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.”
The above is all true and completely achievable, for more information contact me at Hypnosis in Orlando.
