What is hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy uses hypnosis to access the subconscious mind to change behavioural patterns. During hypnosis, the mind goes into a state of focused concentration which is similar to deep relaxation, allowing the subconscious mind to be open to receiving useful thoughts.
What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness. It is a normal state that happens just as you are drifting in and out of sleep. It is a deep state of relaxation. We are often in a hypnotised state for instance when we are day dreaming and not paying attention to what is going on around us. Have you ever found yourself watching the television but your thoughts are miles away and are left wandering ‘what happened then’? Or you get to the end of a page in a book and can’t remember a word of what you just read. That is hypnosis, we experience it many times in our everyday life. Hypnosis is not about being unconscious, that would be pointless, we want you to be alert and focused when birthing your baby.
What does it feel like to be hypnotised?
It feels like that lovely time when you are just about to fall asleep, when all muscles in your body are free of tension and you feel calm and peaceful.
What is the value of hypnosis during childbirth?
During hypnosis your brain is being taught to receive useful relearning techniques, enabling your subconscious to accept the knowledge that birth can be a wonderful, calm and relaxed experience. It allows you to relax so deeply it releases any tension in your body thereby allowing birthing to take its natural course, it increases the production of our own natural pain relief hormone that is 200 times more powerful than Pethidine. This special hypnotic state also helps to maintain and assure the flow of oxygen to the baby. Hypnosis eliminates the anxiety that can cause a reduction in oxygen flow.
Do we learn self-hypnosis?
All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. The HypnoBirthing® practitioner just trains you on how to achieve a deep state of hypnosis. You are given different tools to enable you to achieve a deep state, some you will use whilst birthing some you may never use, but the course empowers you and gives you choices.
Can hypnosis be dangerous to the mother or baby?
Quite the opposite. When a mother is stressed she produces adrenaline which then sends stress messages to the baby and causes the baby to be stressed.
When a mother is in a deep state of relaxation, hypnosis, she sends soothing messages across the placenta to the baby. By the sixth month the baby’s brain is able to take in messages and retain them. It is therefore far better for the mother to be relaxed and send soothing messages to the baby.
How does hypnosis work?
Hypnosis works through suggestions. Our minds are constantly given suggestive stimuli, both internally and externally. These have created good and bad habits. In hypnosis we replace the negative thoughts with positive ones. There is a connection between emotion and muscle tension. The goal of hypnosis in childbirth is to eliminate the discomforts of labour, our first job is to remove all tension and relax all muscles by introducing the ability to achieve a deep state of relaxation.
Why is it necessary for a partner to attend?
As part of the course partners are also hypnotised. By being hypnotised the partners are able to help the mother into an hypnotic state. Partners are actually taught how to relax the mothers. It gives partners a great sense of comfort to know they can have such a profound effect on the mother.
Other important advantages of the partner attending is for them to learn how they can play a vital part in the birthing process, and by them realising this, we aid the bonding process between parents and baby. Partner and mother are working together as a team to enable them to achieve the calm relaxed birth they want. Becoming a parent often brings fear of this new role to the surface. Both will learn they are not alone in their anxieties and will, through creating this special bond of understanding and knowledge, create a lasting bond.
Please contact Kerry Weaver for Hypnotherapy services:
For more information visit the Hypnotherapist Register.
