Hypnobirthing – The power of our mind!

The mind is powerful, the body would be useless without the mind to control it. Everything we do and feel is controlled by our mind. As we go through life we form opinions from what we have seen, heard or experienced. Our thoughts, feelings and opinions are absorbed into our subconscious mind, often without us having any knowledge of how they got there, and frequently without ever questioning whether the information that we have based these thoughts, feelings or opinions on was accurate in the first place!

Birth is a perfect example of this, and perhaps it isn’t until we are pregnant that our previously formed opinions come to the forefront of our mind. Opinion is often that birth will be incredibly painful, that it will be hard work, awful and it is something to be feared and worried about. We then start to doubt our ability to cope, feeling that it is something that we have no control over and have to just get through.

As humans we are naturally designed to survive, therefore we are more likely to pay attention to negative input as this will help to keep us safe and alert for danger. As soon as we inform folk we are pregnant, they seem to delight in reinforcing our negative thoughts, feeding our subconscious mind with all their horror stories of birth, but… it doesn’t have to be that way!

 

Let’s reframe this a little….

“No other natural bodily function is painful and childbirth should not be an exception.”

— Grantly Dick-Read, M.D.

 

A woman giving birth enables the survival of the human race, so why would nature make this difficult? Women are perfectly designed to give birth, however, when we are fearful of something our bodies react differently and this can interfere with the birthing process, if we understand this, then we can help our bodies to birth as nature intended.

Let’s imagine for a moment that birth is wonderful, that it is something to feel excited about, an invigorating experience that women have been enjoying for years. It is intense but not painful, it is amazing! Now I can’t promise that! But let us imagine how we might view birth if that was all we had been told or seen our whole life. I would imagine we would approach birth with an entirely different mind-set. We would probably look forward to our baby’s birthday. We would begin labour feeling confident in our body’s ability; we would feel happy, calm and relaxed. We would produce an abundance of hormones that would make us feel empowered and comfortable; and would produce plentiful amounts of natural endorphins to assist us during the intensity of surges.

Hypnobirthing is much more than relaxation and breathing. Hypnobirthing is a full antenatal education programme that with practice helps to reframe your subconscious mind so that you can feel in control, positive and excited about your upcoming birth, be prepared and confident in your body’s ability to give birth so that you will remember your baby’s birthday because it was amazing! Hypnobirthing is logical and it really works, and it always makes a difference in any situation for any type of birth….

This is why I am so passionate about Hypnobirthing!