Hypnobirthing – Hypnosis for Childbirth

Labor doesn’t have to be excruciating. Intense, yes. Sensational and powerful, definitely. But bitterly painful, no. Some would even go so far as to say that it doesn’t have to be painful at all.

Tools to Reduce Pain

Deep relaxation, confidence, physical health, and acceptance of labor for what it is and not what it might be can lead to a totally different birth experience.

Hypnotherapists train women, through hypnosis, to totally relax and believe in their bodies’ innate knowledge and ability during labor, so that they can reduce or totally eliminate pain. This gives women the opportunity to enjoy labor, rather than just wait for the moment it ends.

Hypnosis does this by reprogramming our beliefs about birth, our bodies, and our role a birthing women. It also gives us the tools we need to deeply relax. Relaxation is important during childbirth for allowing the body to open up so that the baby can easily slide out.

I believe this kind of labor is possible for all women who are willing to do a little mental and physical reprogramming.

Stress and Tension Relief
Our conscious minds have us convinced that labor is unbearably painful and that our bodies are faulty. We have been trained to believe that birth is a medical procedure and that anything can go wrong at any moment.

But it isn’t this at all. Every creature on earth, besides humans, births relatively effortlessly. Honestly, we can’t really exempt humans from this category either. There are many accounts of uncivilized women who have no such difficulty with birth.

Diet
It takes some preparation to ensure a comfortable and manageable labor. Relaxation plays a big role but so does our nutritional status.

If you eat a nutrient deficient diet and you’re low on nutrients – as most women are – you are much more likely to suffer extreme labor pains, much like you suffer extreme menstrual cramps.

Magnesium, for example, helps the muscles to relax. Magnesium deficiency is very common in the general population and can become a particular problem for pregnant women who eat a lot of dairy. Iron deficiency, which is common among pregnant women, can cause muscle tension and spasms. High blood sugar can cause panic attacks and fear, which leads to muscle tension. Systemic inflammation, which is common among those who eat refined vegetable oils, dairy, sugar, and grains, also causes pain.

I believe it is a mixture of our diets, our beliefs about labor, and our inability to relax that keeps us from having easy births. Hypnosis is a method that can help change our beliefs and our habits.

My First Birth Experience

I didn’t know anything about hypnosis for labor during my last pregnancy. I knew about relaxation techniques and I’m sure those were somewhat helpful but I didn’t go into labor empowered with the true belief that my labor could be painless or that it could be magical or non-medical.

Some of you know that my first birth experience was pretty traumatic – carried out in a hospital. It was fraught with fear and even bitterness towards the hospital staff. I was alone with only my husband (at the time), mistreated, misguided, and made to take drugs and a glucose IV, all while needlessly lying in bed. My contractions were painful and I was afraid and frustrated – not too far off from most women’s experience these days.

For years after I had believed that mine was a broken body – that I was never meant to have babies and that it was beyond my control.

But since becoming pregnant this time around, I don’t believe any of that. Not only have I recovered my health over the years but I have completely changed my view of what birthing should be.

Our Beliefs and Environment Shape Our Experience

My expectations are different now thanks to my midwife, Nedra Wilson, and my friend, Elaina McMillan, a relationship expert and hypnotherapist.

Nedra has assured me through her experience and confidence in women that childbirth is a natural process which every woman just knows – that it is not a medical procedure, and that in the privacy of one’s own home it can be dramatically different and less painful than it might be in a hospital or even birth center.

Elaina believes that childbirth can be painless if we break down the walls standing in our way – i.e. our conscious mind. Our conscious minds try to control and intellectualize labor, adding to tension and, hence, pain. If we learn, through hypnosis, to put our conscious minds to rest, we can allow our bodies to take over this very natural and innate process that is birth. If we are able to relax, to focus, and to have confidence, we can do the job efficiently and painlessly.

Hypnosis Can Help Us Achieve Deep Relaxation

Hypnosis is all about breaking down barriers – barriers that stand in our way of just about every healthy action we don’t take. For example, our conscious minds have us convinced that we will fail, that we are not good enough, that we will make mistakes. Our culture has taught us that in birth we will experience pain and that pain is bad and that it is something we must fight against. We can try to convince ourselves otherwise but we usually fall back into the same rhythms.

