Most of you probably know that I’ve done Hypnobabies to have my babies at home and plan to do the same with this one.

People wonder what the heck hypnobabies really is. What is hypnosis and how does it work. Does it really work? What if you don’t believe in that kind of stuff?

Well I didn’t. Neither did my PhD, scientist husband. Not the kind of hypnosis that I was accustomed to anyway. The kind where the dude who hypnotizes people stands on a stage and randomly calls volunteers up to make them look like idiots. No, I never could believe it.

But this is different. I am glad that I put those twisted notions of hypnosis aside for a moment so I could learn about something so real and beautiful. I can’t say that it’s something that has changed my life because I don’t have any other experience of childbirth to compare it to…so there was no change per se.

If you want to read about my first two experiences with hypnobabies go here and here. But if you want the best third party witness you need to read my mom’s account. It’s pretty hilarious as well. She was silently quite skeptical. Go here for that.

When going through the classes the first time, the thing that clicked first and made the most sense to both my husband and I was this small article. It rings true to me each time I read it and now especially since I’ve experienced it. ps. it’s not about epidurals.

An Excerpt from The Epidural Express: Real Reasons Not to Jump Onboard

By: Nancy Griffin, courtesy of www.gentlebirth.org

One main cause of pain in normal childbirth is… the “Fear-Tension-Pain Syndrome”. Our biology provides us with powerful instincts during birth. The first is the need to feel safe and protected. All mammals will instinctively seek out a dark, secluded, quiet and most of all, safe place in which to give birth. While birthing, mammals give the appearance of sleep and closed eyes to fool would be predators, and they breathe normally. Some (those who don’t perspire) will pant in order to cool down, but humans will most easily achieve a relaxed state through closed eyes and abdominal breathing. This relaxation slows down the birthing mothers brain waves into what is called an alpha state, a state in which it is virtually impossible to release adrenaline, the ‘fight-flight’ hormone. Physical comfort become critical, along with the need to have a ‘nest’ ready for the baby. Hospital environments often unintentionally disrupt the birthing atmosphere by introducing bright lights, lots of people, noise and fear inducing exams and machines.

Fear/Tension/Pain

The uterine muscles are beautifully designed to deal quite effectively with danger, fear and stress in birthing. The uterus is the only muscle in the body that contains within itself two opposing muscle groups – one to induce and continue birthing and another to stop pressure waves (contractions in hypnobabies talk) if the mother is in danger or afraid. Emotional or physical stress will automatically signal danger to a birthing mammal.  Her birthing will slow down or stop completely so that she can run to safety. In modern times, this goes haywire. We can’t run from our fears – which may include the ‘horror story’ our best friend told us about her birth – or even from our hospital or physician. Instead, we may release adrenaline, which causes the short, circular muscle fibers in the lower third of the uterus to contract. These muscles are responsible for stopping birth by closing and tightening the cervix. The result is that we literally ‘stew’ in our own adrenaline. At the same time that the long, straight muscle fibers of the uterus are contracting to efface and dilate the cervix, the short, circular muscle fibers of the lower uterus are also contracting to keep the cervix closed and ‘fight’ the pressure waves. The result? The very real pain of two powerful muscles pulling in opposite directions each time the birthing mother has a pressure wave.

By learning to deeply relax mentally, physically and emotionally; actively dealing with fears about birth; and choosing a birthing environment that feels safe and protective, birthing women will not have to experience the traumatic pain caused by the ‘Fear-Tension-Pain Syndrome.”

I experienced this real pain for brief moments during both my babies births when I panicked at the intensity I was feeling (because let’s be real, it’s intense). I quickly reverted back to the ‘letting go’ way instead which is much more preferred.

It’s a strange phenomenon. I’ve experienced it since at the gym believe it or not. When my muscles would tighten up so much from all the work I was putting them through, my trainer would administer what he called ‘rolling out’. He would do this while laying on my belly and taking a steel poll to my hamstrings and calves and applying extreme pressure as he rolled up and down. Ouch!! I sure wish I had been practicing my hypnosis techniques for those experiences! I constantly told him how much more painful it was than my childbirth experiences. And it was true!

The reason I bring this up is because during that time  whether he mentioned it or it just came to my mind, I can’t recall, but it was to just let go and let it happen. Sort of open yourself up to the experience and face it head on. A total mind game. And when I did that, more progress on loosening the muscle was made. It was extremely hard to do but I experienced brief moments of being able to do it. But not enough because obviously as I said it was the most painful thing I’d ever endured. I’m not a big sweater but I made ‘pain’ sweat marks on the bench I was lying on thru 2 shirts and a sweater! Yikes!

Just to clarify, I am not comparing rolling out to childbirth! The two are very different. One very much painful and one more intense. But could that be because I wasn’t using my relaxation techniques? HMMMM.

