It’s not magic, voodoo or mind control (actually it’s kinda mind control but it’s about YOU controlling your mind instead of your mind controlling you). No swinging watches required!
Let’s start with the hypno piece of the program.
Self hypnosis can help you enter into a deep state of emotional and physical relaxation. It can also reduce fear so you feel more confident.
Why is that important?
Fear and anxiety trigger the continued release of adrenaline which can make your labor more stressful, more exhausting and more painful. In most hypnobirthing programs you’ll practice with audio recordings that will condition you to be calmer in labor so your body can get on with the job of producing lots of happy labor hormones….with less fear your labor progresses faster and usually more comfortably.
The ultimate goal of hypnobirthing is to change the automatic behavior of moms so that when labor begins you feel excited for the challenge not petrified. How cool is that? Your brain doesn’t sabotage your birth hormones with fear but can now produce the perfect hormonal cocktail of birth hormones. Regular practice is recommended for the best results as that automatic response of fear of labor was usually learned at a young age and TV/social media reinforces that belief daily.
Some hypnobirthing approaches are really flexible and open in their philosophy and see hypnobirthing as a tool that can be used alongside medication and there’s the more extreme ‘die hard’ inflexible approach that suggests epidurals are the devil’s work (as you might guess GentleBirth takes the first approach).