HypnoBirthing®
By: Christine Clarke-Swift
Attention MOM and DAD to BE!
Experience the joy of having your baby with the techniques of HypnoBirthing®
HypnoBirthing ® is a safe, comfortable, harmonious and natural experience to engage the body’s natural resources to birth a baby. The body is free to function as it was created to function using little or no medication. Through hypnosis the fear and tension often involved with labor and delivery of a baby can be eliminated which will allow for a calm, relaxed and controlled experience. Birthing a baby can and should be a joyous occasion not a challenging process that leads many to be thankful it is finally over.
Throughout the world, in many other cultures, giving birth is not the complex process of what we experience in our western culture. Natural birth processes have been used since the beginning of time. In our society a woman is actually programmed to expect pain in the labor and delivery processes. When was the last time you heard your mother, sister, or friend describe the birthing process as easy and wonderful? Most likely what you have heard is; I’ll never go through that again, or “I was in labor for 18 hours” as if it were a badge of honor. Learning of your ability to access the resources we all have and practicing so that those resources are available as needed will lead to an easy and beautiful birthing experience. You won’t get any credit for going through the most horrible, pain filled experience in your life but you will get to explain to your friends how easy, quick and wonderful the birthing experience was for you!
While a Certified Hypnotherapist, I am also one of more than 1,700 certified HypnoBirthing ® practitioners in the world. Marie Mongan, the founder of the HypnoBirthing Institute, personally trained me; Marie designed the HypnoBirthing ® method based on her research of Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, the father of Natural Childbirth. She was a woman determined to birth her children naturally, without the “excruciating pain of childbirth” and focused on eliminating the Fear-Tension-Pain Syndrome. “HypnoBirthing has returned to women the right to call upon their natural birthing instincts, creating one of the most memorable experiences of their lives”. Marie Mongan’s story is one of courage and determination. Her story in told in her book, HypnoBirthing® A Celebration of Life.
Fear plays a major role in how we react to child birthing process. Fear is one of our strongest emotions and when we are afraid we put our nervous system in distress, activating the fight or flight response causing the body to become tense. Pain manifests as a direct result of this tension. Our autonomic nervous system consists of two parts, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The role of the sympathetic part of the nervous system is to engage the fight or flight response by releasing adrenalin and hormones into the body. This will cause your muscles to tense, your heart to pound, your body to sweat, and essentially shutting down all other systems not required to fight or to flee from danger. When the danger has passed the parasympathetic part of the nervous system will flood your body with endorphins and restore it to its balanced state. It does not matter to your nervous system if the danger is real or perceived; the automatic response is to prepare you to fight or to flee from any danger. The build up to the birthing experience, especially the expectation of pain triggers this stressful response. Pain becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point. With the use of hypnosis the mind is relaxed and calm, the expectation is of an exciting and joyous experience. There is no real or perceived danger, therefore no fight or flight response, no tensing up, no pain.
HypnoBirthing ® Classes are always in progress, contact me at OnTrac Hypnotherapy Inc. at 603.362.8868 or email ontrachypnosis@aol.com.
