Using Hypnosis for Natural Childbirth
How to use hypnosis to give birth naturally!
In 2007, Dame Helen Mirren shared what made her decide never to have children. In an interview with an Australian journalist, the award-winning English actress admitted it was an explicit video of childbirth, shown to her in her early teens when she attended a convent school. Thirty seconds into what the film deemed “The miracle of childbirth,” two 13-year-old boys fainted and had to be carried out of the classroom.
“I swear it traumatised me to this day,” she said. “I haven’t had children and now I can’t look at anything to do with childbirth.”
Studies in Australia and Britain have found that 6 percent of pregnant women report a disabling fear of having babies, while 13 percent of women who are not yet pregnant are afraid enough to postpone or avoid pregnancy altogether.
The idea of giving birth, especially for the first time, often causes worry and anxiety, but it doesn’t have to.
What will I learn in this blog?
• That giving birth can be a positive experience
• That you have more control of your body thank you think
• Mental Calmness and Physical Relaxation are the key
• That natural childbirth is great for your baby too
Why is it so frightening?
Because everyone tells you it will be!
Have you ever seen birth portrayed on TV or film in any way that isn’t gruesome and alarming? The moment you start to tell people that you are expecting, the bad stories start to come out, everyone has a friend who was in labour for 56 hours, required 3,000 stitches and a remedial course for posttraumatic stress disorder!
There’s already some hypnosis going on you see, your expectation of pain can often exacerbate what you feel; if a nurse tells you an injection is going to really hurt, it may be more uncomfortable that if you’d been told it was going to be painless. Whatever you believe to be the truth is the truth, for you.
The real truth is that it doesn’t have to be like that. Of course, it’s likely to be an uncomfortable time, because your body will be doing something it doesn’t do every day, but it really shouldn’t be the Medieval experience people often portray.
Womens’ bodies are designed, amongst may other things of course, for the purpose of giving birth, so it should be a task that can be performed with the minimum amount of trauma to you and your baby.
In order to make the most of the natural ability you have to give birth there are lots of things you really don’t need: being stressed and over-anxious about giving birth or being a parent, being physically tense, lacking in confidence in your body’s ability to do it, and in your own competence to give birth quickly, safely and easily.
So what do I do to change all this?
Here at The Hypnosis Clinic, I’ve been helping women from all over the world to give birth more comfortably and with more confidence.
One of the most important things you need to be to give birth more easily is calmness. When your mind is calm, your body relaxes and that’s so important to do. When your body is relaxed, it opens up the birth passage easily and naturally when the time comes, so that the contractions work to ease your baby along.
The plan works with your body ,and hypnosis is well-recognised as one of the best ways to help women to give birth more comfortably and faster. You can expect:
• Higher chance of a shorter childbirth
• Reduced chance of medical intervention needed.
• Higher chance of your baby feeding and sleeping well.
• Increased sense of bonding between mother, father and child.
• Reduced recovery time for the mother.
It’s also a natural way to enhance your abilities that doesn’t require drugs. It helps your body to do what she already knows how to do.
Ok – sound great – now tell me about how to do it!
Generally we see an expectant mum for about 4 sessions, usually starting in the first few months of pregnancy and finishing near the due date. The therapeutic hypnosis sessions cover everything from strengthening the muscles in the pelvic floor, enhancing the natural stretchiness of the skin, reducing morning sickness and back discomfort to the actual birth of the child, post-delivery recovery, even bonding and breast feeding.
We talk a lot about what’s best for your baby too, to make sure that the new addition to your family also has as easy a time as possible on their journey. Plus, give you some of the essential ingredients to prepare for an easy birth:
– Increase mental calmness from start to finish
– Feel more physically relaxed and safe
– Have bags of confidence in your abilities and your body
– Enjoy great sleep throughout your pregnancy
We can even make a unique self hypnosis recording for you to use as your exciting event gets closer. It really will change the way you look forward to welcoming your baby into the world and help to make the birthing process itself even easier.
Of course, each person has different expectations and challenges, so each treatment is individual to you. In addition to your regular hypnosis sessions, we keep in touch in-between to make sure that you are managing easily with the changes in your body.
Throughout the process of hypnosis you are always in control, we talk about your wish list for your birth and even about some of the practical things you can do to feel more in control, like creating a birth plan, getting the setting right to welcome your baby into the world in the gentlest way possible, and even helping dad to be more comfortable and have something to do on the big day.
CASE STUDY
Katie Smith came to The Hypnosis Clinic to see if hypnosis could help with the birth of her first child.
“I would recommend Jon without reservation. His understanding of my concerns prior to childbirth was highly intuitive and immediately put my mind at rest. I used Jon for natural pain relief for the births of both my children and they were exactly how he said it would be – totally manageable and without the need for drugs. A beautiful and calm way to bring my children into the world.”
It’s an experience that created a lasting friendship too, Katie, Joshua and Libby, both now grown-up are still friends with Jonathan to this day.
If you would like to speak to a mum who has already had a great experience with using hypnosis for childbirth, let me know and I can put you in touch.
What did I learn here?
Giving birth easily is all about being calm, relaxed and confident. It’s also about putting a better perspective on some of the negative ‘fake news’ about modern childbirth. Generally you should expect to have 3 to 4 sessions and and have a custom-made recording to get yourself in tune for what should be a wonderful, empowering experience.
You can get more information about pregnancy from the NHS via this link: https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/ or to find out more about hypnosis and how it works, have a look here: https://thehypnosisclinic.com/what-is-hypnosis/
If you’d like to find out more about how hypnosis can help you, we offer a free initial consultation, either by a Telehealth video link or at our clinic right in the heart of London’s Regent Street.
Or if you fancy a chat, just give us a call.
