Ten Reasons To Try Hypnobirthing
So you are looking after your body, fitness and health during pregnancy but have you also thought about mentally preparing yourself for the birth of your baby? Both physical and mental preparation will set you up for the best start and today’s blogpost, written by Emma Harwood-Jones covers why you should try hypnobirthing so you are not just physically preparing your body but preparing your mind too.
Childbirth is not something to be feared; it’s not meant to be exhausting or excruciatingly painful. For healthy women and healthy babies, it’s a natural function of women’s bodies and should be a calm, gentle and instinctive experience. HypnoBirthing is an education programme for pregnant women and their birthing partners, which embraces positive birthing and teaches women how to stay in control of their birthing experience.
Here are 10 reasons why it’s worth trying:
1. HypnoBirthing is about understanding that it is the fear of pain that keeps the body tense and closed during birth, which in turn causes pain. Through HypnoBirthing, fear is released to allow a more comfortable and gentler birthing experience.
2. You learn breathing and visualisation techniques for labour and birth, which help you feel more in control and make the experience easier and more comfortable.
3. The techniques are simple and easy to learn and although you are in hypnosis you are fully aware at all times and able to bring yourself in and out of hypnosis at any time.
4. HypnoBirthing gives you the best opportunity for a natural birth because there is less need for pain relieving drugs and studies show that babies born naturally without drugs during childbirth, are healthier, more alert and feed better.
5. You learn to breathe your baby down using the birth breathing technique and your own natural expulsive reflex to calmly birth your baby without the need for any forced pushing.
6. HypnoBirthing promotes pre-natal and post-natal bonding and enables you to have an instinctive birthing experience connecting with your baby and your birthing body.
7. Birth companions play an integral role in the birthing experience, supporting you with positions, protecting the birth plan as much as possible, keeping you comfortable with whatever you need, including light touch massage to help release endorphins, the body’s natural tranquiliser.
8. If special circumstances do arise before or during labour, you and your birth companion will learn to ask the right questions so you can make informed decisions and ultimately feel more positive about the birthing experience.
9. Calm breathing and self-hypnosis is an incredibly useful technique to relax the body and mind, which can be used throughout pregnancy to relax at the end of the day, and at any time in life.
10. By attending group HypnoBirthing courses, you will meet and get to know other local expectant couples as a support group in the lead up to your birth.
For HypnoBirthing to really make a difference, you have to practice the techniques regularly to fully prepare your mind and body, which is what the classes help you to do. The HypnoBirthing course enables you to release any anxieties about childbirth and gives you the confidence to trust in your own natural birthing instincts.
Emma Harwood-Jones, HypnoBirthing Practitioner, Practises Hypnobithing in Herfordshire, UK and is Founder of Together Birthing.
www.togetherbirthing.com
