For Sarah Becker: **Kiss me! I'm contracting**

Ina May, the queen of hippie midwifery

Kissing during labor may seem like an entirely counter intuitive (or even horrid) idea, but hippies have been enjoying the love-it-up strategy for a long time.  World reknowned midwife and writer Ina May Gaskin recommends it along with nipple stimulation to help labor progress (Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin, 2003).  The key seems to be in the routinely over-hyped and misunderstood neuropeptide oxytocin, which is the naturally occurring form of the drug Pitocin that is piped into women's veins to speed the arrival of hesitant newborns.  Research with 45 laboring women showed that while nipple stimulation triggered regular uterine activity (three contractions within 10 minutes) more rapidly than Pitocin did, nipple-inspired contractions were less powerful, and the study finally concluded that the two types of stimulation were doing significantly different things (Comparison of uterine activity induced by nipple stimulation and oxytocin by Mashini et al, 1987).

What does the research have to say about kissing?  Not much -- and if you disqualify testimony or anecdotal accounts, nothing.  Apparently no one has gotten a kiss/don't kiss experimental protocol past the Human Resource Council or the Internal Review Board.

I can tell you the juice on it from my own experience, but be forewarned, this is not science: I am one person and my experience is not significantly predictive of anyone else's.  Kissing absolutely worked to make contractions less painful or less stressful.  The pressure of a building contraction would suddenly melt away, exactly as if a water balloon filled almost to bursting was suddenly opened at the spout part so extra water could come out again.  But it only felt that way IF I was pretty much mashing my mouth against Brian's with something akin to the force of the contraction.  We did this sporadically for 8 hours of Pitocin-induced contractions until I was at 7cm dilation, so we're not talking pecks on the cheek here; it was certainly fun, but it wasn't sexy at all, and he remembers it as being rather painful.

It seems that the whole have-sex-to-trigger-labor game may involve oxytocin as well, but that might also be a matter of semen-borne prostoglandins dissolving cervical tissue.  That's another post though.  For now if you're curious about the big O of birth, check out this myth-busting article by Heather Corrina in Scarleteen:
Myths about the "love hormone" oxytocin that could ruin your love life.

And to the godmother of my own little cherubic captor Amelie, to Sarah Becker who was due three days ago and is still waiting... whether you get into the hippie kissy stuff or not, here's hoping you have one sweet psychedelic ride on the love slide of birth.  I'll see you and your little one on the other side.