You saw the positive sign on the pregnancy test kit and felt your heart pounding with elation, now what? You might have already started hearing stories of never-ending labour, excruciating pain spread by other women or media. As you grow more conscious of those hidden messages, anxiety and stress might slowly develop during the pregnancy period. Stress, fear and tension might start to feed themselves off each other, increasing the likelihood of a difficult delivery.
The truth is that there are a myriad of stories that remain untold, stories you need to hear.
Many women have steered clear of medications and injections and experienced empowering and memorable deliveries.
The truth goes even further. Some medications used for pain management can alter your baby’s heart rate and lead to other side effects.
What if you could achieve a gentler and calmer birth naturally? You can now with Hypnobirthing.
HypnoBirthing is a set of hypnosis techniques that allows women to use their innate abilities to bring about safe, easier and more comfortable birthing. It combines several methods such as controlled breathing, relaxation, and visualization. It also educates birthing partners about the options available to them and how to express them to their care providers. The increased awareness and education helps parents to have a more active role in the birthing process.
How does a Hypnobirthing Class Work?
Hypnobirthing teaches you how to let go of the tension and relax. The curriculum spreads over 5 weeks with one session each week. The duration of each class is about 2.5 hours. Here is what you will cover:
• Controlled Breathing:
A monitored breathing with optimized breathe-in, breathe-out, and hold rate can calm anxiety and fears surfacing during the birthing process. A course book and an audio are provided.
• Visualization:
Stress causes a great deal of harm to the body by hindering the production of the oxytocin hormone which is required to ensure smooth processing of labor. Stress also activates the fight and flight mechanism. Catecholamines, a stress hormone slows down the digestion, sending more blood to the arms and legs. Blood is diverted from the uterus, causing pain.
Managing stress plays a very pivotal role in ensuring a gentler and more comfortable labor. This is done by making the partners visualize the baby coming out of the expanding cervix and the tangible feeling of the baby’s smooth body.
• Relaxation:
Selected music provided during the course can help relax the mind and help the mother-to-be to concentrate on the body and ignore all other environmental noises.
Furthermore, the relaxation scripts avoid words that evoke negative feelings or experiences. For instance, the word ‘pain’ is replaced with ‘relaxation’.
Why should you help yourself with HypnoBirthing?
Hypnobirthing helps you release the tension and leverage the body’s innate ability to bring about a more comfortable birthing. You can reconnect with your birthing instincts and create an amazing experience.
