12/23/2025
There’s a reason we refer to the toilet as dilation station and any midwife or birth doula can tell you why.
Why can moving to the toilet help labor progress?
🚽 Movement - Movement throughout labor is important, but the difference can often be seen swiftly in transition and pushing. Sometimes just the walk to the bathroom is enough and birth happens halfway there.
🚽 Privacy - the bathroom is a place we’re normally alone. It’s small, confined, and we’re used to relaxing in there. (Hopefully!) All great things for labor!
🚽 Position - We naturally relax our pelvic floor when we sit down on the toilet. Relaxing those muscles is always helpful.
🚽 Keeping your bladder empty helps your uterus contract without added pressure from your bladder.
🚽💩- sometimes clients really feel like they need to have a bowel movement when they start pushing. To a midwife that is encouraging, but ✨shockingly ✨not everyone is comfortable leaning into that sensation with others present. Moving to the toilet can help! Either they go to the bathroom and feel better, or they feel their body continuing to push and we catch a baby on the toilet.
So yes, we love recommending a few contractions on the toilet. Some of our repeat clients know our tricks and call us on it. 😉
#💩 #🚽
