Reiki in labor

January 29, 2001

reikilady1 writes:

> Where was reiki when I was in labor?

I use Reiki in labor. Quite a lot, actually. Last time was this past Friday

evening.

She came for an induction massage Thursday morning, went into labor Thursday

afternoon. But as part of the massage I did Reiki on her bottom, along with

visualization of things opening.

By Friday, Mom had been in latent phase of labor for quite some time and had

settled into a ritual of moaning, with focus on keeping her voice in the

lower registers (raising the voice into screaming range hurts,) keeping her

shoulders down (she tended to forget and tense them upwards,) and keeping

her jaw relaxed (clenching the jaw also clenches the perineum.) All this had

her pretty focused on her upper body. So when she was getting to the end of

labor, her attention was needed at her lower body.

I got a glove from the midwife (note to self: Bring larger gloves. Theirs are

waaaaay too small for me) and put my hand on her bottom. That was easy

enough, since she was laboring on the toilet. Oh, did I mention that this was

a home birth? Ok, there she was on the toilet and I had my hand on her

bottom, doing Reiki and helping her to re-visualize a warm glow. And here is

the fun part. She felt the Reiki, it helped, and *I* felt the contractions.

The midwife asked me did I FEEL it feel it, or was it energy feel it? And I

didn't have an answer. Was I feeling muscular wave-like movements under the

skin, or did I feel energetic wave-like movements? I couldn't tell.

But whatever the case, it helped, and later the child was born in the

whirlpool tub as I held a flashlight for the midwife and a mirror for them to

see. And for the first time at a birth, I wept. It was beautiful.

Anukki

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