What unique strategies does Hilary Erickson recommend for pain management during labor?

Hilary pulls together both mindset and medical tools, and a few of her angles are a little different than what you hear in standard classes:

• Education to “turn the light on” – she’s big on reducing fear of the unknown with a solid prenatal class so your brain is calmer and pain is easier to cope with.
• Staying home in early labor if it is safe, so you are in your own space, smells, and routines, which often lowers pain perception.
• Getting really specific when talking to your team about what hurts, what you have tried, and how it feels, so they can target help instead of using a one‑size‑fits‑all plan.
• Having a flexible toolbox: natural options (positioning, heat/cold, breathing, hypnosis, doula support) plus medical ones (IV meds, epidural, nitrous, local anesthetic) and choosing in the moment rather than locking into a single “birth plan.”

Are you hoping to go mostly unmedicated, planning an epidural, or still undecided?