What is Hypnobirthing
Hypnobirthing is an established, effective way to birth your baby in a positive, calm environment.
Hypnobirthing teaches you how to use self hypnosis to go in to deep relaxation – the best state to be in to birth your child.
Hypnobirthing allows you to experience birth in an atmosphere of calm and relaxation, so that the birthing muscles of your body can relax and gently open just as nature intended them to.
If you are experiencing fear and therefore tensing the muscles in your body, your body will work against you and labour times can be much longer, more painful and can often lead to medical intervention. Hypnobirthing will teach you tools that can help you to relax and therefore help you to have a more comfortable, positive birthing experience.
Benefits of Hypnobirthing
- Manage any pain through powerful breathing techniques
- Learn relaxation techniques that will help your body to work the way it is designed to
- Use the endorphin release to increase your bodys natural anaesthetic – a much safer option than relying on pharmaceuticals and other drugs.
- Learn how to put yourself in control of your birth - rather than blindly turning your birthing experience over to your doctor or midwife.
- Dads learn about the importance of their role in the birth of their child
- Less pain medication is needed as muscles thin and open easily
- Labour times are often shorter
- Learn visualisation techniques that can help your body to do what it wants to do
- Allow your mind and body to work together in harmony
- Experience the pleasures of birth rather than the negative experiences you may have heard from others
- Release worries and concerns you may have about birth
Where did Hypnobirthing originate
Hypnobirthing originated from the work of Dr Grantly Dick-Read and his theory of FTP - fear causes tension causes pain. Dr Grantly Dick-Read was an English physician in 1913, and whose principles are also the foundation of the National childbirth Trust (NCT).
In his book "Childbirth Without Fear", originally published in 1933, he states that:
“There is no physiological function in the body that gives rise to pain in the normal course of health. In no other animal species is the process of birth apparently associated with any suffering, pain or agony, except where pathology exists or in an unnatural state, such as captivity.
When we're afraid, our body diverts blood and oxygen from non-essential defense organs to large muscle groups in our extremities. Our face drains of blood and we are said to be 'white with fear”
Dr. Dick-Read hypothesized that the fear felt by a woman during childbirth also caused blood to be filtered away from her uterus, so it could be used by the muscles that would flee the dangerous situation. As a result, the uterus was left without oxygen and could not perform its functions efficiently or without pain.
This belief led to Dr. Dick-Read's theory that fear and tension cause the labour pains in approximately 95 percent of birthing women. He termed this phenomenon "the fear-tension-pain syndrome of childbirth," and he believed that by eliminating the fear, women could return the uterus to its normal function, thereby eliminating the pain.