HypnoBirthing Session One - Recap

I know my blog is primarily Raw food centered, but the raw lifestyle can reach into so many other areas of life that are natural, beautiful, eco friendly, etc. It all fits, if you ask me. I also have many women writing to me that they are glad I'm sharing my personal journey with fertility and pregnancy, the things I'm experiencing, the things I'm learning. So, with that introduction...

On Sunday, we attended our first HypnoBirthing session in preparation for our future homebirth. HypnoBirthing is a special alternative to the traditional Lamaze and Bradley classes that many folks take. HypnoBirthing might sound a little "out there" to some, but it's been pretty amazing so far. The basic premise of HypnoBirthing, according to HypnoBirthing.com, is that it's a unique method of relaxed, natural childbirth education enhanced by self-hypnosis techniques. Sounds good to me. :)

Even though we've only had one session, my take is that it's basically getting into a meditative, relaxed state during child birth, which can help the mom to better cope with it. I saw a few videos on YouTube and most women usually look like they're having a nice, relaxed birth. In a number of cases, you wouldn't even know they're experiencing child birth. That probably sounds crazy to some people. On the other hand, there are some people who went through HypnoBirthing classes only to find that they couldn't really use the techniques when it came to birthing time. I learned that one important thing is practice, practice, practice. The more I practice the HypnoBirthing techniques, the better my chances are that HypnoBirthing will be an awesome experience for me. Ongoing, daily listening of the cds is important, as well as reading the HypnoBirthing book about 4 times, attending all classes, and practicing breathing. There is more to it but I'm not that far into the course to describe it.

I read the HypnoBirthing book before I got pregnant, and I've been listening to the hypnobirthing relaxation and affirmation cds for many months now. They were instrumental in helping me relax for our fertility adventure with Mini-IVF. As far as I was concerned, this wasn't going to be just a tool for birthing, I was eager to implement these elements to my whole life.

Our session on Sunday focused on a few things.

1) Language - there is a preferred HypnoBirthing language that should be used. For example: We say "surge" instead of contraction. We say "birth companion" instead of coach (for the husband or partner). We say "birthing time/month" instead of due date. We say "birth breathing" instead of pushing. We say "pressure/sensation/tightening" instead of pain or contractions. Personally, I really like the suggested words. I feel much more relaxed saying the word "surge or pressure" instead of contraction or pain. The HypnoBirthing language relaxes me and the medicalized language tenses me. The next step will be teaching this to the grandmas who will probably attend the homebirth.

2) "Emergency Room" vs "Healing Room" - These are not actual rooms, but rather they are states of mind. In life we should strive to only be in the emergency (stressed, high alert, tense) state about 2-5% of our lives at the most, during those rare instances that legitimately require a fight or flight response such as emergencies, etc. The rest of our time should be enjoying the healing room. :) Most likely, we all spend more than 2-5% in the emergency room, but being aware of this and making a concerted effort to increase the time in the healing room is a good start. When we're in the healing room, our breathing is deep and relaxed, our digestive system is relaxed and running efficiently, and we feel good. When we're in the emergency room, we're tense, on alert, breathing is more labored, digestion is put on hold, etc.

This becomes important during child birth because if a woman is in the emergency room state of mind during this time, her cervix can tighten up, thereby making birthing more difficult and increasing the chances of "special circumstances." (That's more HypnoBirthing language... we say "special circumstances" instead of complications. Isn't that much nicer? I think any mom who plans a home birth and ends up having to go to the hospital will be in a much softer state of mind if she considers it due to special circumstances, rather than complications.)

3) Limp Lucy (Mom) and Gorilla (Dad) - Our HypnoBirthing instructor, Sherry Gilbert, had two little stuffed animals that she used to represent the birthing parents. Mine was Limp Lucy, which was a soft white bear that had really limp and loose arms and legs. All I could think about when I saw her was, "Ahhhhh..." Limp Lucy is totally relaxed and demonstrates the state in which I should strive for child birth, and how I should feel and look when doing my Calming Breathing. Heck, I want to be Limp Lucy all the time. The birth companion, on the other hand, is a protective gorilla. Need I say more? My husband found this image from the following article and he forwarded it to me with the following caption: Picture of me at homebirth when pizza guy comes to the door (my husband also noted that he is the gorilla on the left, pizza guy on the right - lol).

4) Surrounding myself with positive birthing stories

Our HypnoBirthing instructor gave us each one of these pins. I love it! She explained the importance of hearing positive birthing stories... and how it can do more harm than good when people share their birthing horror stories. She said that as I grow in size and my pregnancy becomes more obvious, I might be surprised how some strangers will feel compelled to share their "not so great" stories, and by wearing this pin I might be able to shield myself from that.

My HypnoBirthing homework for the week:

1) Go to the "healing room" daily

2) Listen to rainbow relaxation track on the HypnoBirthing cd once a day

3) Listen to affirmation track on the HypnoBirthing cd once a day

4) Practice my "Calming Breathing" 5X/day

5) My husband and I are to each visualize the home birth independently. Then, we need to discuss it and compare visualizations. That will be fun!

Here are some neat statistics about homebirthing experiences.

Here is a good article on WebMD, Hypnosis in the Delivery Room

And... here is a quick video showing HypnoBirthing in action. I noticed when they edited the video, they actually used the word "contraction" - oops!

Have any of you used HypnoBirthing? What did you think?