Expectant mothers are dancing their way through labour

Megan Taylor may be seven-and-a-half months pregnant, but she says dancing makes her feel at ease.

“I love to dance,” says the Bowmanville, Ont., resident. “You just, naturally, just want to move.”

She is one of the expectant mothers around the world who has embraced the Dancing for Birth movement, which encourages people to move and shake their way through childbirth. “I want to have a simple, easy labour,” said Taylor. “If music can help with that, I’m all for it.”

Dancing for Birth instructor Nadine Ross has been teaching Taylor some of the moves, which include influences from belly dancing and salsa, and says these will make labour faster and easier. “We tend to just lie down for birth when we actually should be standing up,” she said, “using gravity to our advantage, tapping into our instincts, allowing our hormones to take over so that we can better cope.”

The movement was founded in 2001, but the inspiration behind it is far from new. According to Moving History/Dancing Cultures, it was an early custom to dance around a woman in labour to help make the birth seem less painful. Now, people all over the world are shimmying during labour in hopes of the same thing.

There is some scientific truth to the trend. Dr. Paul Pancham says moving can help in many ways during childbirth. “In some people, they feel it improves the contractions,” said the obstetrician and gynecologist. “Certainly, the more that they can get up and around that the better it is for them and the more comfortable they are as opposed to being confined to bed.”

But, for Taylor, dancing is more than a pain reliever. “It would be something that would be a story to tell the baby,” she said. “You know, you’d say, ‘Oh! I was dancing to this really great song before you were born,’ and it could just be a really great part of your birth story.”