So after that, an even deeper connection was made to this fear-tension-pain syndrome! I remembered how much of this childbirth thing with hypnosis is about letting go and not fighting what is happening to your uterus muscle! If you do…you are making it SO much worse!

The childbirth experience is intense, yes. The most intense thing I’ve ever been through…but I can confidently say that I did not experience pain. Pain and intensity are two very different things. The definition of intense if you look it up is…

Intense experience? Yes. Painful? Doesn’t have to be.

So now that you know just one small but important aspect of Hypnobabies, how do you actually DO IT?

Well first you retrain your brain in regards to childbirth vocabulary that your used to, childbirth thoughts and emotions that might be negative and fearful. There is a lot of visualizing and repetition.

But to break it down so you know exactly what it requires…

Each week you read a lesson. There are 6. The lessons are chock full of information and pages are oozing with positive vibes about childbirth. You can slowly start to see your whole perspective changing about childbirth. It’s not brainwashing, it’s actual information and education about childbirth, the way it’s supposed to be, naturally.

Then after you do your reading, you are assigned one or two tracks to listen to interchangeably throughout the week. For example, the first week you listen to the ‘Special Safe Place’ track on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, where you create and visualize a place you can go to in your mind where you feel the most safe and comfortable. The second one is called, ‘Easy Comfortable Childbirth” you listen to on TTS. They are different each week and progressively introduce you to new techniques. I’ll give an example of a technique in a minute.

All you do for each of these sessions, which are 30 minutes each, is get really comfortable somewhere (usually for me it was lying down in my bed or couch) and you turn on the audio. You listen and relax. You try to follow the relaxation suggestions as best as you can and you find yourself more relaxed than you have ever felt before. It’s heaven.  You practice relaxing so much that you become a master relaxer. It will amaze you how relaxed you can get.

Anyway, to give you an example of a hypnosis technique you learn and use in your childbirth is something called the fingerdrop technique. During the first few weeks you are guided to ‘enter’ this deep state of relaxation very quickly by dropping your finger. Once it hits the surface it’s on you automatically can be in the deepest state of relaxation you know. This happens because of something that you visualized earlier in your sessions. Let me explain.

While relaxing with your eyes closed, the voice on the audio suggests that you imagine there is a light switch at the base of your neck. When you mentally turn this light switch off (with the finger drop) it’s like shutting down the connection between your brain and the rest of your body which means your nerves, muscles etc don’t work anymore. So if you follow that suggestion and believe it for the sake of easy, comfortable childbirth then your body really can’t move while your switch is off and you can’t feel anything. It’s called hypnoanesthesia.

I’m not going to go into how powerful the brain is at controlling the body. It’s basically a servant to your mind and this stuff works.

I’ll never forget the exercise at our first set of classes when we were all a little skeptical still but following the suggestions to the best of our ability so our teacher decided to do a little experiment on us. We used our finger drop technique and went into a state of hypnosis, our light switches off. Not being able to move or feel anything our birth partners or husbands pinched us. No big deal. Or so we thought. David told me later that she demonstrated on them just how hard to pinch us. It hurt he said! When we turned our switch back on and could sit up and move she had the husbands pinch us again in the exact same way and pressure as they did before. I nearly hit my husband I was so offended by him hurting me so! There was no way he pinched me that hard when I was in ‘hypnosis’. It barely felt like anything at all! I couldn’t believe it and neither could he. It works.

So this finger drop technique is only one example of something that is to help you have a more comfortable childbirth experience. Hypnobabies is full of them.

It’s also full of knowledge and education like I said before. Having taken this course for my first child, I never experienced a hospital birth and all the things that come with it. So all the hearsay I read and heard about was just that…something I read about and heard about. A lot of times, we looked at each other as said, could it really be that bad?

Well for the first time this last month when I was in the hospital making sure everything was OK with baby boy, we saw one small part of it with our own eyes…our lovely doctor was literally shocked that my body was able to deliver a 9lb 12 oz baby. He couldn’t believe it. If I had had Ben in the hospital I would have had a C-section. That proved it right there.

This is only one example of the conceptions and views that hospitals/doctors have about childbirth and most of them lead to unneccessary c-sections. Our bodies don’t produce something ‘too big’ for us to handle.

Was it a lot of work pushing out an almost 10 lb baby? Yup. It took 2.5 hours. It was the hardest, most intense and grueling and strenuous thing I’ve done. Painful? No. Just hard work.

So what is Hypnobabies?

It’s learning to relax. It’s learning to let go. It’s brain boot camp baby. And it produces relaxation masterminds out of you! Being able to control your mind and your body with such ease and confidence.

If I can do it. ANYBODY can do it. Just ask my mom. 🙂