What partners can actually do during birth

There is a moment in the delivery room that I see very often. The woman is in the middle of a contraction. And next to her stands a person who loves her, holding her hand and looking as though he would rather disappear through the floor.

That is not for lack of love. It is because nobody ever showed him what to do.

Why preparation matters so much here

Partners enter a birth from about the worst possible starting position: maximum emotional involvement, minimum ability to act. They cannot take anything away, cannot speed anything up, cannot make anything easier. That combination produces helplessness, and helplessness produces withdrawal.

The way out is remarkably simple: you have to know beforehand what you can do. Not in theory. In practice, rehearsed with your hands.

The seven things

1. Stay in the room. Sounds ridiculous. It is not. When things get long, partners "just go and get a coffee" because they cannot bear it. Those are often exactly the minutes in which the transition to the next stage happens. If you need a break, say so and go deliberately, not secretly.

2. Take over talking to the staff. Not to make decisions, but to ask the questions she cannot formulate right now. "Could you briefly explain why this is necessary now?" is the most valuable sentence in the delivery room. It buys the two of you time and understanding.

3. Learn one single massage hold properly. Sacral counter-pressure. Both heels of your hands flat on the lower sacrum, pressing firmly during the contraction. Not rubbing, not stroking, but pressing. This is not wellness, it is counter-pressure against pain, and for many women it is the single most effective thing there is.

4. Breathe first. When her breathing gets fast and shallow, breathe audibly slowly and deeply yourself. Say nothing. Just breathe next to her. People synchronise unconsciously. This works far better than any request to calm down.

5. Talk less than you think you should. Between contractions, short sentences are welcome. During a contraction, speaking is almost always an intrusion. A rule of thumb: during the contraction you are a body, between contractions you are a voice.

6. Say sentences that carry, not sentences that judge. Good: "I am here." "You are doing this." "One at a time." "I am not going anywhere." Bad: "It will be over soon." "Just relax." "It is not that bad." The difference: the first group is with her. The second evaluates her experience.

7. Look after yourself. Drink. Eat. Go to the toilet. A partner who collapses after twelve hours with low blood sugar helps no one. That is not selfishness, it is planning for endurance.

The sentence women most often tell me about their partner after a birth is not "he did everything right" but "he was simply there, and I could tell he was not afraid."

What to practise beforehand

All of it can be practised at home, and it does not take long. You need an hour and the willingness to feel briefly ridiculous.

• Sacral counter-pressure, until it works without thinking
• Three positions: standing at the edge of the bed, all fours, sitting backwards on a chair
• Breathing together for three minutes straight
• Five sentences she wants to hear, she chooses them, you write them down

This list looks trivial. In the delivery room it is worth its weight in gold, because nobody can improvise there anymore.

A word to the partners

You will not rescue this birth. You will not make it more pleasant and you will not shorten it. Your task is a different and much bigger one: you are the person who stays when everyone else changes.

Only you can do that. And you can do it better if you have practised.

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That is exactly what the session "Strong into birth" is for: two hours, the two of you, hands-on. Afterwards you will not only know what happens, you will be able to do something.