Lady Penny Lancaster-Stewart prepared for childbirth by visiting a holistic therapist who taught her how to stretch perineum.
The 45-year-old model has two sons, Alastair, 10, and five-year-old Aiden, with her husband Sir Rod Stewart, and she wanted to deliver both kids without pain relief in the same way her own mother gave birth to her.
To ready her body and mind for labour, Penny met with a Hindu woman who taught her how to meditate to deal with the pain and also helped her ready the area for the physical demands of birth, both of which worked for her.
During an appearance on ‘Loose Women’ on Wednesday (09.11.16), she spilled: "My mother used to tell the story about how she gave birth to me and my brother with no pain relief and she didn’t scream. When I was about to give birth I would think, ‘I’ve got to follow that.’ … It was recommended to me to go to this holistic lady, she was a Hindu lady and she taught meditation, and it was her home where she did the treatment and she would put beautiful music on, calming music. She would do this very meditative talk and describe to you how your little baby could hear and feel you and how you were connected and as she was talking tears would come down my face I was really connected to the whole experience.
"Then she suggested that there was a method by which you massage the perineum, which is the skin part between the front and the back and in a lot of cases when women are forcing the baby out that area will tear, it’s not pleasant. But if you stretch that area with oils then it will help the childbirth. I ended up having two children naturally without drugs in a birthing pool, lights were low, there were candles, and I went to that place and used mind over matter and thought beautiful thoughts, even though I was in pain I was frightened of the pain so I didn’t go into a panic."
Penny wasn’t shy about going into the exact details of what it takes to stretch your perineum, much to the shock of her fellow panellists Coleen Nolan, Linda Robson and Anne Diamond.
Not concerned about over-sharing, the statuesque blond beauty said: "I went home and 10 minutes every day you have to pull on that skin in a downward motion. Yes, she had to show me how to do it. She would put my finger or thumb there and then encourage my hand into the direction it needs to go. She was a doula she would often go with women to the births."
Penny made the decision to refuse all pain relief during her births because she wanted to "feel in control" of her own body but she says expectant mothers must make labour decisions which are right for them and not feel pressurised to have natural deliveries.
She said: "I decided to do the mother earth thing and give birth naturally because I wanted to feel in control and I wanted to feel each contraction and know that my baby was going to be in my arms soon … But at the end of the day if you’re terrified and you’re in pain then do have the epidural."
Penny Lancaster-Stewart became ‘earth mother’ for births
