Home HypnoBirthing® How Hypnosis Eases Childbirth
Special
delivery: Hypnosis may ease childbirth pains
Obstetrician-hypnotist and institute among growing number using method
BY SHARI RUDAVSKY srudavsky@herald.com
Published Sunday, July 2, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Forget epidurals, Demerol and Lamaze.
Miguel A. Gonzalez, a Broward General Medical Center obstetrician, now offers
his patients an alternative way to tough up through childbirth: hypnosis.
He belongs to a small but growing number of childbirth professionals embracing
the technique to help patients experience relatively pain-free, completely
natural births. Since it was founded in 1989, the HypnoBirthing
Institute, based in Epsom, N.H., has trained more than 400 nurse-midwives,
labor and birthing nurses, and hypnotherapists. The institute's graduates,
based around the country, teach women how to hypnotize themselves to manage
their labor.
A master of hypnotherapy and fully accredited physician, Dr. Gonzalez describes
his technique as tapping into the woman's subconscious mind to persuade her
to relax and ride through the contractions rather than writhe in agony.
"The whole idea is to transform the sensation of pain so that she feels
something but she doesn't recognize it as pain,'' said Gonzalez, who started
offering the method to his patients a few months ago. "The word `pain'
is out of my vocabulary. That's very important because pain is a very suggestive
type of condition. You can block it out.''
Weeks before giving birth, Jessica Gomez, of North Lauderdale, planned to
have hypnosis. Then her first serious contractions set in. Her boyfriend offered
to induce hypnosis but Gomez wanted none of it. "The pain was
so strong,'' said Gomez, 23. ``I was like, `Forget about the hypnotism. Just
give me something.' ''
`MORE LIKE DISCOMFORT'
About two hours after Gomez arrived at the hospital, Gonzalez persuaded her
to try to close her eyes and relax, as he had taught her. The pain receded
instantly like noise muting when you dunk your head under water. "Under
the hypnosis you still feel the pain, but it's more like discomfort. . . .
The pain wasn't as strong as it was before,'' said Gomez, who gave birth for
the first time. Fifteen minutes later out came all six pounds, 10 ounces
of Jose Marcus Santiago.
Hypnosis in the birthing room is not new. In the 1920s British obstetrician
Grantly Dick-Read touted the notion. Hypnosis enjoyed flickers of popularity
but never became a mainstream practice. Twenty-five years ago when Gonzalez
first started practicing, he delivered his own children while his wife was
under hypnosis. Marie Mongan, who founded the HypnoBirthing â
Institute, delivered her four now-grown children, using the method.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does not have
a position on hypnosis, and the technique has not secured a place in the labor
and delivery room. "The general medical profession has never accepted
hypnosis in any global kind of way. It's like an offshoot somewhere,'' said
Dr. Raphael S. Good, a professor of psychiatry and obstetrics-gynecology at
the University of Miami School of Medicine.
Recently, however, the medical profession has started paying more attention
to hypnosis, not just for childbirth but to control pain during surgery.
`VALID AND VIABLE'
"Hypnosis is a very valid and viable tool,'' said Dr. Charles Mutter,
a psychiatrist at the UM School of Medicine and past president of the American
Society of Clinical Hypnosis. "Pain is predicated by fear because pain
is a subjective complaint. No area in the brain measures pain or the degree
of it. It's how you're taught from childhood.''
In the sessions, which start about a month before a woman is due, Gonzalez
tries to recondition the way the mother-to-be approaches childbirth.
"Labor pains don't mean anything to you. You're going to have uterine
contractions that are rhythmic and when they're rhythmic, it's not labor,
it's the childbirth process,'' he says soothingly. Relax your pelvis
during contractions. Do not be afraid, be confident.
The HypnoBirthing Institute sends a
similar message that childbirth does not need to be painful. "What creates
pain is the fear that causes the muscles to tense and constrict rather than
to open,'' Mongan said. "We teach mothers to bring themselves into a
really profound state of relaxation. They just turn birthing over to their
bodies.''
During Gonzalez's prebirth sessions, he tests his persuasive powers, pricking
the woman's arm or belly with a needle or giving her a hard pinch after telling
her she will not feel a thing. To demonstrate, he called in his very pregnant
secretary Marlene Orozco, due to deliver her baby girl Bianca any day.
COMMUNING
The 28-year-old woman closes her eyes and quickly follows his direction to
"go to that special place'' and commune with her subconscious. Gonzalez
brushes his hand against her forearm, "anaesthetizing'' it with his touch.
He then plunges a sterilized needle into her arm, drawing a bead of blood.
Orozco does not flinch. Her face remains placid.
Such preparation and support alone go far toward helping Orozco and other
women when her contractions begin, said UM's Good, who never used hypnosis,
in part because he did not feel he would be a good hypnotist.
"It's important to note that being prepared, even without hypnosis, makes
a major difference with the perception of pain and that's not limited to labor
pain. If you have a supporting environment, you can reduce pain,'' he said.
"Pain is a complicated story.''
Flora Boatner of Pompano Beach had hoped to avoid that. Pregnant for the first
time at 39, she heard over and over again from people how hard labor would
be for her -- and she feared needles. But she was delighted when she saw that
her obstetrician had a hypnosis certificate hanging in his office.
Two months after giving birth to Cameren Alysse on April 26, Boatner remembers
feeling pain only once during two hours of hard labor.
`ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL'
"It was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I was completely coherent. I
remember everything that happened,'' she said. So coherent, in fact, that
in between contractions she talked on the phone with her stock broker. The
pain blocking techniques worked so well that Gonzalez was able to perform
an episiotomy on her without anesthesia. The only negative side effect
of the experience: Boatner's afraid to touch her forefinger and thumb together
-- the cue Gonzalez used to induce hypnosis -- for fear she will inadvertently
place herself under hypnosis once more.
Positive Human Dynamics, Ltd
1453 Rio Rancho Blvd., Ste E Rio Rancho, NM 87124
(505) 892-1313 www.posihd.com