What is Hypnobirthing?
Introducing Hypnobirthing
Hypnobirthing uses a combination of techniques to help to empower you to take control of your pregnancy and birth. There is a strong focus on helping you to ask the right questions throughout your antenatal care in a way that helps you to be actively part of such a personal decision-making process. It helps you to make the decision that is right for you and your baby. It can be used for any type of birth, whether a planned c-section, a drug-free home birth or anything in-between.
Read Emma’s Story
Founder of Love Your Birth NI, Emma Getty shares her own birth experience and how hypnobirthing has changed her life.
Why does Hypnobirthing work?
Our bodies have two different nervous systems – the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system is also called the fear or emergency response system or the freeze-fight-flight. If a labouring woman is put under stress her body freezes.
This stress could be the fear of childbirth or moving from home to hospital or being observed by strangers. If she feels even slightly worried about any of these things her labour freezes – it either slows down or stops completely. When the sympathetic nervous system is activated we produce adrenaline.
When we produce adrenaline all our blood goes to our essential organs first then our arms and legs – ready to run or fight. This has a huge impact on labour as the blood is taken away from the muscles of the uterus making them less efficient and this slows down labour and makes it more painful.
The parasympathetic nervous system or the confident response is the state we are in most of the time because we are not in an emergency situation. It is the calm and normal response, when we are in this response the body produces positive hormones (oxytocin) – the hormones of calmness and co-operation and as the hormones of love. We produce these hormones in the largest amount just after we give birth, this promotes bonding between mother and baby and helps establish breastfeeding. These hormones are less likely to be produced when we feel observed (also called the ‘shy hormones’), it makes us like privacy, and we don’t feel as relaxed in the company of strangers.
These are also the hormones that make the uterine muscles work in labour – if you feel confident and calm during labour you will naturally produce this hormone that makes the uterine muscles work and labour efficient. Endorphins are also produced in this state, making labour more comfortable.
Pain
When you think about it, pain in labour is unnatural as labour ensures the continuation of the human race. The uterine muscles are performing the job they are supposed to do during labour so shouldn’t be painful. Pain in muscles occurs when they are doing some unusual or strenuous activity.
If the muscles of the uterus remain tense and do not release there is a battle between the two sets of muscles making each surge more uncomfortable, less efficient and longer. This is not the way nature intended labour to be.
If the mother is in a relaxed comfortable state then these muscles will work together not against each other making her labour less painful and probably shorter too
Benefits of Hypnobirthing
The benefits of Hypnobirthing for mother:
Hypnobirthing enables a woman to work with her body, which is naturally designed to give birth. It releases the fear and negativity that she thinks she will experience due to the view she has of birth from television, horror stories from other mothers or past traumatic birth themselves. It replaces this fear with calm and confidence. This empowers the mother to have the wonderful birth that they want to have.
The benefits of Hypnobirthing for partner:
Hypnobirthing helps partners to be a part of the birth process, if they do not know what is happening or are frightened or don’t know how to help then they will be producing fear hormones and will negatively impact the birth environment. If they have learnt hypnobirthing, practised with their partner, they will produce hormones of confidence and calm and will positively affect the birth environment.
The benefits of Hypnobirthing for baby:
A baby born calmly, will have the best start in life, the calm hormones will be higher if the mother has had a calm stress free birth and this will help both her and her partner to bond with their baby. This will make the baby feel more secure and loved right from the start while he/she is adapting to life outside the womb.