Hypnobirthing - it's all about the context
Apr 21, 2024
The wonders of hypnobirthing, using hypnotherapy for pregnancy and birth.
Having spent many years not only attending births but also looking after women throughout their pregnancies, I have learned a great deal about us humans at a time when women are both vulnerable and powerful. This momentous event is not only very special but also is something that happens day in, and day out. Us women have magical abilities where we can produce a brand-new human baby having spent many months growing, watering, and nurturing this precious cargo. Getting said human out of us is also a pretty enormous feat and one that should be treated with a lot of care and respect. However, over the past 2 decades I have witnessed a decline in the autonomy of women during pregnancy and birth as we have become more and more focused on a more medicalised approach. I have also witnessed that when women are given the self-belief, confidence and safety, they are more than capable of trusting their own abilities and focus on what is at hand. Which is wonderful. And the simple truth is that most of the time, it does all goes well; there maybe a few hiccups on the way but childbirth is no longer the most dangerous of times for women. When women are given the control, support, confidence and self-belief that they are super capable of something that they are essentially designed to do, then they do it.
Each pregnancy is different, we all have different experiences, even though the process is the same. But the nuances are completely individual and should be acknowledged as such. We can have very different context within the same experience. A woman can give birth more than once and have very different births. There is so much that affects the experience and these need to be considered from a brain perspective, when using hypnotherapy to assist the outcome of that experience. Hypnotherapy has a 2-way ability of dealing with something specific whilst dealing with the emotional tentacles of that particular, something specific. So, with childbirth, there is a great deal of emotional baggage that needs to be acknowledged when focusing on birth. But the wonder of hypnotherapy means that this emotional baggage is dealt with in the sub-conscious mind. You don’t have to figure it all out yourself which is why hypnotherapy is so brilliant in dealing with specific issues such as birth, fears, exams or public speaking etc etc!
Birth is something that we as mammals have done since mammals have been on this planet. And if we watch how other mammals give birth, we can learn a thing or two. They go off and find a quiet, warm, secret cubby hole and quietly get on with it on their own. They can stop their birth if they are disturbed until they find somewhere safe to continue the process. But… the difference with humans is that we give birth to immature babies. These babies cannot get up and walk off and run away from danger. Human babies are 100% dependent on another human to pick them up and take them out of the way of danger. And the reason we give birth to these little balls of joy, is our brains. We cannot give birth to a toddler. What a terrifying thought! So, we need some help from other humans to help us give birth in safety. But this can also mean that we completely depend on others to help and support us, so within this, we need to hold onto our own power, our own autonomy and be in a calmer and more sensible place so we are able to make decisions, while the brain is not in full blown fear mode. That won’t help, so it’s all about having peace of mind and able to cope with the whole process of birth.
Hypnobirthing can certainly help too with the pain aspect. This can be explained by understanding the pain pate theory, it’s how a TENS machine works. By being in a position to control and manage the pain, we are able to focus on the wider picture of giving birth, getting the baby human out of our bodies in as calm and safe a way as possible! I have seen women do this naturally where they are obviously feeling safe, and they just go into mammal mode and basically trust the process and more importantly, their own primal ability to give birth.