Connection: The Labor Tool That Doesn’t Get Enough Attention

For years, when I taught childbirth classes and supported families as a doula, much of my focus was on things people expected me to cover: comfort measures, positioning, and breathing to minimize discomfort. How labor works. What support looks like in a medical setting. All valuable, and exactly what people are hungry for when they imagine labor.

What Couples Often Miss in Prenatal Classes

And yet, when I look back, I wish I had focused more on the one thing that shows up in every single birth: the relationship between the people going through it. Not the romance of it—the functionality of it. The way people communicate when everything around them feels like free fall, and things are evolving minute by minute. 

How connection—or the lack of it—during labor shapes relationships, and how those skills become all the more vital in parenting. I wish I had communicated this more strongly. I know I mentioned it, but like most related professionals, I made the mistake of leaving parents to figure it out on their own.

Preparing for Labor as a Team

Most labor preparation happens in parallel rather than together. Watching videos side by side at the end of a tiring work day. One parent skimming a chapter, the other meaning to get to it. Preparation is often more about checking boxes than checking in.

When labor starts, partners need to work as a team in ways they’ve likely never practiced. They may have practiced techniques, but probably not what to do when those techniques aren’t possible, or don’t work. 

They may have learned next steps to try, but lack the skills to get there emotionally. Parents can become frustrated and stressed, and the opportunity to solidify and build trust and connection is lost. 

Labor asks for coordination: what matters to each person, what someone needs when things are intense, how to adapt when plans shift. These are the kind of honest, efficient, low-ego exchanges that help people move through something unfamiliar together. Unfamiliar, incredibly important, and impossible to put off till a later date. 

Strengthening Your Relationship Before Baby Arrives

Once you see that connection is foundational, it becomes clear that this is a muscle best built in advance, and deserving of top billing in new parenting prep.

I often observe this in the postpartum period, when everyone is adapting, overwhelmed, and more than a little bit vulnerable. Reality forces immediate decisions about things that have never been discussed. Things like the kind of input they want (or don’t want) from their own parents and friends. Where the baby will sleep. How each person reacts to interrupted sleep. What “supportive” means in practice—rather than theory. Things that feel big in the moment, and that’s because they are.

These couples aren’t emotionally distant or unrealistic. They are thoughtful, smart, loving people who didn’t anticipate how many decisions are tied to expectations they’ve never spoken out loud. Tension doesn’t always come from the situation itself; it often comes from the surprise of discovering they aren’t on the same page.

This is why I shifted my approach to labor and parenting prep, and why Make It Grand exists. Labor tools work best when couples have already built a foundation for sharing and receiving big feelings and information. Labor strategy remains a priority—positioning, comfort measures, emotional signposts—but none of those things work well if people can’t communicate effectively. Preparation isn’t just learning what to do. It’s learning how to talk to each other while you’re doing it. It’s having a good idea of what the other person needs even before the moment demands it, and the maturity and humility to receive and act on feedback.

Connection is a powerful labor tool. It’s a postpartum tool. It’s what keeps couples grounded when everything else feels chaotic. And it deserves far more attention than it usually gets.

No one can anticipate every situation that might come their way. The good news is that there are some universals that provide opportunities for practice.  Structure helps—not rigid instruction or therapy, but an easy, engaging way to open topics that don’t always come up on their own. A way to push beyond parallel learning and step into exploration and connection.

Simple Ways to Improve Communication Before Birth

That’s why I created conversation decks written specifically around labor and the early months of parenting. It’s an opportunity for new parents to learn things they don’t know they don’t know—exploring together at the kitchen table, during a walk, or in those quiet minutes at night when life finally settles. Not to tell them how to parent, but to offer a starting point for communicating how they imagine it.

Birth asks a lot of people. So does the early newborn period. Being ready isn’t just about having the right things. Get ready to be ready—truly ready—in your own way, at your own pace.