A brief quote from Biance Lepori an Italian architect who specializes in the design of birth rooms:

“Even pain dissolves with movement; pain killers are a consequence of stillness.” (emphasis mine)

This architect specifically designs rooms that support physiological birth–birth that unfolds accords to the natural biological processes of the woman, on her own timeline, and under her own power.

I emphasize active, normal (physiological) birth in my classes. I feel like the use of movement is one of the single most important ways we have to embrace labor and its rhythms and also to support healthy, physiological birth. Though I teach a variety of positions for labor and birth, “birthing room” yoga poses, and encourage practicing them, I believe that the movements you need during labor come from within and arise spontaneously during labor, not from specific training and practice. The key is the FREEDOM to use movement in the way you need to (many women end up being denied the right to free movement during labor 😦 ). The benefit to practicing different positions and movements prior to birth is that you gain a “body memory” of how to move your body in labor supporting ways.