I have seen so many hospital scenarios where this abdominal feeling has been treated like a premature pushing urge and the mother instructed to blow, puff, inhale gas and so forth to resist the abdominal pushing.
This happened to me at home and i continued to blow, then moo, then roar, for 3 hours until my daughter's head was crowning. I was finally allowed to give in to the "premature" pushing urge when her ears were already born. Luckily i suffered only a small tear from that one whole-hearted push which delivered the rest of her in one go.

I'm kind of sad to read that the same will happen (i'll be encouraged to "slow it down") in my subsequent labours as that bit of my birth was by far the hardest and i've been actively looking forward to being able to push when i feel that urge next time.

Thanks for posting this Julie. Since the forums at Midwifery Today went down i've been really missing Gloria and the other wise birthing ladies. I hope they rebuild soon!

Bx