All-Fours Pain Relief

Reduce your back pain

Labor is shorter and less painful when the baby is facing the mother's spine. Some claim that getting down on all fours late in pregnancy or during labor can shift the baby into this ideal position, but researchers found that while assuming this posture for 10 minutes twice daily near the end of pregnancy, or for 30 minutes during labor, did not rotate the baby, it did reduce back pain. The posture offers so much relief that "if a woman can't find her own comfortable position [during labor], we may suggest that she get down on her hands and knees," says midwife Teri Stone-Godena, M.S.N., C.N.M., director of the midwifery program at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.