environment.

When a person feels fear/tense/anxious they produce Adrenaline and this hormone suppresses Oxytocin, so when adrenaline is high, oxytocin is low/lowered. This has a HUGE and significant impact on women who are labouring/giving birth and is one of the main reasons why so many problems arise during childbirth these days. Why it is slowed down and why the labouring woman 'needs' extra help to get her labour speeded up or help with 'delivery'. Most women in the western world give birth with a great deal of fear (which increases tension and pain), not understanding that the hormone oxytocin needs nurturing to keep levels high.

I try to teach people about their hormones and how important it is for babies to have gentle start in life, and so on, but people so easily fall into the fear side when thinking about birth rather than being empowered. It is a big challenge for the whole world.

Interestingly, having read about the Draconis species enjoying peoples fear, I do think that the info I teach expecting couples about nurturing the hormone Oxytocin (hormone of love/birth) and reducing the adrenaline is vital info for everyone to understand. We can nurture oxytocin by doing relaxation, focusing on breathing, keeping our environment warm and nurturing. So if we could all manage our bodies to create oxytocin when we needed we could learn how to control our fear. This could help us a lot through the coming transitions. By the way there are now oxytocin pills on the market -Avoid them as they are synthetic and cause more damage than good.

I would love to hear others thoughts on this subject of hormones and feelings... how we can be emotionally manipulated to create more adrenaline - fear....and how we can overcome this by raising our LOVE HORMONE :-)

Thanks

[Lifebringer]

Some hospitals don't treat you like a number on a band and paycheck, after 6, I've had some good experiences, and bad. Once I died because they kept sending me home after weeks of Braxton hicks, and the child turned feet first. It was an experience that led me to KNOW that there is life after leaving the body in death. I was in a corner of the ceiling looking down at their proceedures and they pulled her out and I saw them break her shoulder, and when they put the paddles on me to revive after she was out, I told them they broke her shoulder on my pelvic bone, and they x-rayed her two days later when a nurse was holding her, and found she had dislocated and cracked her shoulder.

To this day, those nurses are amazed and realize how close to death and life, birth is. They say it's the 2nd hardest pain, next to death. Death will kill ya. LOL

[Becky]

Some hospitals don't treat you like a number on a band and paycheck, after 6, I've had some good experiences, and bad. Once I died because they kept sending me home after weeks of Braxton hicks, and the child turned feet first. It was an experience that led me to KNOW that there is life after leaving the body in death. I was in a corner of the ceiling looking down at their proceedures and they pulled her out and I saw them break her shoulder, and when they put the paddles on me to revive after she was out, I told them they broke her shoulder on my pelvic bone, and they x-rayed her two days later when a nurse was holding her, and found she had dislocated and cracked her shoulder.

To this day, those nurses are amazed and realize how close to death and life, birth is. They say it's the 2nd hardest pain, next to death. Death will kill ya. LOL


Hi Lifebringer,

I'm sorry to read that you and your daughter had a difficult birth. It does sound very traumatic. I don't doubt that those involved in your medical care did their absolute best in trying to help your baby out safely. Does your daughter have full use of her damaged shoulder/arm?
Sending love and ((hugs)) to help heal your experience (doesn't make a difference if it was last week or 40 + years ago)

There are 4 main factors affecting the birth of a baby...
Health of mum and baby,
Position of the baby,
Positions of the mother during labour (different positions make a massive difference in the progress of labour to open the pelvis)
Environment and hormones.

Sometimes our babies get themselves into a position that makes birth very difficult and unsafe. My first was footling breech (feet first) which is very unsafe from a cord prolapse point of view....also the cord was round her neck 3 times! Very fortunately for us this was discovered at a late scan and she was born by cesarean. Sometimes cesareans are the best and safest mode of birth, but far more are done than necessary. It is thought that under 10% of babies world wide need a cesarean birth, perhaps even as little as 2%, but in the UK this figure is closer to 25% in most hospitals. In other parts of the world it is so much higher.

