Labor Comfort Measures: Eye Gazing
Eye contact or eye gazing during labour can be a potent practice — boosting oxytocin, strengthening trust and closeness. But did you know that how we engage in eye contact with birthing people also matters?
When we stay at or below eye level with the labouring person, we are supporting a high oxytocin and low adrenaline environment. This also disrupts the authority vs subject hierarchy often seen in medicalised birthing environments — a dynamic which can increase cortisol, adrenaline and other stress hormones, and interferes with the normal, physiological birthing process.
If the birthing person is restricted to a supine position / on their back, in a hospital bed surrounded by unknown people (often in perceived positions of power) looking down at them from above – this is obviously not ideal to support normal, physiological birth and boost the bodies own perfect cocktail of birthing hormones. Yet, we sadly see this played out so often in these environments.
For birth support people and care providers, eye contact - or mutual gaze - can signal to the birthing person that they are paying attention, and that they are present. Even a momentary locking of eyes with your partner, doula or midwife can be enough to offer reassurance and connection. Within the medical space when there are monitors and machines tracking contractions, blood poressure and heart rates, it is also important to remember that there is still a human at the center. And birth is a human experience.
Studies also reveal the impact of eye contact between humans, evidence showing that it triggers the limbic mirror system in our brain. This system - in general - is what underlies our ability to recognize and share emotion. In other words, it is critical to our capacity for empathy.
Regardless of whether we maintain eye contact with the birthing person or they prefer to go inward with closed eyes, how birth support people physically position thermselves with and around the birthing person matters. Beyond this, how support people and care providers show up in the birth space matters - their presence, gaze, voice and touch matters. Bringing humanity back to birth and respecting birthing people as human beings — not simply passive participants or ‘patients’ — is paramount for positive, healing, transformative births.
14.09.2021
