What is a Birthing Ball?
A birthing ball is a large air-filled ball, made of PVC or similar material with an anti-slip finish, which is used by a woman during pregnancy and childbirth. The ball is usually between 55-75 centimetres in diameter, allowing the woman to sit on the ball with her feet flat on the floor and her hips at a 90-degree angle. However, woman use the ball in various positions, rocking back and forward on a soft, comfortable surface capable of supporting her in a steady position.
Birthing balls provide numerous advantages. Getting comfortable in the later stages of pregnancy, and especially during childbirth, can be difficult. Using a birthing ball promotes good posture, essential to a mother’s comfort in the later pregnancy when her baby is large and needs to get into the correct position for labour, as well as during labour itself when maintaining good posture will help the birth progress effectively. Sitting on a birthing ball helps the mother distribute her weight evenly, relieving pressure on her spine caused by the weight of the baby, thus preventing back pain and other potential aches and pains. It can also help ease labour pains and provide encouragement to the mother to move around during childbirth rather than remaining static on a bed, something which has been shown to be a factor in prolonging and increasing the pain of birth.
Sitting with the legs wide on a birthing ball during labour can increase blood flow to the uterus, placenta and baby. It helps to open up the pelvis and hips, allowing for faster and easier movement of the baby through the birth canal. The birthing ball enables the woman to position herself in ways which move the birth along most effectively, for example kneeling whilst supported by the ball. This also allows for easy massage of the back, an area likely to be particularly painful during the birth.
Using a birthing ball can have some disadvantages though. Not all hospitals allow the use of birthing balls as they are considered to be unsteady, giving the hospital safety concerns about the possibility of a woman falling during childbirth. It can be difficult to balance on a birthing ball, particularly in the late stages of pregnancy and during labour when the woman concerned has a large baby bump altering her centre of gravity and/or is likely to be in great pain. In addition, the woman is likely to need support in order to be able to use the birthing ball and if she does not have a partner with her at the time then this will make it’s use impractical.
What is an Exercise Ball?
An exercise ball is a ball, usually made of soft elastic and filled with air, approximately 35 to 85 centimetres in diameter and used for exercise routines, weight training, athletic training and/or physical therapy. Exercise balls as we know them now descend from the ‘Swiss Ball’, invented in 1963 by Aquilino Cosani, an Italian plastics manufacturer who developed a process for moulding large puncture-resistant plastic balls.
Exercise balls have various advantages for users, primarily that the individual’s body responds directly to the instability of the exercise ball as opposed to the hard, flat surface which would ordinarily be used to exercise on. This allows them to engage more muscles whilst exercising yet remain balanced, reducing the risk of injury whilst increasing the efficacy of their exercise. The core body muscles in particular will become strengthened by the use of the ball, being used in order to allow the individual to maintain balance whilst sat on the ball.
Another benefit of the exercise ball is that using an unstable surface on which to exercise allows individuals to use more muscle units in exercising without increasing their total exercise load. For example, when an exercise such as a sit up is performed on an exercise ball the abdominal muscles are more actively engaged that they would be should the same exercise be performed on a hard, flat surface, allowing for greater activity and more effective exercise whilst still in effect performing the same amount of exercise load. Another advantage of the exercise ball is that, by comparison with a lot of gym equipment, they are relatively cheap and thus a good way of providing range and greater effectiveness to a workout without huge expense.
However, there are also disadvantages to the exercise ball too. To use it safely for exercise the individual really ought to spend some money on lessons from an expert – not doing so increases the risk of injury in using the ball incorrectly. The exercise ball is an inherently unstable surface and so the chance of injury is increased by comparison with the use of a more stable, traditional exercise surface. Indeed, the instability of the ball can cause the user to focus more greatly on trying to maintain balance on the ball itself rather than on the exercise they are trying to perform, thus both increasing the risk of injury and reducing the effectiveness of the exercise they are performing at the same time. Exercise balls are large when inflated and so they do take up a relatively large amount of space, particularly for those who live in small homes, but getting around this problem by deflating them then creates the problem of having to spend time re-inflating the ball every time one wishes to use it.
Comparison
Birthing balls and exercise balls share similarities – they are essentially both puncture resistant, inflatable balls made from the same or similar materials and then filled with air. However, they do have some differences aside from their purpose:
- Exercise balls tend to be smaller than birthing balls
- Birthing balls are larger, designed with comfort in mind
- Birthing balls usually have an anti-slip finish to promote safety and allow for sitting on the ball for prolonged periods
- Some birthing balls are peanut shaped rather than the traditional round shape of exercise balls, though this is not always the case