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What is HypnoBirthing?
HypnoBirthing is a real and powerful tool to promote natural, easeful childbirth experiences. The hypnosis in HypnoBirthing is ‘self’-hypnonsis’ which means you take control of the way you experience childbirth. So don’t worry, no one will be holding a watch as it rhythmically swings back and forth in front of your eyes until you suddenly find a newborn snuggled up against you.
HypnoBirthing has experienced an explosion in attention in recent years as everyone from celebrities to royalty have been using HypnoBirthing techniques to ease their fears of childbirth and naturally manage the pain of labor. But what is HypnoBirthing? Can hypnosis really take the pain out of childbirth? HypnoBirthing enthusiasts would probably tell you that the pain didn’t belong there in the first place!
While hypnosis has been used for centuries to treat pain during surgeries, it was only first applied to childbirth in the 1950’s. The formalization of a specific set of hypnosis-related techniques customized to address the childbirth experience came about in 1989 when Marie Mongan developed her original HypnoBirthing method. The hypnosis-focussed program she developed is both a philosophy and a technique.
“When you change the way you view birth, the way you birth will change.”
’Hypno’ Birthing = (self) hypnosis during childbirth
The core technique of Hypno-Birthing could be thought of as simply hypnosis during birthing... but may more accurately be described as ‘self-hypnosis’ during birthing.
Hypnosis is a way we can use our minds to focus on our subconscious awareness. It can resemble sleep in some aspects, but it leaves us in complete control of our bodies and our choices. This focus, clarity, and control allows birthing people to visualize a positive birth experience and free their bodies to remain relaxed and at ease.
The term “hypnosis” originated in the nineteenth century and was named in honor of the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos. The idea is that you can place your mind into an altered state that resembles daydreaming but with complete attention on the present moment. This state of hypnosis makes you more responsive to suggestions and guidance whether they come from someone else or from within yourself.
The HypnoBirthing Philosophy
There are two ideas that are central to the HypnoBirthing philosophy:
If the mind and body are completely relaxed, childbirth becomes becomes easier and more free of pain because the body’s natural processes are not being fought.
Labor does not inherently have to include severe pain. HypnoBirthing techniques reduce tension and fear in the birthing person, resulting in a significant reduction in pain.
From a young age, we are regularly told of the horrors and pains of childbirth. Whether its stories from friends and family or the onslaught of pop culture tales involving extreme labor pain. We have been conditioned to believe that birth is inherently painful. That conditioning causes most birthing people to fear childbirth. The tension brought on by that fear keeps them from being able to relax their muscles and let their body perform its natural childbirth processes. So the stories of painful births ultimately become a self fulfilling prophecy in that they result in the pain they predict coming to be and additional, potentially unnecessary, medical interventions.
The HypnoBirthing Technique
The HypnoBirthing technique allows birthing people to experience childbirth in a calm, peaceful environment with minimized pain. HypnoBirthing techniques consider both the physical and psychological well being of the birthing person, their birthing partner, and their child. HypnoBirthing techniques work equally well in a hospital, a birth center, or a home.
HypnoBirthing techniques include relaxation, breathing, visualization, meditation, nutrition and body toning. HypnoBirthing creates a sense of shared respect between the birthing person and their healthcare support providers regardless of the birth setting, be it traditional hospital birth or an alternative setting.
HypnoBirthing techniques teach the birthing person simple self-hypnosis techniques to release fear from painful birth stories, move past misinformation, and transcend birth myths. HypnoBirthing techniques allow the birthing person to understand that birth is a normal human experience. By trusting their bodies to do what they are designed to do, birthing people can make their birth experience a calmer, gentler, more peaceful transition into the world for their baby.
Who created HypnoBirthing?
An English obstetrician named Dr. Grantly Dick-Read put forward the concept of natural birthing in the 1920’s. Natural birthing is a core tenant of HypnoBirthing philosophy that states that childbirth, extenuating circumstance aside, can be free from extreme pain. The philosophy of natural birth spans back thousands of years into the past.
Marie Mongan was an award winning hypnotherapist with over thirty years of experience as a councilor and an educator who created HypnoBirthing. She developed HypnoBirthing as a way to empower birthing people to develop better decision making skills and to explore their choices in pursuit of their birth goals.
Marie served as a college dean and was named a Ford Foundation Fellowship recipient to Harvard. She was a licensed hypnotherapist and hypnoanesthesiologist with experience as an instructor of both fields.
Marie gave birth to four children without labor interventions or medications by using the concepts written about by Dr. Dick-Read in the 1920’s. She also used the works of Dr. Jonathan Dye, a pioneer of natural childbirth.
Today HypnoBirthing is practiced worldwide with professional educators in 46 different countries.
The Two HypnoBirthing Books
Marie turned her professional and childbirth experience into two HypnoBirthing books.
HypnoBirthing - A Celebration of Life: The original HypnoBirthing book which was published in 1989.
HypnoBirthing - The Marie Mongan Method: The current HypnoBirthing book which is still regularly updated and is in its fourth edition.
What are the Benefits of HypnoBirthing?
HypnoBirthing can allow birthing people and their birthing partners to release limiting thoughts and fears while teaching them to trust birth.
