Home HypnoBirthing® How Hypnosis Eases Childbirth
You are getting very sleepy. You are going to give birth, and you are going to like it.
These are some of the ideas heard in HypnoBirthing® classes that are regaining popularity with pregnant women and their partners.
"Most people are fed information that pregnancy is uncomfortable and that birthing is painful, dangerous and scary," said Lowell doula Dena Carmosino. A doula assists women in childbirth.
Some say the experience of giving birth is only associated with those feelings because people expect them.
Dismantling those expectations through hypnosis is the aim of a class Carmosino teaches at the Roudenbush Community Center in Westford.
Carmosino has been doing birth work for 16 years and is finishing her certification as a midwife. She teaches HypnoBirthing® in Lowell, Westford and Leominster, and often works in home birth settings. She says the benefits of HypnoBirthing® are mental and physical.
Practicing hypnosis that has reinforced a harmony between a woman's mind and the natural physical process of childbirth allows mothers going into labor to relax at the point when they often get tense.
"It allows the blood to flow where it needs to flow," Carmosino says.
Many hypnobirths don't last as long as others, she says. Some women say they feel almost no pain.
"HypnoBirthing® is built on the tenet that your body is a robot," she says. "We all know this, but it's never so apparent as during childbirth."
A member of Carmosino's class, Lynne Delise of Arlington, is expecting her first baby in February.
"I am not a pain person," she says. "Six months ago, I wanted all the drugs you could get (while in labor)."
But as of Friday, she says she plans on going into labor without medication.
More relaxing
Mothers-to-be have many reasons for attending HypnoBirthing® classes. Some say they want a way to make their hospital birth more relaxing, and some do it because they wanted a birthing experience that is nothing like a hospital stay.
A popular method of reducing pain during natural childbirth (without pain medication) and home childbirth, HypnoBirthing® is being re-introduced in hospitals where the option of an epidural, a type of anesthesia, is available.
Childbirth educator Linda Jezak, of Lowell General Hospital, jumped at the chance to teach a HypnoBirthing® class two years ago. The method, which has been around for centuries, birth educators say, was more popular in the late 1970s and early '80s, but has regained some of its popularity in the last five years.
Once women started talking about it, Jezak says, more nurses and doctors endorsed the idea.
"At first we had a lot of nonbelievers, but people are very happy with the results," she says. "We're very comfortable with it, and doctors are very respectful of these women's wishes."
Elise Brouillette, of Chelmsford, thought her son, Liam, 2, would be born the "traditional" way in a hospital. But after taking the tour, she found she did not like the clinical hospital approach.
"The idea of having a neo-natal unit in the room did not comfort me," she says. "But midwifing and HypnoBirthing® seemed so empowering, rather than depleting." She credits the HypnoBirthing® method for her smooth labor: 3 hours, 20 minutes of hard labor. "Three hours felt like 20 minutes to me," Brouillette says. "There were a couple of hours there that I don't know where they went. Time just disappeared." Brouillette says she thinks HypnoBirthing® worked for her because she practiced every night for three months. "People who put (time) into it get results. It's not the kind of thing you can cram for in a week or two."
Finding a better way
HypnoBirthing® student Mary Morse, of Westford, is expecting twins in late February. Giving birth to her first child, who is now 3, was not the kind of experience she wanted. "The first 22 hours were great. The last three were not," she says. The labor led to an unwanted episiotomy, or incision, from which she has not entirely recovered.
Some of what she was told to do by doctors during her first labor was "counter to what I was feeling at the time," she says.
So she set out to find a better way and found various sources pointing toward HypnoBirthing®.
Sarah Fletcher of Westford, who gave birth to her first child on April 19, never intended to give birth in a hospital. "I really don't like the medical model of childbearing," says Fletcher, who is schooled in alternative healing methods. She says she had no question that natural childbirth at home was the way to go for her. "There is a lot of fear around childbirth, but for me, it's got to be the most natural, primal, instinctual thing you could do," she says.
Husbands also say they benefit. They attend class and go through all the relaxation exercises along with their wives. During labor, their role includes reading scripts that relax the mother.
Carmosino said one client's husband inadvertently overcame his phobia of hospitals through the process.
Tom Morse, of Westford, says he likes the class because now he knows of ways he can help his wife during labor.
"It's not the kind of thing you talk about when you're out with the guys," he says. "Childbirth comes up right after our feelings, so it doesn't usually come up."
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