Last week was our first hypnobirthing class, tomorrow is our second of 5 total classes! So far i'm loving this approach to natural childbirth, it just makes sense to me. Our bodies were meant to birth a baby so why should it hurt, this has always puzzled me so I think that's why this method intrigued me. The idea behind hypnobirthing is that birth should not be a painful ordeal (uncomfortable sure, but not painful), but that in our current society we've turned it into a painful ordeal thru fear. There's currently so much fear wrapped up into the pain of birthing that most woman choose to get the epidural. At the hospital that I'll be birthing at 90% of the woman get epidurals so i'll definitely be a minority if I can go all natural =). Hypnobirthing teaches women techniques in which to release fear of birthing and to relax and work with the body in birthing. Some of these techniques involve self-hypnosis, which really is just a deep relaxation in which you're still aware of your surroundings you're just very relaxed. Now given I have never been in labor so this post is not meant to offend others who have birthed babies that experienced pain, this is just something I'm researching and going to try out for our birthing, hopefully it works =).
The class we're attending entails reading "Hypnobirthing, The Mongan Method" by Marie F. Mongan, listening to a relaxation CD daily, reading various articles and practicing various relaxation techniques as well as attending the 5 classes. The class we're attending has 5 other couples and is taught by a delivery nurse who is trained in hypnobirthing as well as hypnosis. During our first class the instructor went thru the history of hypnobirthing and went thru some of the physical things that will occur while birthing as well as most peoples reactions. This was the most interesting part of the class. It just made sense, she explained how most people's fight or flight instinct is triggered while birthing in which woman are fighting against the birthing process instead of working with it. That's where hypnobirthing comes in. Essentially what I've learned so far is that everytime there is a uterine surge the idea is to go into deep relaxation using different breathing techniques. Then once you reach the last stages of labor instead of pushing you actually breath the baby down. Now I know this sounds crazy, trust me I know. But we watched several birthing videos of women during hypnobirthing and the actual delivery and there was actually no pushing like you see in the movies they did a different form of breathing and working with their bodies the babies were able to be delivered. Sounds like over the next several weeks we'll practice these different breathing techniques and other techniques to help us relax with the help of our birthing coach. Surprisingly enough Rion didn't hate the class, he thought what was being said made sense. The only part he didn't like was that the class lasts from 7-10PM on Wednesday night so does make it hard after a long day at work to go and sit for that long.
Overall I'm just super excited about the birthing process now, I'm so eager to see how the birth goes and of course to meet this little baby girl. Now again I hope I'm not offending anyone by this post, I just mearly wanted to share what I've been learning about this method. I also have no judgement of people who have received an epidural, it's just not something I want to do mainly due to the fact that my fear of the epidural is much greater then any fear I have of birthing =).
Here's a website with more information is anyone is interested in learning more
http://www.hypnobirthing.com/default.htm