What is so absolutely amazing with human beings is that while we get traumatized by our birth experiences, and our oxytocin levels get massively dampened so many of us do not get the wonderful oxytocin high that we should get post birth to help facilitate the bonding and breastfeeding....even so we still do not reject our babies like most/all other mammals would under similar circumstances. We just bond more slowly and take our time. It is hard for us though.

Love and best wishes,
Becky

[waves]

I regret that despite all my research and planning to do all the right things.... in a peaceful birthing center, no epidural, no vaccs or rough cleaning, have the baby put right on my breast, I never really thought about what the baby was going thru during the process. In your opinion, can a natural birth ever be non-traumatic for the baby? Meaning, isn't it likely extremely painful and scary as hell for the baby - their head squeezed and stuck in a small boney area, hearing stressful noises, yelling and screaming. Can it really not be hours of sustained, trapped, scary, confusing, helpless agony for babies ever?
Thank you. Looking forward to your thoughts about it.

[Becky]

I regret that despite all my research and planning to do all the right things.... in a peaceful birthing center, no epidural, no vaccs or rough cleaning, have the baby put right on my breast, I never really thought about what the baby was going thru during the process. In your opinion, can a natural birth ever be non-traumatic for the baby? Meaning, isn't it likely extremely painful and scary as hell for the baby - their head squeezed and stuck in a small boney area, hearing stressful noises, yelling and screaming. Can it really not be hours of sustained, trapped, scary, confusing, helpless agony for babies ever?
Thank you. Looking forward to your thoughts about it.

Hi Waves,

Resent research in the UK has discovered that the oxytocin levels rise in the baby before birth, and when they reach a certain level it causes the baby's brain to shut down a bit and so this lowers the oxygen requirements for the baby (a baby needs 75% of it's normal oxygen requirements). This is a fantastic protective mechanism because Mother nature knows that labour is hard for the baby as well as the mother, and so it gives the baby a better chance of survival by making the baby go into a mild kind of 'hibernation' (for want of a better word).
Not only does this protect the baby physically - because labour will reduce the amount of oxygen a baby gets at times during the birth process, so the baby prepares itself by needing less oxygen - but I feel it also helps protect the baby emotionally too. Babies do get their mothers horomes, so if a labour is natural, unbothered and smooth, then genuinely both mum and baby will be 'blissed out' after birth on a massive oxytocin high. A baby is not thought to be traumatized by the birth process, just because its head is slightly squeezed...in fact this is a good thing, as long as it's gently done.

One of the reasons that many babies get distressed during the induction process is that it's done before the baby has had the chance to reduce it's oxygen requirements, so it still needs the full 100%, and it doesn't get this during labour so gets distressed, so needs help to get it out and help to resuscitate it immediately after birth.

This is a short answer as I have to go to work, but let me know if you need a longer/clearer answer. Basically a natural, gentle, trauma free birth is very good for a baby, and not harmful at all. It enables the baby to pick up the good flora for it's digestive system, it squeezes the baby so clearing out the fluid from its lungs so enabling the baby to breathe easily after birth.

Another vital thing, the cord should be left to stop pulsing as babies need their extra cord blood - the placenta and cord hold 1/3 of the baby's full blood volume and babies need this. Though from the 1960's cords used to be routinely cut immediately after birth - very traumatic for several reasons. Babies don't need to breathe immediately after birth as they are still connected to their oxygen supply via the cord/placenta. A babies deflated lungs need only 6-8% of total blood volume, but to inflate the lungs it needs more than 40%. If the baby's cord has been cut, it will take this blood from other organs which can cause damage, especially to the brain in these few first minutes. If the baby is allowed to take it's first breathe while still attached to it's mum, then it gets it's blood supply from the cord and no other organs are compromised.
Becky x

[Becky]

I regret that despite all my research and planning to do all the right things.... in a peaceful birthing center, no epidural, no vaccs or rough cleaning, have the baby put right on my breast, I never really thought about what the baby was going thru during the process. In your opinion, can a natural birth ever be non-traumatic for the baby? Meaning, isn't it likely extremely painful and scary as hell for the baby - their head squeezed and stuck in a small boney area, hearing stressful noises, yelling and screaming. Can it really not be hours of sustained, trapped, scary, confusing, helpless agony for babies ever?
Thank you. Looking forward to your thoughts about it.


