How Your Partner Can Support You During Labour

The short answer: a good birth partner keeps the environment calm, looks after the basics (water, food, bathroom breaks), offers comfort like counter pressure or massage, helps with position changes, reminds the labouring person that she is safe, and knows when to be completely silent.

This article draws on The Complete Labour & Birth Guide by Kate Fawcett, Registered Midwife. Share it with your partner, doula or whoever will be with you.

Kate's list for birth partners

In her guide, Kate writes that your people should:

• Bring you water without asking.
• Feed you.
• Apply pressure.
• Protect the room.
• Remind you to pee.
• Help you change positions.
• Tell you that you're safe.
• And know when to be completely silent.

In early labour

Early labour can last hours, especially with a first baby. The partner's job is to help her conserve energy:

• Encourage eating, drinking and rest. If it's night, help her go back to bed.
• Offer distraction: a funny show, music, a gentle walk, baking together.
• Take over the phone. She doesn't need to update the family group chat.
• Time contractions once a pattern seems to be developing, without hovering over the timer.
• Know your provider's calling instructions, and have the number saved.

More detail: Early Labour: What Can You Do at Home?

Protect the environment

Kate explains that birth is hormonal. Oxytocin loves safety, privacy, warmth, familiarity and connection. Adrenaline rises when someone feels observed, unsafe, afraid, rushed or interrupted. Partners can help by dimming the lights, keeping the room quiet, managing visitors and answering the door. "Choose people who make you feel safer when they enter the room, not people you feel responsible for entertaining or reassuring."

Comfort a partner can offer

• Counter pressure. Firm pressure over the sacrum can be wonderful, particularly during back labour.
• Massage or gentle touch. Some women want firm touch. Others suddenly don't want anyone touching them. Both are normal, so follow her lead.
• The labour comb. Hand it to her to squeeze during contractions.
• Heat. A warm pack across the lower back, abdomen or hips.
• Water. Help her into the shower or bath, if appropriate for her.
• Breathing. Breathe with her: in gently through the nose, out longer than in. Remind her to relax her jaw, shoulders and hands.
• Movement. Let her sway, rock, lean or hang from you.

When labour becomes really intense

Kate describes a point when many women say "I can't do this anymore." They may shake, cry, vomit, become very vocal or feel overwhelmed. Partners can stay calm, stay close and offer simple words. Kate's suggestion is to shift from "I can't do this" to "I am doing this," taking it one contraction at a time.

If anything worries you, or she has any of the warning signs her provider has discussed, call. You never need to wait for permission.

Practical prep for partners

• Know the route to the birthplace, or the home birth plan
• Pack snacks and a water bottle for yourself as well
• Read her birth preferences and ask what she wants from you
• Learn where counter pressure feels best before labour starts

Kate's full Birth Guide, including the partner section, comes in the Birth Box along with comfort tools like a wooden labour comb and labour oil blend.

This article is general education from The Midwife Box and is not a substitute for individualized medical or midwifery advice. Every pregnancy and labour is different. Always follow the recommendations and calling instructions from your own midwife, doctor or maternity unit. If you believe there is an emergency, call 911 or your local emergency number.