Giving birth is like making love in many ways. And I hope that by the time you finish reading this post, you look forward to your birth experience as much as you look forward to a romantic Friday night with your hot hubby ☺. AND, I hope you’re ready to give birth like you make love!
Here we go…a comparison between sex and birth:
Sex: High levels of the Love Hormone, Oxytocin, flowing through your body
Birth: Also crazy levels of Oxytocin flowing through your body – actually the highest level of Oxytocin you will ever experience in your life comes in the moments following the birth of your baby – even more than when you orgasm! (Ok, 1 point for birth)
Sex: Can give you feelings of pleasure and euphoria (from hormones like Oxytocin and endorphins)
Birth: Same deal. You get the same awesome hormones and can have the same feelings of pleasure and euphoria and an indescribable “birth high”
Sex: Can be painful if you’re not relaxed or feeling safe and loved.
Birth: Exactly the same thing.
Sex: Can be both painful and euphoric at the same time. Just cuz you’re feeling a little pain from the stretching, it doesn’t mean you’re not loving it at the same time and feeling pleasure alongside the pain.
Birth: Totally the same thing! You can experience pain and pleasure at the same time and still LOVE the whole experience.
Sex: Works best if you just let go and surrender to your body – not trying to control the experience.
Birth: Ditto! Let go of control and just let yourself go – it will be way more enjoyable!
Sex: How much you enjoy it is directly related to how connected you feel to your partner, as well as your emotional and mental states.
Birth: Absolutely the same thing! If you’re feeling connected to your partner, and are peaceful, relaxed and fully present, you will enjoy it much more.
Sex: Can lead to amazing orgasm
Birth: Can also lead to orgasm (if you’re allowing yourself to let go and enjoy the sensations and hormones like you do during sex)
Sex: A wild ride! Best experienced by letting your wild side come out and letting go of all inhibitions. Turning your thoughts off and fully just being in your body and letting yourself feel all the sensations.
Birth: Also a wild ride! And also best experienced by letting your wild, primitive side take over and losing all inhibitions. Turn your thoughts off, fully just be in your body and let nature take over – it’s amazing!
Sex: Is different each time. Sometimes wild and euphoric. Sometimes intimate and peaceful.
Birth: Absolutely. Each birth is so unique and special in its own way.
Sex: Doesn’t work so well when you’re feeling observed, judged, or interrupted by others
Birth: You can say that again! So try to create an atmosphere that limits interruptions by others as much as possible. (They say that the same atmosphere it takes to make a baby is the atmosphere needed to birth a baby).
Sex: Though it can be described in medical terms, it’s much more a spiritual, emotional and relational event than a medical event.
Birth: Definitely the same thing. Wish culture would stop making us think it’s mostly a medical event. It’s definitely more a spiritual, emotional, and relational experience! We’d enjoy it more if we saw it as this.
Sex: Accompanied by lots of fun sounds – moans, screams, yells, ahhhs, etc.
Birth: Same exact sounds ☺. In fact if you listen to a home birth from another room, you may think the couple is making love in there. It often sounds exactly the same. And that’s because again, it’s many of the same hormones and sensations going on in the woman’s body if she lets herself enjoy and embrace them.
Sex: Can be awkward, uncomfortable, messy, and disappointing at times. But it’s still such a special, intimate gift. And it gets better the more you learn and the more you do it ☺.
Birth: Totally the same!
Sex: Best to go into it open without a lot of expectations (especially the first time), not thinking it has to look or feel a certain way or fit in a specific box that friends or society tell you it’s like.
Birth: Same deal. It doesn’t have to look or feel a certain way or fit in any box. Best enjoyed if you go in open without a lot of specific expectations and just enjoy the experience.
But there is one huge difference between sex & birth:
Sex: The world tells us it’s awesome, amazing, sensual, euphoric, orgasmic, and something to desire, seek after and enjoy.
Birth: The world tells us it’s scary, dangerous, painful, medical, something to dread and fear and suffer through.
And therein lies much of the reason that women have very different experiences between making love and giving birth. Because our expectations and the way we approach these events greatly impact our experience. If people told women the same thing about sex that they do about birth, lots of women would be scared of sex, find it to be painful, dislike it, and miss out on all the good gifts God meant them to experience in it. And that’s what happens with birth. So I’m here to tell you a different story today! Birth too can be very enjoyable! And if you prepare well and learn how to embrace and enjoy it, you too can join the many women out there who look at their partner after their baby is born and say, “Wow, when can we do that again?!”
So my birth advice for you…go into your labor the way you would enter a passionate love-making session with your husband. Be free, have fun, let go of inhibitions and control, let your body take over, make whatever noises you want, let out your inner roar, be sensual, enjoy this gift of womanhood, make it intimate, and be fully present to this beautiful gift! And if it’s chandelier swinging, wild and orgasmic, awesome! Or if it’s intimate, deep, powerful and spiritual, awesome as well! Or if it’s awkward and uncomfortable, but still really special and intimate, awesome as well! Embrace it – it’s a gift to be fully experienced and enjoyed. The God who created the crazy good gift of sex is the same God who created the crazy good gift of childbirth. Enjoy both of these love gifts from our wild, generous God!
Find out more of what God has for your birth by downloading this free PDF of Birth Declarations!
photo cred visphotography