Hi again Waves,

I forgot to mention in my haste this morning that it sounds to me like you chose the right way of giving birth and you made the best decisions you could. All the things like choosing a birth centre over a big hospital, no epidural (this can significantly slow down labour and cause far more distress for the baby than no epidural...) and having skin-to-skin afterwards...all sound like the best choices you could make for your baby too.
Best wishes,
Becky

[Becky]

Any more thoughts, experiences?
Thanks x

[waves]

......As part of my work I have learnt about how our hormones work and the interplay of the LOVE hormone - OXYTOCIN and the FEAR hormone - Adrenaline (this is simplified a bit as there are other hormones involved too...but the interplay of these 2 hormones is very significant).......

.....Oxytocin is produced in the posterior lobe of our pituitary gland in our brain, and is released both as a hormone into the blood AND neurotransmitter straight into the brain. So it can affect our thinking and make us think and feel in love, or happy, peaceful, blissed out. Oxytocin levels are high when we make love, or just feel safe, warm relaxed and cosy.. ...

....When a person feels fear/tense/anxious they produce Adrenaline and this hormone suppresses Oxytocin, so when adrenaline is high, oxytocin is low/lowered......

.....I would love to hear others thoughts on this subject of hormones and feelings... how we can be emotionally manipulated to create more adrenaline - fear....and how we can overcome this by raising our LOVE HORMONE :-)

Thanks


So, in a way, if it's true that many complexities frequently boil down to something simple... in this case, the adage that you can take any human action/thought 'action' on earth and boil it down to 'either creating love or fear', it means we are either creating adrenaline or oxytocin thru the choices we make and filtering our perceptions thru whichever we are generating.

This makes me wonder which is the cart and which is the horse. If humans did not have these hormones, does it imply that all actions are neutral and only take meaning depending on the hormone it generates?

[Becky]

......As part of my work I have learnt about how our hormones work and the interplay of the LOVE hormone - OXYTOCIN and the FEAR hormone - Adrenaline (this is simplified a bit as there are other hormones involved too...but the interplay of these 2 hormones is very significant).......

.....Oxytocin is produced in the posterior lobe of our pituitary gland in our brain, and is released both as a hormone into the blood AND neurotransmitter straight into the brain. So it can affect our thinking and make us think and feel in love, or happy, peaceful, blissed out. Oxytocin levels are high when we make love, or just feel safe, warm relaxed and cosy.. ...

....When a person feels fear/tense/anxious they produce Adrenaline and this hormone suppresses Oxytocin, so when adrenaline is high, oxytocin is low/lowered......

.....I would love to hear others thoughts on this subject of hormones and feelings... how we can be emotionally manipulated to create more adrenaline - fear....and how we can overcome this by raising our LOVE HORMONE :-)

Thanks


So, in a way, if it's true that many complexities frequently boil down to something simple... in this case, the adage that you can take any human action/thought 'action' on earth and boil it down to 'either creating love or fear', it means we are either creating adrenaline or oxytocin thru the choices we make and filtering our perceptions thru whichever we are generating.

This makes me wonder which is the cart and which is the horse. If humans did not have these hormones, does it imply that all actions are neutral and only take meaning depending on the hormone it generates?

