Let's talk big baby. The first thing I think about when a woman is told by her friends, her family, her provider that her baby is going to be big: what are her soft tissues like? Are they ready to lengthen in order to let the bones of the pelvis move?

Soft Tissues are muscles, ligaments, tendons. Keeping the tissues hydrated, stretchy, and without restrictions is important in the birth process.  

This is a model of your pelvis. You have your hip bones represented by the rods, and the black rubber bands represent soft tissue. Rubber bands are made to stretch and contract, or lengthen and shorten, just like our muscles. When you’re are pregnant, the Relaxin hormone is released for the purpose of creating a very special mobility within your pelvis. Your pelvis holds small - but powerful - intrinsic joints that only become mobile during pregnancy. They let the pelvis move in ways it can’t move in a pre-pregnancy state! This is designed to help accommodate the baby as it navigates through the pelvis during labor and for birth.  

The mobility is important but, more important is the condition of your soft tissue! The soft tissue is actually what allows the bones to move. If they're locked up, hold trigger points or areas of restriction, they are not free and will not allow the pelvis to move/allow for passage of the baby. They will hold it in restriction. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the whole pelvis becomes immobile, it could be that one side is more in a state of restriction than the other! This is because of how we move and live our daily lives. So, as the baby navigates through your pelvis, maybe the baby can get through one side of the pelvis a little better than the other.  With this imbalance in your pelvis, the baby may get a bit jammed up on one side, making descent and birth very difficult. Maybe your baby can’t even engage into the pelvis because its head may not be at an angle that will allow for entrance into the different levels of the pelvic bone. 

When you're having a bigger baby, it is very important to be able to have as much mobility and freedom inside your pelvis as possible, because you have to create enough space for your baby to navigate through. One part of your soft tissues is a connective tissue called fascia. Fascia weaves all through your muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, even your bones.  Fascia is actually what allows these soft tissue in your body to stretch and contract.  

Fascia is the key to freeing everything! This is why I encourage Structural Integration, Rolfing, or any other fascial-based soft tissue work. This is even found in some yoga practices like yin yoga, which is all about releasing the fascia restrictions held throughout your body.  When you release your fascia, it allows your muscles to lengthen to their full potential, which will then let your bony pelvis become more mobile and able to move the way the baby needs to facilitate birth. And this, my beautiful mamas, is how the bigger babies fit through the pelvis to birth with ease. 

If you are a birth professional, work in labor and delivery, or support birthing mothers in another capacity, you can learn all about Dysfunctional Labor Maneuvers, an online course I created after spending over a decade of learning and helping my patients and clients with bodywork in pregnancy.

This course is designed for birth professionals such as midwives, RN's, OB/GYNs, childbirth educators, doulas, prenatal yoga instructors, chiropractors, massage therapists, etc... 

Dysfunctional Labor Maneuvers (DLM) offers a unique approach to solving many complications that arise and prevent physiologic birth.  

DLM will help the practitioner find natural and gentle solutions to long painful labors, malpositioned babies, or dystocias to decrease the need for operative or cesarean births. 

Course offerings by Marya Eddaifi https://linktr.ee/maryaeddaifi