Hypnosis can help us break free of those rhythms.

Through deep relaxation and a reprogramming of our beliefs in what birth should be, we can diminish the perception of pain, cope with the intensity and length of labor, as well as enjoy the miracle of childbirth.

Why Deep Relaxation Helps Ease Labor

The uterus is smooth muscle, just like the intestines. We all know how ineffective our digestive systems become when we are stressed or afraid. Smooth muscle is designed to shut down under these circumstances. But in our overly stressful world, we have largely lost the ability to relax and allow our bodies to work the way they should.

I like to compare contractions to the need to poo. I know, that’s a little morbid. But it really is similar. We don’t tell our bodies when we need to go to the bathroom any more than we tell our bodies when to have a baby. Our bodies are ready for that when they’re ready. In a constipated person, it’s never quite ready though – the smooth muscle of the intestines just doesn’t move rhythmically and powerfully enough to make a bowel movement happen.

Something similar might be happening in a long, hard labor. It’s no surprise that child birth could be so difficult for the vast population since around 80% of Americans suffer of constipation at some point in their lives. A sort of “labor constipation” could be happening to 80% of women during childbirth.

The two processes are controlled by the same factors – diet and relaxation.

Preparing for My Homebirth

I have had a lot of work to do on myself while pregnant this time around and very little time to do it, what with my serious bike accident only a year and a half behind me, my dad dying of Alzheimer’s only a couple of months ago, a move, family matters, and the pressures of book deadlines.

I have watched some great videos about pregnancy and birthing, such as Pregnant in America, that have helped me to look back on my first birth experience and take it for what it was, a medical mishap.

I have recently started trying to face my fears and old beliefs and intellectualize them right out of me.

And now, 4 weeks before my due date, I am using hypnosis to help retrain my habits so that in the moment of labor, while I’m feeling the intensity and pressure so reminiscent of previous horror, I will glide right over these past experiences and fear nothing.

Yesterday, Elaina came over started her magic on my subconscious. We spent the first hour talking about my first birth experience, my fears, my successes, my wishes. And then she talked to me about how birth is really supposed to be and how I can work to achieve that ideal.

According to Elaina, during  a hypnosis session the conscious mind is essentially put to sleep so that the subconscious can be open to suggestion. Elaina taught my subconscious about how to relax, gave me access to some new skills, and offered suggestions about a healthy childbirth.

The hypnosis session itself lasted 25 minutes. When we were through she asked how long I thought it had been. I said, “I don’t know, 4 or 5 minutes.” The experience was truly shocking. I was not asleep at all but I also wasn’t conscious.

I am not the closed minded type but I am hugely skeptical. While I felt open to hypnosis I had no idea how quickly I would start to notice a difference. For the last couple of days I have felt confident in my body (you may have noticed some of my fears coming out in recent Facebook and blog posts). I have a more positive view of my strength and abilities than I ever have before. It’s crazy. I’m liking it.

For the next several weeks I will be listening to the recording of our session and practicing deep relaxation. Elaina says that “Creating a whole new story about the birth process is key.” We can do this with practice because the “subconscious mind is receptive to repetition.” With practice, we can “trade out the fears and doubts for enthusiasm and excitement about the magic that is childbirth.”

Sessions With Elaina

Not only is Elaina a great hypnotherapist but she’s friendly, genuine, perceptive, funny, and dashingly attractive. She hosts an awesome radio show called Naked Talk Radio and is a good friend to all who are lucky enough to know her.

Elaina routinely does hypnosis sessions over the phone with clients all over the country. You can contact her via email: , her website: ElainaMcMillan.com, or her Facebook profile: Facebook.com/mcelaina.

A hypnotherapist need not actually be present for the birth. Elaina says that, “The work is typically all front end. By the time she’s in labor, the shifts have occurred. Her interpretations are in alignment with her intention.”

Do you have experience with or questions about hynosis, either in childbirth or otherwise? Please leave a comment!