The problem with alternative therapies is that there are a lot of ridiculous ones. Take homeopathy, for example. No, I don’t care if you think it worked on your cat, it’s sugar pills and water hit with a stick. And that unfortunately means that some things that could potentially actually be helpful can get thrown by the wayside by sceptics like me.
Hypnobirthing sounds like something quite airy fairy, but is actually based in simple psychology. We all know that a positive state of mind and strong belief in something can have an effect on your physical wellbeing. The placebo effect is a common phenomenon, and it’s all about mind over matter. Hypnobirthing goes along similar lines.
The concept is simple. If you learn through breathing and visualisation exercises, repeated frequently, to be able to focus your mind and relax your body, so much the better for you and your baby during labour. There are no claims that this will result in a ‘perfect’ birth (whatever that is) or that you definitely won’t need medical intervention, but people who have gone on to have Caesareans or other forms of intervention have still found it useful.
The course that I’m currently attending from The Hypnobirthing Centre is two Saturday sessions (10am – 5pm or thereabouts); after that you go away with a book, a folder full of exercises and a CD of music and visualisations to practise at home. The practitioner is Katharine Graves, a hypnotherapist who is also a doula.
Overall, I’m finding that it’s common sense. We covered the mechanics of what happens to your muscles during labour and a few simple exercises which showed that focussing your mind elsewhere can have an immediate effect on how your body responds. That helped put everyone in a more positive state of mind about the possibilities, as did having a couple of mothers present who had used hypnobirthing in their last pregnancy and found it useful enough to fancy a refresher. Then it was just a question of working through some visualisation and relaxation exercises and discussing any questions.
Next week’s session will include some videos of hypnobirthing used during labour (we’ve been promised nothing icky as Katharine herself is pretty squeamish!), and more practise.
It’s likely that any hypnobirthing practitioner will stress the joys of a home birth, but if you’re definitely not going for that option (and many on my course are not) you will not be made to feel like a hospital birth is the wrong choice; in fact the stress is on going with your instincts, and if they lead you to hospital, then so be it!
The aim is also clearly to encourage a ‘natural’ - I do so hate that term; are we too coy to say ‘vaginal’? - birth, but again there’s nothing to stop you using all the techniques even if you end up having a Caesarean. So it can be useful whether or not you view birth as a particularly medical event or not.
The one key thing you can take away from hypnobirthing is learning to reject the unnecessary negatives. This is not to say you shouldn’t be informed about what’s happening to you and the decisions you might need to make, but it’s not your job to worry about the ‘what ifs’ of labour; that’s why you have a midwife (or two) at your disposal, after all.
When your friends come rushing round to tell you all the horror stories (and they will), and every book or film you’ve ever read or watched treats birth as this incredibly traumatic, screaming, bloody event, it’s no wonder if you’re in a negative mindset before you’re even pregnant. Hypnobirthing aims to give you a calm and confident outlook so that even if things don’t go to ‘plan’ (and since the baby will come when it wants to, there’s little you can plan) you will feel much more control over the situation. Since you’re sharing a bloodstream with your baby until they emerge, that can only help keep them equally calm.
Hypnobirthing classes are not cheap – ours is about £300 per couple – but I definitely feel I would not have got far doing it without a practitioner. You might feel differently and want to just learn from a book. And yes, I’ll tell you if it helped after the birth, though you’ll have to hang on another three or four months!
You can follow Katharine on Twitter (@hypnobirthing) or find a practitioner through Hypnobirthing UK.
Image via librarising.com