The subconscious mind is a powerful ally during labour and birth, working hard to protect and guide the birthing process. By understanding and respecting its role, we can create environments and encourage practices that support its precautionary instincts, leading to smoother, safer, and more empowering birth experiences. Embracing this mind-body connection highlights the remarkable wisdom within us, ensuring birth unfolds in the way nature intended.
For neurodiverse women this is even more essential – because the more we learn about neurodiversity, the more we recognise how environmental overstimulation can present significant challenges during labour.
Let’s explore five key areas where honouring the privacy instinct can positively impact neurodiverse women in childbirth:
1. Sensory Sensitivities
Many neurodiverse women experience heightened sensitivity to sensory input, such as light, sound, touch, or even certain textures and smells. A typical hospital environment, with its bright lights, continuous monitoring, and beeping machines, can be overwhelming and trigger stress or anxiety.
- Consider: Creating a calming environment that supports dim lighting, quiet surroundings, and minimal interruptions aligns with the privacy instinct and helps mitigate sensory overload. This allows for greater relaxation and focus on the birth process. Build your oxytocin kit by gathering supplies in preparation. Blankets, eye mask, headphones, pillows etc: will all help.
2. Need for Predictability and Control
Neurodiverse women often thrive in environments where they can predict and control their surroundings. However, labour’s inherent unpredictability and the presence of multiple care providers can heighten feelings of anxiety or loss of control.
- Consider: Establishing a supportive environment with someone who can provide continuity of care, such as having a dedicated doula. This can help reduce anxiety. Also, clearly communicating your preferences to your caregivers about who, and how many people are in the room with you at any one time, or, when you are comfortable being touched or spoken to – will support your sense of autonomy and security.
3. Emotional Regulation
Labour and birth often brings intense emotions that can be difficult to process, especially for those women with neurodiverse conditions that impact emotional regulation.
- Consider: Minimising external stressors and reducing social pressures by tuning into the privacy instinct can promote emotional stability. Creating a private and calm birth environment supports a sense of emotional safety, encouraging the release of oxytocin, the essential hormone for labour progression.
4. Social and Communication Preferences
Many neurodiverse women prefer limited social interactions and may find constant verbal communication draining or stressful.
- Consider: Informing your care providers of your preference for quiet, non-verbal communication, or selective engagement. Carefully choosing familiar, trusted support people helps minimise unnecessary interactions and fosters a more empowered birth experience.
5. Prioritising Physical Comfort
Physical comfort plays a critical role in labour and birth, especially for neurodiverse women who may have heightened body awareness or sensitivities to certain physical sensations. Discomfort from medical equipment, restrictive clothing, or rigid birthing positions can distract from the body’s natural rhythms and exacerbate stress.
- Consider: Ensuring you have access to comfortable positions, soft textures, and supportive props such as birth balls or pillows. Advocate for freedom of movement, wearing clothing that feels comfortable, and minimising unnecessary physical interference during labour. Customising your environment to prioritise physical comfort allows your subconscious mind to stay focused on facilitating birth rather than responding to distractions.
Supporting the privacy instinct and honoring these considerations allows neurodiverse women to feel safer, more in control, and more attuned to their body’s natural processes during labour and birth. Creating an environment that respects sensory, emotional, and social needs ensures that the subconscious mind’s protective instincts can function at their best, guiding a positive and empowering birth journey.