Hi Waves,
this is a really interesting question, and I'd love to know what others think the answer may be. It reminds me of a thought that actions are neither good, nor evil unless/until they are perceived to be.
My thoughts are that humans have always had these hormones as part of their make-up, and they are perhaps key in helping us decide / decipher positive experiences from negative ones...although people can get addicted to adrenaline rushes, so perceive adrenaline to be a positive hormone as it's associated with excitement as well as fear.
Sorry for my delayed response - I had thought this thread had dropped off the radar!
All the best,
Becky

[Becky]

If you listen to this video by Marc Passio at 1:07 then he clearly talks about the point I'm trying to get across - it's serendipity that I listened to this clip today :-)

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?67962-Marc-Passio-about-the-Illuminati&p=791539#post791539

At 1:08 Marc says "the only way to change what you see 'out there' is by changing what's inside. By getting out of the fear consciousness and getting into the consciousness of higher levels of awareness - LOVE consciousness. Everything is a choice between Love and Fear. When you're in that base consciousness you're in an internal state of confusion. You don't own yourself but your owned by something else - the force of fear. Then you go into fight or flight mode and you want to control everything."

In our 3D bodies this is translated by and represented by our hormones Adrenaline and Oxytocin.

When we truly understand this about ourselves we will be able to raise our vibration and change the way we live...IMHO

Every single one of us need to have a greater level of self-awareness of how we are feeling...our internal environment affects our external environment - and vice versa, but it starts from within.

[Elainie]

My experience with birthing 6 children gently at home is one of surrender, once you relax and let the process unfold naturally, it's rather peaceful and in my experiences less painful. With my first birth I tensed up a bit (posterior twins, the first twin didn't even rotate and was born sunny side up) and I kept asking my midwife when would it all be over lol. So that little bit of tension does indeed produce an adrenaline response which is not conducive. My last birth was by far the easiest because I was alone (well husband and one of my oldest daughter's was around) stayed calm and when my son literally slid out unexpectedly (very rapid 44 minute labor) I remained calm and just stood there amazed that this all transpired the way it had because I had doubted the fetal ejection reflex for myself having never experienced it in my prior births.
Michel Odent has some really good info IMO on the value of being left alone in labor/birth.



Do Not Disturb: The Importance of Privacy in Labor

Judith A. Lothian, RN, PhD, LCCE, FACCE
Author information ► Copyright and License information ►
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
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Abstract
In nature, when a laboring animal feels threatened or disturbed, the stress hormone catecholamine shuts down labor. Similarly, when a laboring woman does not feel safe or protected or when the progress of her normal labor is altered, catecholamine levels rise and labor slows down or stops. This column discusses the importance of providing labor support that respects the woman's privacy, protects her from unnecessary interventions, insures her safety, and allows her to trust her inherent ability to give birth normally.

Keywords: labor, normal birth, privacy, catecholamine
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Question
Animals, both those in the wild and domesticated animals, search out quiet, secluded spots in which to give birth. And yet, across time and cultures, women giving birth have been attended by other women. Research supports the value of continuous emotional and physical support, but I wonder if there is something to be learned from animals' apparent need for seclusion in labor.

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Answer
You have identified an important, and often overlooked, need of women in labor. Michel Odent notes that “…parturition is an involuntary process and an involuntary process cannot be helped. The point is not to disturb it.” (Odent, 1987, p. 105) The exquisite workings of normal, natural, physiologic labor do not need to be improved. The more we learn about normal, physiologic birth, the more respectful we become. We are just beginning to understand the hormonal orchestration of labor and birth, and this provides a foundation for understanding the importance of “not disturbing” the physiologic process of labor and birth.

In early labor, catecholamines (the stress hormones) have the potential to stop labor. When a woman is very frightened—of pain, of the hospital, of the unknown—labor fails to progress. Contractions can become very strong and difficult to handle or, more typically, they become weaker. In both instances, the contractions become ineffective. Why should this be so? For animals giving birth in the wild, fear of predators in early labor triggers catecholamine release and labor stops, giving the animal time to move out of danger before labor begins again. Catecholamine release and the temporary shutdown of labor protect the animal and her young. When birth is very close, a surge of catecholamine takes place and, now, the result is quite different. A fetal-ejection reflex appears to occur. In the wild, when birth is very close, getting the baby animal out quickly allows the mother to move to safety.

