“Your unborn baby has a direct connection to your thoughts and emotions.” Deepak Chopra, MD
The connection between mother and child occurs at a deep cellular level and includes not only physical nourishment, but thoughts and emotional states. As Thomas Verny, MD explains, everything the pregnant mother feels and thinks is communicated through neurohormones to her unborn child. These thoughts and emotions can have a huge impact on fetal development as well as on the behavior of the child in the future.
Anxiety, tension and fear are the most common factors affecting women during pregnancy. When the mother experiences these feelings and emotions the fetus also experiences them. During the actual childbirth process if these feelings are unresolved complications of the natural birth process can arise. When experiencing anxiety, tension or fear the body instinctively enters the “fight or flight” state. In this state stress hormones are released that cause the muscles to tighten in preparation for the body to deal with the implied danger. This contributes to increased physical pain, lack of energy, sleeping problems and can lead to unnecessary interventions during labor.
By eliminating anxiety, fears and tensions throughout the pregnancy and replacing those beliefs instead with safe, positive, reaffirming expectations the birth experience can be the natural, beautiful process it was meant to be.
Part of the fears associated with childbirth is that society today has a preconceived notion that childbirth has to be painful, that is not the case. In learning deep relaxation the natural process of childbirth discomfort can be eliminated or greatly diminished. There is no discomfort in doubling up your fist, which is a normal muscle contraction. Your uterus is also a muscle, and because it contracts does not mean that sensation has to be experienced as painful. You can choose how you would like to experience that feeling. You could experience it as small, manageable cramps or even simply as a hardening of the muscle that will bring that new bundle of joy into your life quickly and easily. The choice is yours to make.
By allowing the mother to have a choice and be in control of her birth process without any negative associations produces a more peaceful and enjoyable birth.
How Hypnotherapy Can Help
- Relief from morning sickness
- Relief from low back pain and other discomforts due to body changes during pregnancy
- Relief from headaches and other pain that cannot be treated with medications during pregnancy
- Shortened delivery time
- Decrease or eliminate the need of pain medication during labor and delivery
- Increased bonding with baby before it is born
- Create a positive state of mind that transfers to the baby
- Gain relaxation skills to relax deeply during labor process
- Provide a joyful birthing experience free of worry, fear and anxiety – beneficial for mother, baby and partner