You’re pregnant and surrounding you are all these images of women giving birth in pain, screaming, shouting at their husband, helpless. They’re in your head, on screens, in books… everywhere. Your friends, your mother told you so, your doctor told you so… giving birth is a painful event in one woman’s life. But does it really have to be?
1. Education About Your Own Body
HypnoBirthing® is a method of preparation to childbirth based on the fact that women’s bodies are designed to give birth. The first evidence of that is that uterus is made from different layers of muscles. Now think about exercising, for instance if you’re a jogger. If you run on a regular basis, you won’t feel any pain in your muscles when you run, you might be a bit sore the next couple of days. If you stop exercising for a while, you will probably feel heavy legs when you resume jogging. Again, maybe soreness a couple of days later. But no pain during exercise, unless it’s coming from another condition. When you give birth, your uterine muscles activate to help nudge your baby down. It’s a normal function of the uterus, so it shouldn’t be painful.
But your friend/sister/cousin/mother/grandmother told you she suffered like hell. And she probably did. Every experience is real, I am no denying that pain. The question is why do those women feel in pain? The expectation of pain creates tension in your muscles. When you exercise tensed muscles, that’s when it becomes painful. One of the most interesting aspects of HypnoBirthing® is to work on your fears to replace them with confidence. Once you have a deeper knowledge of your body, its capabilities, you will feel in control again. It is important to prepare yourself. Would you run a marathon without a proper training?
2. Deep Relaxation and Self-Hypnosis, a Skill For Life
The benefits of relaxation not only will help you prepare for the birth but also can be experienced later. I used the same hypnosis audio after birth when I was breastfeeding, and I still use it whenever I have a migraine. It works wonderfully. When you are in hypnosis, in that state of deep relaxation, your body produces endorphins. Endorphins are natural painkillers. When you give birth, your body will naturally produce them but if you want to increase that production, deep relaxation is a very good way to do it. If you do it continuously throughout your pregnancy, you will condition your body’s response to have a quicker and deeper relaxation when you give birth. This will even more help you counteract the fear-tension-pain syndrome.
3. Learn How to Breathe Again
Another benefit from HypnoBirthing® preparation is learning how to breathe with your body flow when giving birth. Being coached to push tends to be quite inefficient when giving birth. When you push, you contract your muscles, when you’d better do the opposite. Does your sport teacher tell you to never hold your breath? Well, it’s the same when you give birth. Never hold your breath! Different breathing techniques for different moments of childbirth will be much more efficient and help you relax.
4. Play With The Laws of Attraction
Positive visualizations and affirmations will help you picture the birth you want and experience it. Releasing fears is a crucial point of HypnoBirthing® course. Hypnosis is used in medical field to avoid anesthesia but also to release any type of fears. During HypnoBirthing® classes you will be able to release your fears about childbirth and parenthood or even other fears that bar you from enjoying this moment. Language is also a very powerful tool. Switching to a more positive language about birth will change your mindset to a positive one.
5. A Role For Your Birth Companion
Because your birth companion will also be learning about your body and your baby’s during the classes, he will understand what is happening when it’s happening. Far from the image of the father fainting, he will know how to support you in the best way because you will have talked about it, done exercises together. Information is the key. There are many ways your birth companion can support you: he can set the scene, play your music, get you some food, water, read hypnosis scripts to you, give you light massages, suggest you to change positions, talk to the nurses so you don’t have to, ask the medical staff to respect your choices… the possibilities are endless. HypnoBirthing® will give tools for you to use.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The more you read about HypnoBirthing®, the more you understand it’s a unique experience. There is another benefit from HypnoBirthing® that is not in this list and yet probably the most important one. There is not one ideal way to give birth so this course will help you to choose your birth, not because it’s imposed by any method or any doctor but because now you know what you want. But that is a topic of a future post!
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