Niles Newton studied the effect of the environment on the process of labor and birth in laboratory mice. Her research documents the response of laboring mice to fear and stress. When the mice were disturbed, especially by a lack of privacy, catecholamine surges shut down early labor. Later in labor, hormone release was inhibited and the fetal-ejection reflex did not occur (Newton, 1987; Newton, N., Foshee, & Newton, M., 1966). In both instances, nature responded to threats, potential or real, in the birth environment and protected the mother and her young. Newton went on to describe the similarities in the hormonal orchestration of making love, giving birth, and breastfeeding. In each, hormones facilitate the process—indeed, are integral to it—and all are easily “disturbed.”

When the mice were disturbed, especially by a lack of privacy, catecholamine surges shut down early labor.

We, like other mammals, need to feel both safe and protected to give birth easily. If we do not feel safe and protected in early labor, catecholamine levels rise and labor shuts down. Odent describes the fetal-ejection reflex in women (Odent, 1987, 1992). During the second stage of labor, if the hormone orchestration of normal labor has been altered (e.g., by the use of pitocin or epidural analgesia), the fetal-ejection reflex does not occur.

Women choose to give birth in hospitals because they believe it is “safer” than birth outside the hospital. In fact, laboring and giving birth in most hospitals create a set of physiologic responses that actually occur when we feel unsafe and unprotected. In the typical hospital environment, women are disturbed at every turn—with machines, intrusions, strangers, and a pervasive lack of privacy. The shadow of “things going terribly wrong at any moment” follows women from one contraction to another. Together, these fears contribute in powerful ways to the release of stress hormones, moving women into an attitude of physiologic fight or flight. On an intellectual level, a woman may believe that the hospital is a safe, protected environment, but her body reacts quite differently. No matter what her head says, her body gets the message loud and clear. Her body responds on a primal, intuitive level, kicking automatically into fight-or-flight mode and dramatically altering the process of labor and birth. In choosing modern medical “safety,” women are stressed physiologically, which makes labor and birth more difficult. The lack of attention to women's inherent need to not be disturbed in the typical hospital environment has set the stage for an almost 27% cesarean rate, the routine use of epidurals in labor, the high rates of augmentation of labor, and the high incidence of instrument deliveries in the United States.

In the typical hospital environment, women are disturbed at every turn—with machines, intrusions, strangers, and a pervasive lack of privacy.

How does labor support fit into this picture? Can labor support create a bubble, a cocoon, around the laboring woman? Within the bubble, privacy is protected: Strangers are kept away (as much as possible), information is filtered, and questions, interruptions, and intrusions are kept to a minimum. Continuously supported, protected, and cared for, but not disturbed, the laboring woman can let go of fear even in a busy maternity hospital. However, she will be disturbed if she feels she is in a fish bowl being observed and evaluated. She will also be disturbed if she feels pressured to progress quickly because the clock is ticking. Ideally, she is surrounded by family and professionals who listen, watch, and quietly and patiently encourage her, making sure that she is not disturbed and has the privacy she needs to do the work of labor.

After rereading Newton and Odent, I encourage expectant women to develop birth plans that specifically address the need for privacy and the need to “not be disturbed.” In class, childbirth educators need to address the importance of feeling safe and protected and the role that privacy plays in both. Women need to know that privacy does not mean being alone. Privacy means not being disturbed, being protected, and feeling safe as labor progresses. The best labor support will protect a woman's privacy and insure that she is not disturbed so that she can tap into her inner wisdom and dig deep to find the strength she needs to give birth. The strategies for insuring privacy will be quite different depending on where the women in your classes plan to give birth (home, birthing center, or hospital). Women need to know that labor and birth outside the hospital often progresses more easily, at least in part because labor is less likely to be disturbed. Is a “Do Not Disturb” policy possible in a hospital? Yes, but it will require more careful planning and excellent labor support.

