When most people think about giving birth, the word "orgasmic" is the last thing that comes to mind. Painful, stressful, terrifying — those are descriptors that feel the most familiar. One mom, however, is claiming that her experience birthing her newest baby was less painful and more like a round of "deep intense sex." And while it may sound a little crazy, she isn't the only mom touting the amazingness of "orgasmic birth."
French mom Amandine Mangin told News.com.au that her first birth was incredibly painful.
Mangin says that giving birth to her daughter Alyssa, now 5 years old, was so difficult that she was determined not to experience the same pain when she got pregnant for the second time. The mom and trained yoga instructor looked into the concept of "orgasmic births" and was immediately drawn to the idea.
"For me it was a mix of shock and hope," she revealed. "The idea of giving birth in pleasure felt like a new world was opening to me!" Mangin said the idea behind orgasmic birth felt incredibly natural to her. "After the surprising effect of the idea, it felt logical. We conceive our babies in pleasure, wouldn't it be normal and natural to bring forth our baby in pleasure?"
According to Mangin, all of her research into the topic actually paid off.
When it came time to give birth to her son, Mangin says her contractions weren't even painful. "I was actually nicely surprised when I felt the first waves! They were pleasurable!" she said. "As soon as I was outside, walking, feeling the sunlight and the nice breeze on my face, it got its intensity."
At one point, the "waves" got so intense, she says she was forced to do a "weird sexy tribal dance" to keep herself calm.
The actual birthing experience was apparently even more intense.
Mangin says she danced around her hospital room during labor, making a note to passionately kiss her husband, Vlad, as often as possible so she could boost her oxytocin. Often called the love hormone, oxytocin is stimulated during both sex and childbirth and can promote feelings of safety and pleasure. "Kissing is a way to get a boost of it. And of course, kissing my husband was a way to get support from him," she said.
She didn't shy away from honesty when describing how her orgasmic birth felt, either. "It felt like I was having a deep intense sex but without the erotic mindset," Mangin explained. "It is a borderline kind of pleasure. This borderline pleasure we may feel while making love."
Amandine Mangin isn't the first mom to have an orgasmic birth.
The movement became popular following the release of a 2009 documentary titled Orgasmic Birth: The Best Kept Secret. The documentary was created by Debra Pascali-Bonaro, a doula who experienced an orgasmic birth of her own and decided to take it upon herself to teach other women about it.
A 2013 study published in Sexologies surveyed 956 French midwives and found that orgasms happen in about 0.3 percent of births. Glamour reports that most of the time, these orgasms occur spontaneously, or are actually brought on by masturbation or sex during labor.
Mangin says she didn't just expect her body to orgasm when she gave birth -- she actively prepared for it.
She says that the first three months of her pregnancy were filled with morning sickness and general pregnancy pains. But once she got past those, she was "blossoming like never before."
Mangin told News.com.au that preparing to have an orgasmic birth requires very little physical preparation. "It's a holistic approach," she said. "A physical preparation with yoga, breathing, dance, and massage." It requires moms to prepare spiritually and mentally. Mangin says that moms have to free themselves of old "programming and beliefs" that tell them "childbirth is painful." Instead, they need to fill their minds with positive thoughts and affirmations that help them believe what a pleasurable experience childbirth can be. The mom shared that "acceptance and relaxation" are the most important parts of having an orgasmic birth.
All over the Internet, moms who have experienced orgasmic births have described the experience. One mom on Reddit says that hers was "completely unexpected and spontaneous." Eva Hadert wrote for the Elephant Journal that she wasn't expecting to orgasm either, but right when her baby crowned, she "suddenly felt an explosion of absolute euphoria."
These moms are definitely confident in their orgasmic birth experiences, but not everyone is buying it ...
... especially not moms who know firsthand how painful giving birth can be.
But Mangin believes that moms' disbelief that childbirth can be pleasurable is what keeps them from experiencing it.
"If you can't imagine enjoying childbirth, it's going to be hard to get a pleasurable birth," she said. "You see, everything we do, we have imagined it first … It's a mental work of transforming everything we thought we knew about childbirth."
There's no telling how popular Debra Pascali-Bonaro's orgasmic birth movement is because the concept of combining sex and labor is still so taboo. But like Amandine Mangin, she isn't ashamed to admit that she believes the two go hand in hand. "I believe birth is sexual," Pascali-Bonaro writes on her website. "And by ignoring the sensuality, love, and sacredness of birth, we have made birth more challenging and more painful and fearful."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
