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Whether you have had a baby, are pregnant now, or are planning to get pregnant...it’s worth knowing about the fetal ejection reflex, also called the Ferguson reflex - for it can surprisingly offer a painless birth - naturally.
Here’s what a doctor (Ferguson) discovered in the 1940s: a woman’s body is designed with a natural capacity to birth a baby without conscious effort and pushing! This can sound bizarre and even unreal in the world today, where coached pushing during childbirth is the norm.
What is the Fetal Ejection Reflex?
When an expectant mother experiences the necessary conditions for this to happen, her body will generate a burst of oxytocin, moving the fetus through the birth canal and expelling the baby in one spontaneous reflex. When the mother feels supported and cared for and is not interrupted, she can enter into an altered state that allows her body to do what it is designed to do - deliver her baby without pushing. The fetal ejection reflex is a spontaneous reflex that doesn’t require thought or effort.
Just like we don’t have to think about making our heart beat or taking a breath, your body does not need coaching to release your baby. Pushing your baby out can be involuntary and without conscious direction.
While women can have this experience in a medical setting - it is often not conducive to allowing birth to be a natural, reflexive event. Coached pushing and epidurals will usually block this natural capacity of the female body and limit a woman’s ability to experience the Ferguson reflex.
What Facilitates the Fetal Ejection Reflex?
The fetal ejection reflex will only happen with sufficient oxytocin in your system. Oxytocin is both a neurotransmitter and a hormone. It is responsible for the contractions during childbirth and the positive feelings of love, trust, and safety.
When you feel supported, cared for, and undisturbed during birth, you facilitate your body’s release of oxytocin. Being able to move your body and receive loving touch if and when you choose to contributes to evoking a feeling of well-being.
The idea here is that this spontaneous process can happen when you naturally enter an altered state of awareness and release the need to control the process. This means not having interruptions and interventions and being in a peaceful, quiet, dark environment.
To engage this natural reflex in the body, you must have dropped out of your ‘task-oriented mind’ and into a state of pure being. Naturally allowing your throat to open and making a deep guttural sound will often facilitate this reflex - as long as you follow what your body wants (making sound) rather than trying to force it happening. All of this considered, your body is designed to release a surge of oxytocin, which causes intense involuntary pushing that quickly and efficiently helps your baby to be born.
In the moment, mothers won’t realize what happened - due to not being in an analytical state of mind when the reflex occurs. The fetal ejection reflex will not happen if you are in analyzing mode. But post-childbirth, women describe this experience as follows: “I didn’t even have to push! The baby flew out” - that is the fetal ejection reflex.
When you stop to think about it, the divine design of the female body is quite amazing. Instead of her body requiring prolonged, torturous labor, the original design was for an expedient, even pleasurable experience.
A woman’s body is also created to release DMT, a naturally occurring psychedelic during birth. However, this also requires a relaxed, supportive environment for the mom. If she feels tense and observed and the environment is loud with bright lights, she won’t reach the state of being necessary for all these natural mechanisms to activate.
While childbirth involving medical interventions is the preferred choice for many expectant mothers these days, it can also be empowering to know that your body is exquisitely designed for efficiency and pleasure during childbirth and remarkably without pain!
Jenny Martin is a psychologist and regular contributor to the Madison Park Times. She created the Psychedelic Cervix Childbirth Course to support expectant moms to have a pleasurable birth experience. She can be reached at support@drjennymartin.com, and will be happy to answer any questions you may have about ecstatic childbirth.