Foundations of Birthing from Within: Heart of Mentoring
Course Curriculum
Part 4: Pain Coping: Scaling, Baseline, and Breath Awareness
Getting Started With Pain Coping
Map for Assessing Parents' Expectations: Scaling
Assessing Parents' Response: Baseline with Ice
Breath Awareness Map
Breath Awareness Instruction Resources
This video shows one of our certified mentors, Koyuki Smith, leading parents through Baseline and Breath Awareness. It is meant to be an example of how one mentor—during her training—did the process, and as a resource for your own learning and integration.
Here is an example of certified mentor Christine D’Esposito leading Scaling, Baseline, and Breath Awareness for parents in a virtual group class.
Practice...
Begin by practicing Breath Awareness on your own five times with ice. Time yourself for one minute "ice contractions" with one minute in between each one. Make sure to switch hands in between each round. Notice places of surrender and resistance as you move through the practice, and notice what's working as you build repetition and rhythm.
Next, lead a pregnant parent, family, or group through a lively dialogue covering Scaling (including Labor Theater), Baseline, and Breath Awareness.
Reflect on what worked well and what you'd like to do differently next time.
Next Steps
Now you are ready to put all the pieces together for a prenatal class, or bring pieces of this work into your prenatal appointments.
Lead a pregnant parent/family/group through a birth preparation class. The pieces are typically used in this order, but can be moved around or "ordered" up by parents who would benefit from one of these maps at different times. You can also incorporate practical knowledge about birth, hands-on support, and other elements into your class or prenatal appointment.
Scaling
Labor Theater
Birth Fairies
Baseline for Pain Coping
Breath Awareness
LabOrinth
Look back on the maps you've learned throughout this course and use them as tools when working with clients.
