Natural Child Birth the Belly Dance Way

Experience Natural Pregnancy and Natural Birth with Dance of the Womb

Dance of the Womb DVD by Maha Al Musa, should be a part of every woman's natural child birth preparation. Belly dance during pregnancy provides a wonderful way to prepare body, mind, spirit, and baby for the passage of birth.

Belly Dance During Pregnancy

Dance of the Womb is a visual feast of rich colors--reds and oranges. The belly dance instruction is filmed in Maha's studio. Much of her pre-labor footage is set in the outdoors of Byron Bay Australia, which is gorgeous.

The belly dance instruction is basic. It pretty much follows the same format as Maha's book Dance of the Womb.

The instruction is clear, concise, and easy to follow. It moves step by step and very slowly so even the most movement-challenged among us could pick up the dance movements. It is not however, an instruction video for the intermediate or advanced belly dancer.

After following along with Maha the first few times, you may then want to dance the routine on your own with your own music. It becomes a lovely moving meditation.

Midwives Interview

The interview with the two midwives is a great educational section for women who want to use belly dance as more than a form of exercise during pregnancy. The interviews discuss how belly dance can be a tool for natural child birth.

The midwives interview is interspersed with video footage and photos of Maha's birth. I do think I would have enjoyed both the interview and the birth more had I had been able to focus on each separately instead of flipping back and forth between the two.

I especially liked it when Anne demonstrated with the model pelvis how the pelvis opens up with different positions and with movement during labor. This is something that women need to know and aren't often told.

I loved it that Maha openly breastfed her daughter during the interview. She didn't make a big fuss about covering up but just treated it as the natural thing to do--which it is.

Maha's Labor and Homebirth

The birth footage shows Maha dancing and laboring outdoors and in her home with her partner and her birth assistants.

During her labor, Maha is a great example of all the different movements, positions, and dancing that help to ease labor pain.You can see clearly how autonomous, simple, and elegant birth can be when a woman is left to follow her own instincts.

It is a beautiful treat at the end of the DVD to see Maha belly dancing with her baby daughter. Perhaps Maha's next DVD will be Postnatal Belly Dance--Dancing with Baby!

Belly Dance for Natural Child Birth Preparation

Dance of the Womb could be used simply for a woman who wants to belly dance during pregnancy for pregnancy fitness. But, it is so much more than an exercise routine.

This DVD helps prepare you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for birth. Belly dancing also helps baby to be in the optimal position for birth and it helps to ease labor pain.

• Physical Birth Preparation

  Physically, belly dance keeps you strong, supple, and keeps your joints mobile and well-oiled. It helps you to bring awareness to your pelvis, your womb, and the pelvic muscles that are used in birth.

• Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Birth Preparation

  Dance of the Womb is about re-learning to tune in to yourself, your femininity, your baby, your body, your sensuality, your sexuality.

  Dance of the Womb is preparation for natural child birth in its most creative and elegant form.

  Belly dance during pregnancy is about unlocking and unleashing the power of your hips, pelvis, vagina/yoni, thighs, breasts--finding your Woman Power.

  Belly dance helps you realize that in natural pregnancy and natural child birth you don't have to strive to do more, be more, have more. You can let go of the straight lines and harsh edges of this patriarchal society.

  It encourages you to follow the natural rhythms of your body and your baby--to follow the softness of your rounded body and the haziness of your emotions as you spiral down, circle 'round, sink in to the earth that is the matrix of your Being.

• Baby's Position

  Belly dance during pregnancy gets your baby in the optimal position for birth. Dancing during labor continues to help baby's head engage more and more into the pelvis. It helps baby's head to nestle down further into the cervix helping cervix dilation.

  The hip circles help to increase the flexion of the baby's head (chin tucked to chest) which provides an easier birth for both mother and baby.

• Eases Labor Pain

  Dancing helps to ease labor pain. I can attest to the fact that being still and/or laying down during labor greatly increased my discomfort.

  There is just something about movement, being upright, and swaying that takes the edge off the discomfort. Staying upright and mobile also tends to make for shorter labors.

  I am excited to do more belly dance during pregnancy the next time around (should I be blessed with that opportunity). And I'll definitely be dancing more during labor.

Maha Al Musa has done it again and delivered a spectacularly rich, warm, personal, and empowering offering for women looking for natural child birth alternatives.

Begin your journey of belly dance to connect with your birthing power!

If you want to support this site and my work in addition to the good work that Maha Al Musa is doing, please consider buying the DVD through the links on my website.

From training as a dancer and studying dance for many years, I have come to believe in the power of dance to transform.

I came across Maha's book Dance of the Womb which I did purchase and subsequently reviewed. You can see the review here.

I strongly believe in the work that she is doing with belly dance and birth.

Maha is hoping to bring her workshops for birth attendants to the US in the next few years. I will get out more information on that as soon as I know.

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