5 must-have circadian and quantum features for your birthing space
Designing the birth suite with circadian and quantum biology in mind
Light as luminary in the liminal birth space
The birthing process, though relatively short compared with an entire lifespan, teaches us the acute importance of minding the circadian and quantum environment in any given moment.
The warm sun kissed the earth to consecrate thy birth, and from his close embrace thy radiant face sprang into sight, a blossoming delight.
– Sarah Orne Jewett
What would an “ideal” birth environment look like?
The typical debate here tends to revolve around home vs hospital, with freestanding birth centers representing a kind of middle ground.
Today I’d like to talk about things from a slightly different standpoint that allows us to improve all birth spaces:
How can we re-embrace the natural world as a feature of any birthing space in order to better support the labor process?
And along those lines, here are 5 factors I think everyone should look for in choosing their place of birth, or in setting up and managing a dedicated birthing facility:
Windows that open to a nice view
Private access to natural, outdoor space for labor and recovery
Tunable indoor lights that vary in both brightness and color spectrum
Grounded sleep arrangements
Grounded incubators/warmers for babies
Keep reading to learn more about why these 5 factors are evidence-based ways to improve outcomes in birth.
Context for choosing a place to birth
Traditionally, people have birthed in many kinds of spaces.
Some cultures built temporary outdoor structures for birthing families, away from the primary living space—often in a place designated as Sacred to birth.
In other traditions, women traveled to the midwife’s home1, or invited the midwife to their own home.
Nowadays, some of these traditions stand, but the majority of families travel to dedicated freestanding birth centers, or to birth centers inside of hospitals.
No matter which of these a family chooses, from a circadian and quantum perspective, certain factors matter for any birthing location.
This is a post I have been working on for a while as I have gathered research, spoken with women and midwives, and mulled over my own experiences as a birthing mother and as a birth attendant.
I’m enthusiastic about bringing forward this uniting context for improving birth environments outside of the tired old debate of home vs hospital.
Keep reading for the details and peer-reviewed research that led me to highlight each of these 5 factors (opening windows, tunable lighting, access to nature, grounded sleep and grounded incubators/warmers) as being central to optimizing circadian and quantum biology in any birth suite.
Birth suite features you should be concerned about (from a circadian and quantum perspective)
1. Do the windows open? Is the view nice?
Opening windows allow fresh air and natural daylight into the room. This is obvious from an aesthetic perspective. For example, efforts in Sweden around designing a better birth room concluded:
Despite the overall positive experiences of the new birthing room, there were some limitations and areas for improvement. The most requested physical feature in the birthing room was to have a window, to have access to fresh air and daylight, and to see nature outside the room.2
But did you know the window view could also reduce pain in c-section recovery? Indeed, the environment during labor is usually also the environment for postpartum recovery.
Higher satisfaction of window view significantly decreased analgesic usage (P = 0.057), reduced the scores of overall perceived pain (P = 0.046), pain severity (P = 0.004), and 'pain's interference with relations with others, enjoyment of life, and mood (REM).' (P = 0.095).3
2. Can you easily access nature, not just through the window?
In pregnancy, the proximity of the living space to natural green spaces is correlated with higher birth weights and less risk of a baby being born small for gestational age4. But even people that greatly value the outdoors can fail to plan for access to the outdoors in their labors.
I’ve personally spoken with many mothers who have described their acute dismay at having overlooked the fact that the facility they chose for their birth had a policy forbidding them from leaving after they had checked in—meaning they were stuck inside for multiple days, without being able to so much as crack a window!
Finding or creating a birth space with private walking paths, gardens, labyrinths, and courtyards can help facilitate lovely, relaxing daytime labor and postpartum experiences for families—buoyed by the infrared heat of the sun, the freshness of the breezes, and the grounded connection to the Earth.
I wrote a post just about this topic you may enjoy here: https://www.brighterdaysdarkernights.com/p/the-walking-staff-a-useful-tool-in-labor
3. Do the indoor lights have the ability to tune brightness and color?
Lighting options in the birth suite should support the needs of the moment: amber/red for physiological birth processes and white for emergency processes:5
In the amber illuminated spaces people across the three studied felt the most sup- ported, welcomed and protected. During the showroom study, one informant noted her bodily sensation as: “(It is) like maybe someone is carrying you... like a mother carrying you... it feels heavy and safe, like there is something all the way around you... like you are protected.” Another informant stated how “It feels like I belong to this space...” and a third how “It feels like an onion and that I am in the middle of it... well protected.”
Similarly, participants of the lab study would comparatively feel the space like “hugging me” or as “a good friend.” Furthermore, in the amber illumination, they smiled and expressed feeling “happy,” “careless” and “content” the most. One participant more- over sensed “a supportive atmosphere” where one “could just move.” At the maternity ward, this showed in midwives’ practices of searching the ward to track down adjustable architectural lamps. To them it all came down to reduce bright lights. As one midwife stated: “I’m trying to get [the light] as dimmed as possible, to create a sort of cave-like atmosphere.”