The best labor support will protect a woman's privacy and insure that she is not disturbed so that she can tap into her inner wisdom and dig deep to find the strength she needs to give birth.

When the trappings of medical birth—monitors, intravenous needles, hospital beds, and epidurals—fade away, when women are quietly and patiently encouraged and supported in exquisite privacy by friends, family, and professionals who trust birth and trust each woman's inherent ability to give birth, when women stop being “disturbed” in labor, many more women will give birth normally and ecstatically.

Erratum

A figure was incorrectly reported in Carol Sakala's commentary on labor support in the volume 13, number 2 issue of The Journal of Perinatal Education. The text should have indicated that, relative to women who did not have continuous labor support, those who received continuous support from someone who came into the hospital exclusively to provide this care were “33% less likely to be dissatisfied with or negatively rate their birth experience” (page 20). A discrepancy in the source is also being corrected.

Go to:
References
Newton N. The fetus ejection reflex revisited. Birth. 1987;14(2):106–108. [PubMed]
Newton N, Foshee D, Newton M. Experimental inhibition of labor through environmental disturbance. Obstetrics & Gynecology. 1966;27(3):371–377. [PubMed]
Odent M. The fetus ejection reflex. Birth. 1987;14(2):104–105. [PubMed]
Odent M. 1992. The nature of birth and breastfeeding. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing.

[Becky]

YES! Thank you ERK <3

You are absolutely right, and I'm so grateful to you for sharing this. I am a big fan of Michel Odent - he is very wise and has a profound understanding of birth.
I'm so happy that you have been able to experience this yourself, and thank you for sharing this with us. Actually I'm very impressed you birthed your twins yourself, especially as it was your first labour and one was back-to-back which makes for a very difficult, painful and longer labour.

Another Childbirth expert, Grantly Dick-Read tells a story in his book 'Childbirth without fear' about when he quietly observed a very young woman quickly and easily give birth. He asked her 'did it not hurt?' and She replied, 'No, was it supposed to?'

We have been condition to fear birth so much and are told it is the most painful thing we will experience, so, naturally this is what happens, unless we can search for other information that tells us otherwise - and there is a wealth of info now on how to overcome fear and birth without pain. Authors like Michel Odent, Grantly Dick-read, Ina May Gaskin and many more will be able to let us see another side of birth - the side we should be connected to.

You talk about the fetal-ejection reflex - this is rarely 'allowed' to happen in hospital environments. This is why so many woman have such slow 2nd stages and get exhausted and need 'assisted deliveries'. The woman is simply not in tune with her body, so frightened, and often lying on her back or sitting reclined which closes her pelvis as much as possible. When the fetal ejection reflex happens a woman's pelvis opens and de-stabalises for a moment, and she will throw up her arms to hold onto something. It is best if she has a rope or twisted sheet hung from a height above her, or something to hang onto. If this happens a baby will be born quickly and easily.

Basically I agree with everything you have said, and I'm glad you said it not me lol, so thank you,
All the best,
Becky x

Edited to add - ERK have you seen my other thread on childbirth as your post would fit very well in there.

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?67960-One-World-Birth-s-new-film-called-Microbirth-very-important-for-humankind

[Elainie]

About the fetal ejection reflex, as I mentioned I had never had that in my prior births and relied on a midwife to tell me when I was completely dilated and could *push*. In most of my births I didn't even know I had entered and passed transition as I have a super high pain tolerance. But this last birth was different as I had no midwife at home, my oldest daughter was in midwifery school at the time and has assisted many births here in the states and in Africa was in the shower as I told her I would at least be in labor for a couple of hours. So I walked up the stairs to tell my husband to fill the tub. I got in and asked my other oldest daughter (they are twins) to apply counter pressure to my lower back.All of a sudden I felt like standing up, so I did and the fetal ejection reflex just took over my body, there was nothing I could do about it. No pushing was involved as my son just slid out. I was really marveled at what happened, so quick and unexpected. I will check out your other thread.