Hypnosis in Childbirth – How to use the trance state by Helen McPherson

A hypnotic state is a completely natural state that we all go into at least twice a day. That moment between sleeping and waking, when we are semi aware of what is going on around us but we do not react, even though we could. That moment when we are “miles away” and do not even hear someone speaking directly to us. Those times when we have driven home and wondered where the last few miles have gone as were completely unaware of them. All these are examples of trance states.

And in trance states we become extremely suggestible. Have you ever heard a song on the radio in the morning and cannot get it out of your head all day? That’s because it went straight into your head when you heard it. It bypassed the “critical factor” of your mind. This critical factor is your filter, which rejects ideas, statements, suggestions that do not accord with what you believe. If someone told you that they had just been to a place where the grass was blue, your critical factor, your filter, would filter out this idea and reject it because it does not accord with the belief system you have built up. Every blade of grass you have ever seen was green and as far as you know, every other person you know has only ever seen green grass, and that is the way life is – grass is green. We build up our critical factor through experience. It starts as a baby, when you drop the toy out of the pram it goes down. Every time. The toy never goes up. Hey presto, you have learnt about gravity. The critical factor of gravity has been created in your mind.

Unfortunately in the western world, very many women have built up a negative critical factor surrounding childbirth. When mothers talk about their birth experience they relish telling the most difficult bits, as if it were a competition – “I’m so tough because I endured 24 hours of labour.” “No, I’m harder. I suffered for 30 hours and had no pain relief and the hospital didn’t even believe me....” “Well you should hear about my aunty. She had her second twin 30 hours after the first! With no pain relief – she was in AGONY.” And so it goes on. Every TV drama or soap opera films a character giving birth in a screaming agony of pain. As children, childbirth is not talked about, kept behind closed doors. We never learn what it is really like. The conspiracy of fear has started.

So as we carry on through our teenage years, childbirth is not something that usually features. We can put the fear behind us, although every screaming labouring actress on the screen contributes to the critical factor that we are building up – childbirth is painful, VERY painful. Until one day we become pregnant ourselves. And then we cannot ignore it any longer, we WILL be giving birth to our baby. So we buy a few books. What do they talk about? PAIN relief. We go to antenatal classes. What do we learn there? How to manage PAIN. How to manage LABOUR.

And what associations do we have with the words employed for birth? The word Labour conjures up words such as work, hard, tough. What do you think of for the word Hospital? Most people think of sickness, illness, pain, even death. Many midwives talk about labour pains. Some midwives still assume that a labouring woman wants pain relief and ask her immediately what she would like “for the pain.”

We have been conditioned to expect that labour is long, arduous, agonising. When you enter any experience with an expectation, it is very often the case that your expectation is proved correct. If you expect a long, agonising labour, where you feel helpless and out of control then it is very possible that you will have a labour just like that.

Would it surprise you to know that this does not have to be the case? Women in many countries around the world give birth without the drama and screaming that we in the West associate with childbirth. When you use hypnosis in the process of birthing you stand to gain so much. Research has shown that birthing with hypnosis can help to achieve the following:

• Faster labour

• Efficient labour

• Less pain relief

• Less interventions

• A relaxed and healthy baby/less chance of distress

• Faster recovery

• Reduced incidence of post-natal depression

• Breast-feeding success

Isn't this what every pregnant woman wants?! A comfortable birth, with a healthy baby and a swift recovery. So how does hypnosis help birth?

1. Relaxation. The state of hypnosis is highly relaxing for the mind and body. In this state the entire body relaxes and so do the blood vessels. This relaxing or dilation of the blood vessels ensures a better blood flow throughout the body and especially to the womb.

2. Efficient Birth. During labour, a relaxed body will ensure that blood is diverted to the uterus in order that it can contract efficiently and progress labour smoothly and swiftly. A relaxed mind and body will ensure that the womb has the blood supply it needs. Post-natally a better milk supply is encouraged through good blood flow.

3. Calm the Emotions. The effect on the mind and emotions is profound. With hypnotherapy a woman can relieve stress and anxiety. This relief can help to achieve a calm birthing experience and later calm the emotions during the post-natal period.

4. Overcome Fear. Fear is the single greatest factor that you can change about your labour. Fear inhibits labour, constricts the blood supply and increases the perception of pain. This leads to the Fear-Tension-Pain cycle, where fear creates tension, which creates pain, which creates more fear of pain and so it goes on. If you can remove fear then you can aid your own body to do what comes naturally and that is to birth a baby comfortably and easily.

5. Stress Relief. When we are stressed or fearful we release adrenaline and other stress hormones into the blood stream. This tenses our bodies and a tense body feels pain and creates its own pain. Blood rushes to the arms and legs ready to fight or run, taking blood away from the uterus where it is needed to help the uterus to contract. If there is not enough blood flow to the uterus, it works less efficiently and slower and blood flow to the baby can be disrupted, resulting eventually in distress. Other blood vessels can be constricted, again stopping the uterus from working well. You can see that when hypnosis removes stress from the experience of childbirth, then a swift, comfortable birth of a relaxed baby will normally result.