Midwives and women know the instinct for a dim environment should be honored to facilitate physiological birth processes. Not all of them know exactly how powerful of an effect light has on the hormone melatonin, which is responsible for preparing the uterus to be receptive to oxytocin and preventing the metabolic byproducts of the labor process from getting out of control6.
Not only is melatonin vital for the physical aspects of labor, it is also used by the body to regulate pain at the peripheral and central nervous system7, meaning women with high circulating melatonin in labor not only have stronger contractions, but they also experience less pain than women with low melatonin.
Additionally, we now know newborns are born with fully-functioning non-visual systems, and that the external light environment begins affecting their physiology from the moment they are born:
In humans, visually driven activity begins at birth. In particular, in premature infants, early visual responses are strongly amplified by the immature thalamocortical network and they mature in parallel with the downregulation of spontaneous waves. Moreover, a switch in sensory processing has been identified. Interestingly enough, this switch prepares developing neocortex for vision and has been causally associated with the emergence of a continuous cortical activity, dependent on the neuromodulatory ascending arousal system.8
4. Are the beds grounded?
Grounded sheets for sleeping improve recovery after intense physical exertion9. This could be really helpful for mamas and babies adapting to life together after the intensity of pregnancy and birth, and especially while mama may not be ready to venture outside yet.
Traditional lie-in periods after birth lasted longer than a month, where mamas and babies were expected to stay in the bedroom, warm, coddled and taken care of. This is a wonderful practice, but with modern environments being so filled with non-native electromagnetic frequencies and artificial lights, it’s not as healing as it used to be. Grounded sheets could go a long ways towards bringing back the healing elements of the postpartum lie-in.
5. If baby needs an incubator, will the incubator be grounded?
Grounded environments for stressed, preterm infants have been shown to reduce the charge on their skin immediately and improve their vagal tone—a marker for overall wellbeing—and are hypothesized to be a way to exert a beneficial effect on the inflammation processes known to be associated with adverse events for babies who need support in the NICU. However:
Even though more than 2 mG (>0.2 µT) is associated with negative health consequences on the growing fetus, values exceeding this value are still commonly seen within our incubators and also within 18 inches from equipment such as incubator humidifier control panels.10
While grounded incubators are not yet widely adopted, just placing the baby farther from the outlet and moving equipment with a high electromagnetic field further away from the incubator can lead to an 8-fold reduction in the emf load these babies are exposed to in the NICU environment.
The birthing process, though relatively short compared with an entire lifespan, teaches us the acute importance of minding the circadian and quantum environment in any given moment.
-Nikko Kennedy
Takeaways for the future of the birth suite
In the future I would be very surprised if we haven’t recreated the whole construct of birth centers (and NICUs) based on our ever-increasing knowledge about what supports a physiological birth process for humans.
In this imaginary future, all birthing spaces would allow families to access to the features listed above—even, and especially “high-risk” families:
Our findings demonstrated that altered lighting conditions for hospitalized pregnant women might be optimized with the installation of biodynamic lighting systems in the patient rooms resulting in the maintenance of their nocturnal melatonin production. Our results support the importance of maintaining the natural environmental lighting conditions to balance maternal and fetal melatonin homeostasis during pregnancy. Therefore, it is crucial to plan new clinics with a concept of Human Centric Lighting (HCL) with biodynamic effects to reduce the risk and impact of chronodisruption in pregnant women and their fetuses during pregnancy.11
Working within this framework can also increase the likelihood a laboring mother has not just a positive, but a transcendental, experience in labor, through higher levels of daytime serotonin12, which is melatonin’s precursor, and creating the best possible wellbeing for both herself and her baby:
A number of conclusions naturally evolve from the data: (i) melatonin, of both pineal and placental origin, has essential functions in fetal maturation and placenta/uterine homeostasis; (ii) circadian clock genes, which are components of all cells including those in the peripheral reproductive organs, have important roles in reproductive and organismal (fetal and maternal) physiology; (iii) due to the potent antioxidant actions of melatonin, coupled with its virtual absence of toxicity, this indoleamine may have utility in the treatment of pre- eclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction, placental and fetal ischemia/reperfusion, etc. (iv) the propensity for parturition to occur at night may relate to the synergism between the nocturnal increase in melatonin and oxytocin.13
Grounding, like melatonin, provides free electrons that act with anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant power, 14 enhances the stretchy collagen network15 and may help ameliorate the negative impact of human-made electromagnetic frequencies on blood health parameters16, along with many other beneficial effects that are truly miraculous when it comes to how relatively easy grounding and earthing are to implement17. Therefore, I see grounding as extremely beneficial for the labor process, and this is also because I have experienced firsthand how spending time in natural environments can make the birth process quicker and less painful.
