This is going to be a little bit longer of an explanation than I think you were looking for but ... eh... I like to chat.
I did in fact use belly rolls to push my last baby out after the midwife explained to me for the umteenth time which muscles she wanted me to use. I figured that it couldn't be that simple so I kept trying different combinations until I gave up and used the belly roll. 30 minutes of pushing total. Boom! I've recommended the belly roll through annecdote to a few of my dance buddies who went on to use it with great success. I think there may be something to look into there.

The problem with prescribing these sorts of techniques for laboring women is that they would have to be familiar with them before they got to that point. Preferrably conditioned towards it long before pregnancy. (This is my ideal.) It's the same problem with using trance music to control pain during labor... if you're not already predisposed towards it when you start then you probably won't be able to work with it even though its a great technique.

From my perspective, comparatively, women who have had more experience in belly dance before they have their baby have access to those techniques and benefits that come with it. You can't use skills that you don't possess. And as dancers ourselves of varying degrees I think everyone here is aware of the finite differences in muscle control that more experienced dancers have over less experienced ones. Some of that conditioning takes a lot of time to come to fruition. In order to be able to optimally use belly dancing for its pregnancy and child birth benefits the woman would have to be a dancer for a reasonable amount of time before hand.

As for using the sphincter muscle... I think that's the standard fall back. Everyone can poop (pardon) but not everyone can do a belly roll. Doctors and laboring women have to work with the muscle experience they actually possess. To be frank... babies are born from the anus. If you happen to have the discipline to be able to roll your belly I have to imagine that it's prefferable but if you don't have it then you have to fall back on what you have and for many women... that would probably be the sphincter.

~*Gen*~

I can't speak to teh validity of any historical significance, but bellydancing was the sole activity that helped me mend my pubic symphisis after the birth of my twins. It had split right down the middle in both the front (the pubic symphisis) and the back (coccyx). I was unable to walk during the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy and the first couple of weeks after birth. When I was finally able to walk again I began all sorts of physical therapies to heal these areas and nothing seemed to be working very well.

Once I got into bellydance, and practiced the isolated muscle movements within my pelvis and glutes and hips (very slowly-- which was harder perhaps, but also the only way I could manage them at the time as the skeletally based movements were just impossible) I began to notice an marked increase in movement. Perhaps what was even more amazing was that x-rays revealed my healing was not symmetrical and I would most likely always have back and pelvic problems due to this, but after about 6 months of bellydancing later x-rays revelaad that I was healing quite symmetrically.

Because of this I just sort of accepted that BD had something to do with childbirth, whether prior to birth of post-partum. Again, I have no evidence to suggest that this was ever truly the case, but it worked so well for me that I just took it as a given.

-K

Commune in Tennessee? She must be at The Farm. Cool. I think that's very interesting, and it makes sense. If the mother's more at ease, and her happy hormones are kicked in, then I could see how it would be easier on her. Not only that, but orgasms help with cramps, so why not labor pains?