Comfort Management: Glove Anesthesia

Some moms are very interested in mastering the glove anesthesia technique.  Personal preference will play a big part in determining which techniques you decide to focus on, especially in the area of comfort management.  If glove anesthesia is a technique that you enjoy, here are tips for your practice sessions:

• Get deeply relaxed before your glove anesthesia practice.  Try starting with progressive relaxation, then moving onto Marie Mongan’s “Depthometer” and “Sensory Gate Valve” techniques from your HypnoBirthing book.
• Practice creating glove anesthesia with both your left and right hand.  This way, if you opt for an IV and it’s in your hand, you can use the other hand for glove anesthesia.  By the way, if you get an IV, use your glove anesthesia to numb the area before the IV is put in.
• Use different techniques to move the glove anesthesia around your body.  Touching the spot you wish to numb is a typical strategy.  You can also have the numbness automatically spread from your hand throughout your body in varying degrees, or just visualize your hand moving without physically moving your hand.  The Comfort Management track (track #2) on your Birthing Zone CD gives you practice creating glove anesthesia without you having to physically move your hand.
• Create a “virtual epidural” by numbing the area from your mid-chest all the way to your mid-thigh.  Give yourself suggestions like, even though this part of my body is numb, I am able to walk and move about as I desire while maintaining a comfortable level of numbness in these specific parts of my body.  If my hand or someone else touches me, I will feel the touch on my skin, while the numbness remains on the inside, I feel only pressure or tightening with each surge.
• Establish a glove anesthesia anchor.  Similar to your shoulder anchor, pick a unique touch like lightly pinching the back of one of your knuckles (with your fingertips, don’t use your nails), touching the tip of your thumb to the tip of your index finger, or anything else that you like and setting it up as an anchor for glove anesthesia.  Follow the anchoring process to build-up the anchor so it is available to help you quickly create glove anesthesia if you desire during labor.  Remember, use something other than your shoulder as an anchor for glove anesthesia.

For most people, if a particular area has discomfort, it is difficult to focus on that area and create anesthesia directly there.  Think of being in the dentist’s chair while getting a filling.  If you focus on the tooth that is in pain and try to numb it, you are likely to get more caught-up in the discomfort.  Instead numb another area, like your hand and then transfer the numbness to the area experiencing discomfort.

Note: Pain and discomfort management techniques should be used during birthing if the mother experiences these symptoms as part of the normal birthing process.  They should never be used to cover up a serious condition that requires medical attention.