Continuing my alphabetical “theme” I thought I’d write about the three P’s of birth. The “classic” three P’s are the passageway (pelvis), the powers (contractions), and the passenger (baby). Some people include a fourth P–the psyche (mind). These three P’s interrelate to create the labor and birth experience. This is a very mechanical, reductionist, and very simplistic way to look at the intricacies of birth and the interplay of a variety of physical, emotional, psychological, and even social factors that influence birth. So, I started thinking about other P’s involved with birth and came up with quite a list!

Powerful, praise, people, pain, partner, pleasure, pride, planning, patience, persistence, productive, purposeful, proactive, plasticity, plentiful, pragmatic, pleasant, precious, presence, perseverance, preparation, and privacy!

Of this new list of P’s I think patience, privacy, and preparation are most important. I include “pain” on this list of positive P’s because pain is an important part of birth–it is pain with a purpose. I have lots more to say about pain, but I’ve saving it for another post! 🙂

I also thought up a list of P’s that are often unhelpful or detract from or hinder labor and birth:

Protracted, presumption, peremptory, pelvimetry, pitocin, pressure, program, performance, PUSH, PUSH!, “proper/polite” (feeling like you have to be), prolonged, proscribed, prescribed, probing, “progress,” people, problems, panic, politics.