6. Relaxed Baby. A tense mother will release stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol into the blood stream. These can in turn stress the baby, who then appears distressed to medical staff and interventions can result in order to speed up labour or bring the baby out quickly. Babies are designed to withstand many hours of labour and a relaxed baby will cope well even if labour does not progress as smoothly or quickly as hoped.

7. Post-Natal Recovery. A relaxed mother will have good blood flow around the body. This blood flow will assist soft tissues in recovery and promote a good milk supply. Stress is known to have an adverse effect on milk production so the relaxed mother has a head start.

By using hypnosis, a mother in labour can help herself to remain calm. Blood flow is improved and comfort increased. A relaxed mind and body can ease a labour to feel in control and positive. This good perception of labour and good blood flow will help post-natal recovery and the production of milk.

So how is all this achieved? A hypnotherapist will help you first with your fears. Remember the critical factor? If you have a negative view of childbirth then we need to work on that critical factor, challenge fears and negative beliefs and install positive ones. A woman’s body is designed for childbirth, it naturally opens up to allow a baby through, the brain naturally releases pain-relieving endorphins. But if you are too tense and trying to run away from the sensations then you can interfere with this process and end up feeling pain.

Many women fear feeling out of control during labour. But what do they really mean by this? Yes, the body is doing something strange that we are not in total control of but it is giving birth to a baby – a happy event. Firstly the cervix is opening and then the uterus is contracting hugely, it is a big muscle working hard. With a first baby, the woman has never felt these sensations before. But they are only sensations, just as tensing up an arm or a hand produces a sensation, a sensation of muscle contraction. If you can overcome the fear of something never before experienced then you are halfway there. The sensation of the uterus contracting to push out a baby is a powerful feeling, and you cannot stop it. You need to embrace the feeling, acknowledge it and accept it and then you will be able to achieve relaxation and allow your body to get on with what it needs to do. If you try to fight or run away, that’s when tension is produced and the fear-tension-pain cycle is started. So use therapy firstly to address the fear.

Fears don’t always come only from negative conditioning. They may come from real or imagined situations. A woman who has had a long, difficult or painful first labour or even a stillborn baby can be overcome with fear for a second labour. In this case, revisiting and processing that first experience will be immeasurably helpful and this re-processing can be done in a number of ways, with a therapist, by talking to a midwife about the previous experience, or even by talking with other women. Other women may be experiencing fear due to not wanting a baby or because of fears about how life will be after the baby is born. One teenage mother I knew was in so much fear that she was even disbelieving that she was really going to have a baby as she was taken to the delivery suite in active labour. She did not want a baby and her fearful mind tried to fight the body’s compulsion to birth her baby; it was not a positive experience for her. If this fear is addressed first then the experience can be entirely different.

It is worth at this point to re-visit the state of hypnosis or trance. A trance can also be described as a state of focussed awareness. Remember the times when we have been “miles away,” engrossed to the point of not hearing when someone says our name? This is a trance and a labouring woman is so focussed on her labour and the sensations she is feeling, that she too is in a trance. And this is how hypnosis can help. If we accept that a woman in labour is in a trance then we can use this trance to our benefit. The woman herself can use it for pain relief and achieving a relaxed physical state. And the midwife, birth partner and other care-givers can also use it to give positive suggestions.

While in a trance state, the critical factor can be bypassed so a labouring woman will accept things that are said to her. One woman was labouring fabulously on arrival at hospital with a baby who was taking his time to turn the correct way to be born. The first midwife she saw simply said, “that baby’s not coming out, he’ll be coming out of the sunroof.” From that minute the woman became a passive patient and forgot she was supposed to be upright and open. She lay on her back on the bed and her caregivers also completely forgot what they should be doing and did not assist her into helpful positions. That one careless remark may have contributed to a labour that resulted in a Ceasarean section. The labouring woman accepted the remark that bypassed her critical factor (a factor that until that point expected her to birth her baby), as did her birth partners. A powerful suggestion indeed.

Caregivers, birth partners, midwives, doctors should be extremely careful what they say to a woman in labour. It should always be positive, always suggesting that all is well. The woman will believe what you say! Every remark should be carefully calculated to relax and induce calm and never anything to suggest fear or pain. Contractions are contractions or surges, not pain. Never ask or assume that a woman is in pain, don’t mention the word. She is probably just very highly focussed in her own world, miles away, in a trance. Don’t disturb that trance by introducing negative language, she is using it for her own benefit.

Another trance phenomena that can be used is time distortion. A labouring woman does lose track o f time and it usually goes by far quicker than normal time. This is also a feature of hypnotic trance and it can be manipulated and used for the woman’s benefit. Imagine that the time between contractions is long, very long and a contraction is over within seconds. How very useful! As I have said earlier, a labouring woman is in a trance and she can learn to use it.

Women who have used hypnotic techniques as part of their childbirth preparation will have learnt how to induce their own trance, how to turn off pain, they will have addressed their fears and will have learnt how to use time distortion. Their lack of fear and acceptance of powerful feelings in the body usually contribute to a very comfortable and positive birth experience, which in turn contributes to a positive post-natal phase and less instances of depression. Hypnotic trance is a completely natural state and one which labouring women go into naturally. Harnessing the power of that natural state is how the real benefits can be achieved: comfort, a faster labour, with fewer interventions and a relaxed and healthy mother and baby at the end.

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