Home HypnoBirthing® Doula Pregnancy Library
by Denise Henry
Cleveland Magazine, January 2003
Volume 32, Number 1
As she gave birth to her first child, Cristal Churchill of Maple Heights imagined herself walking along the beach. As her induced labor contractions progressed, she sank deeper into that relaxing vision. With her eyes closed and her body calm, Churchill concentrated on delivering her baby successfully. She used hypnosis as her only means of pain relief during her five-hour labor and delivery.
Churchill, who gave birth to Elizabeth at The Cleveland Clinic, joined a growing number of women who practice HypnoBirthing®, an alternative to Lamaze.
"I knew I couldn't do the Lamaze breathing and wanted something where I was more in control of the birth of my baby," Churchill says. "A lot of my success using hypnosis depended on me believing in myself; that I could do this and it wouldn't be a catastrophe."
Sunday Tortelli, a certified childbirth educator and doula who teaches HypnoBirthing® locally, says the technique is based on a simple premise: Childbirth is a natural and positive experience.
"Women in the class learn to reprogram their minds to think optimistically and feel confident about childbirth," Tortelli explains. "The more simply we approach it, the easier it will be."
HypnoBirthing®'s relaxation and visualization can reduce contraction pain and speed up labor, according to Tortelli. A technique called glove relaxation, for example, enables a women [sic] to use her mind to make her body numb from head to toe. She begins by using her concentration to numb her hand, then moves that hand about her body, making each part she touches numb as well.
Another technique, called rainbow relaxation, uses visualization to decrease pain. While in labor, a woman envisions a rainbow -- color by color -- slipping into a deeper state of relaxation and reducing tension in the body.
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