Would you rely on the power of the mind to get you through the pain of childbirth?
One new mum has opened up about going without pain relief medication during her labour, using hypnosis instead.
Eva Stephens claims that it significantly helped her when she gave birth to son Lumber last year, and it was all thanks to her husband Mark.
Mark is a professional hypnotist and told Australian TV show Today that he taught his wife to “relax”.
“It’s more of a meditation, so women can learn to meditate through the feelings and the pain,” he said.
Women in labour should imagine the feeling of contraction as a wave, he explained. This along with heavy breathing between contractions should help keep the pain at bay.
This ‘hypnosis’ helps the woman to produce endorphins which Mark said were a “a form of natural morphine in the body.”
“I would call (it) a tsunami, which my son learned to ride into the world, so we really loved that experience,” said Eva.
Releasing endorphins “pretty much gets rid of the fear that you have with the birth,” she added.
Mark warned anyone considering hypnosis not to rely on it alone, though.
“Your doctor is the professional in the room.”
Would you give it a go?
In an op-ed for HerFamily in 2016, professional hypnobirthing practitioner Emily McElarney explained that the method isn’t a simple pain-reliever but rather helps women to deal with the process calmly.
“Couples who have attended HypnoBirthing classes (which is 12.5 hours of classes with additional hours of practice – so not to be sniffed at!) can readily accept and calmly deal with any situations that arise in the birthing scenario,” she wrote.
“The bonus is, because HypnoBirthing women are informed and understand the physiology of birth, they are not afraid and feel confident in their ability.
“They have a birth toolkit at their disposal to help them focus, relax and keep in control. This often results in that ‘natural’ intervention-free birth the midwife may have been referring to.
“So does hypnobirthing ‘work’? Absolutely.”
You can read Emily’s article in full here.
Do you have any experience of hypnobirthing or would you consider trying it? Let us know in the Facebook comments or on Twitter.