Collectively, all of these factors help reduce inflammation and balance redox, which may even help prevent labor from stalling:
Arrest of descent is characterized by a unique myometrial transcriptome with enrichment of pathways involving inflammation and the actin cytoskeleton compared to spontaneous term labor.18
From quantitative to qualitative results in labor
These 5 specific things (opening windows, tunable lighting, access to nature, grounded sleep and grounded incubators/warmers), collectively balance circadian and quantum biology by strengthening the birthing family’s connection to Nature in quantifiable ways. However, all of this also helps nurture the qualitative experiences of labor, birth, and the immediate postpartum so families can have not just satisfactory, but celebratory experiences. Not only that, but this kind of environment also benefits birth workers, who have also been shown to interact differently in the birth suite based on how they feel and how their hormones are activated within particular labor environments19. Thus, creating a better environment for physiological birth also potentially facilitates better labor support from a more relaxed, comfortable, and healthy care team.
Want to learn more about circadian and quantum health’s powerful influence on the birthing year?
✅ Watch my on-demand Circadian Pregnancy, Birth and Infancy Workshop
✅ Read my self-paced Quantum Newborn Jaundice Course
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Nishizaka, A. (2007). Hand Touching Hand: Referential Practice at a Japanese Midwife House. Hum Stud 30, 199–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-007-9059-4
Skogström, L. B., Vithal, E., Wijk, H., Lindahl, G., & Berg, M. (2022). Women's Experiences of Physical Features in a Specially Designed Birthing Room: A Mixed-Methods Study in Sweden. HERD, 15(3), 193–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/19375867221077097
Wang, C. H., Kuo, N. W., & Anthony, K. (2019). Impact of window views on recovery-an example of post-cesarean section women. International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care, 31(10), 798–803. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzz046
Torres Toda, M., Avraam, D., James Cadman, T., et al. (2022). Exposure to natural environments during pregnancy and birth outcomes in 11 European birth cohorts. Environment international, 170, 107648. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2022.107648
Stine Louring Nielsen (2020). Light Affects, Towards a Body-sensory Approach in Lighting Design. Proceedings of the 4th International Congress on Ambiances, Alloaesthesia: Senses, Inventions, Worlds, Réseau International Ambiances, e-conference, France. pp. 132-137, https://hal.science/hal-03220282/
McCarthy, R., Jungheim, E. S., Fay, J. C., et al. (2019). Riding the Rhythm of Melatonin Through Pregnancy to Deliver on Time. Frontiers in endocrinology, 10, 616. https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2019.00616
Xie, S., Fan, W., He, H., & Huang, F. (2020). Role of Melatonin in the Regulation of Pain. Journal of pain research, 13, 331–343. https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S228577
Polese, D., Riccio, M. L., Fagioli, M., et al. (2022). The Newborn's Reaction to Light as the Determinant of the Brain's Activation at Human Birth. Frontiers in integrative neuroscience, 16, 933426. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2022.933426
Müller, E., Pröller, P., Ferreira-Briza, F., Aglas, L., & Stöggl, T. (2019). Effectiveness of Grounded Sleeping on Recovery After Intensive Eccentric Muscle Loading. Frontiers in physiology, 10, 35. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2019.00035
Passi, R., Doheny, K. K., Gordin, Y., Hinssen, H., & Palmer, C. (2017). Electrical Grounding Improves Vagal Tone in Preterm Infants. Neonatology, 112(2), 187–192. https://doi.org/10.1159/000475744
Bagci, S., Wieduwilt, A., Alsat, E. A., et al. (2022). Biodynamic lighting conditions preserve nocturnal melatonin production in pregnant women during hospitalization: A randomized prospective pilot study. Frontiers in endocrinology, 13, 1043366. https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.1043366
THE INVOLVEMENT OF SEROTONIN IN LABOR AND DELIVERY: Proposal for Collaborative Research between Bruce E. Morton, Ph.D, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and X.X. M.D., Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Hawaii, 2/22/94. https://www2.hawaii.edu/~bemorton/Neuroscience/Neurochemistry/SerBirth.html
Reiter, R. J., Tan, D. X., Korkmaz, A., & Rosales-Corral, S. A. (2014). Melatonin and stable circadian rhythms optimize maternal, placental and fetal physiology. Human reproduction update, 20(2), 293–307. https://doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmt054
Sinatra, S. T., Sinatra, D. S., Sinatra, S. W., & Chevalier, G. (2023). Grounding - The universal anti-inflammatory remedy. Biomedical journal, 46(1), 11–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bj.2022.12.002
Oschman, J. L., Chevalier, G., & Brown, R. (2015). The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Journal of inflammation research, 8, 83–96. https://doi.org/10.2147/JIR.S69656
Jbireal JM, Azab AE, Elsayed ASI. Disturbance in haematological parameters induced by exposure to electromagnetic fields. Hematol Transfus Int J. 2018;6(6):242-251. https://doi.org/10.15406/htij.2018.06.00193
Koniver L. (2023). Practical applications of grounding to support health. Biomedical journal, 46(1), 41–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bj.2022.12.001
Mittal, P., Romero, R., Tarca, A. L., et al. (2011). A molecular signature of an arrest of descent in human parturition. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 204(2), 177.e15–177.e1.77E33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2010.09.025
Hammond, A., Foureur, M., Homer, C. S., & Davis, D. (2013). Space, place and the midwife: exploring the relationship between the birth environment, neurobiology and midwifery practice. Women and birth : journal of the Australian College of Midwives, 26(4), 277–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2013.09.001