To allow your birthing muscles to function as nature intended, the benefits of HypnoBirthing will help you attain a state of calm relaxation. This freedom from fear allows endorphins to be released, naturally relaxing your muscles and replacing stress hormones to avoid constriction and pain.
By trusting birth and relaxing your body sufficiently, you will find your birthing muscles work together in harmony. The goal of a comfortable, easeful birth can be attained by learning to relax your body and mind, freeing yourself of resistance and fear.
HypnoBirthing techniques do not put you into a trance. HypnoBirthing is experienced more like daydreaming or the focus that occurs when you are completely engaged in an activity like reading or meditating. You’ll be able to speak and communicate your experience with a positive outlook and full control of your body. Your heightened sense of awareness will let you experience the process of labor and your baby’s birth while your training and practice at relaxation will allow you to determine to what extent and in what manner you feel the multitude of surges that come and go through the process.
Does HypnoBirthing work?
We’ve gathered various scientific studies of HypnoBirthing so you can answer the question “Does HypnoBirthing work?” for yourself.
One in five birthing people uses some sort of mental relaxation strategy such as self hypnosis and visualizations according to a national report.
In 2015 a group of British researchers released the results of a study of hundreds of births where HypnoBirthing was utilized. They found common themes across the results they gathered including achieving calmness in a climate of fear and transformation from skeptic to believer.
A 2013 study of differing levels of oxycontin given during childbirth found that hypnosis during childbirth reduced the amount of drugs used and that ultimately reduced the duration of the first stage of labor.
A Danish study from 2013 found that hypnosis during childbirth caused the birthing person to have a better personal experience of the event and to feel less fear overall. This large randomized control trial found that even a brief course in self hypnosis was successful at improving the childbirth experience.
A 2011 report by the HypnoBirthing Institute claims that students of their techniques were less likely to need interventions such as C-sections and episiotomies.
The 2016 Cochrane Report suggests that claims that HypnoBirthing doesn’t work may be accurate because their trial participants did not report less pain or greater satisfaction with their childbirth experiences. They did however refrain from concluding that HypnoBirthing is a placebo effect because of the difficult nature of gathering objective data on the topic and interpreting that data.
HypnoBirthing Basics
You could spend countless hours researching HypnoBirthing techniques online and still not end up actually learning how to ‘do’ HypnoBirthing. The following free HypnoBirthing basics will get you primed to start your daily practice of the HypnoBirthing method.
Breath
There are two primary techniques included in HypnoBirthing breathing. Each HypnoBirthing breathing technique offers a subtly different benefit for pain management.
The first HypnoBirthing breathing technique is simply counting as you breathe deeply in and out through your nose. More specifically, count to four as you breath in and then count to seven as you breath out. The longer exhales will regulate your body’s reaction to the childbirth experience and slow your physiology down in the face of fear and anxiety.
The second HypnoBirthing breathing technique comes into play once you’ve established a comfortable pace for your body. You simply extend your in breaths to a count of seven and maintain the same seven count as you breath out. This smooth, deep breathing allows your parasympathetic nervous system to relax you into an easeful state that allows you to reduce the pain you experience during childbirth.
Positive thought and positive words
This HypnoBirthing technique allows you to hack your brain through language. Using “surge” instead of “contraction” allows your subconscious to understand that childbirth is a natural process that your body is evolved to complete without intervention. You could also say “release” rather than “rupture” to simply tone down the sense of conflict and negativity in your language and guide your mind towards a more positive experience.
Visualization
A powerful HypnoBirthing technique is guided visualization. Utilizing calming music and meditation to picture a peaceful setting like a flower blooming can help you relax your body and stop resisting the fear of childbirth.
Rainbow Relaxation
The Rainbow Relaxation track was written by Marie Mongan to be listened to daily by HypnoBirthing practitioners until the day their new baby arrives. It is a unique audio experience that teaches the listener to relax quickly and deeply. The symbolic beauty of rainbows is incorporated into the relaxation guidance.
Affirmations
HypnoBirthing affirmations include any positive affirmations utilized during childbirth to bring about a heightened sense of relaxation and ease. There are hundreds of examples of HypnoBirthing affirmations available online such as "My body was designed to do this", "My baby and I are working together", or "Each surge brings my baby closer to me".
HypnoBirthing Techniques: Breath & Massage
Giving birth while practicing these breath and massage HypnoBirthing techniques is compared to being in a day dream state, fully aware of what’s happening and able to come and go from your personal state of hypnosis as you please.
Relaxation Breathing
Being told to relax doesn’t work. Fortunately relaxing yourself is a skill that is learned and the tool you have at your disposal is your breath. Relaxation breathing involves attention to the in-breath, and then attention to an out-breath that is twice as long. Counting to four as you breath in, then counting to eight as you breath out. That’s it. It’s not complex, but it takes time to build your practice so it will be at your disposal when your baby decides it is time to enter the world.
Surge Breathing
Humans have learned to hold their breath for up to seven minutes. That may be a bit excessive, but learning to breathe more deeply will allow you to increase your comfort and reduce your pain during the surges of childbirth. Simply relax, let your body go limp, and take a deep breath in through your nose as deeply as you can and then release it. Slowly increase the length of each subsequent breath. Use the same count on the way in as you do on the way out. Counting as high as ten on the way in and on the way out is a great goal. Completing the cycle at least five times can have a powerful effect on your body’s relaxation.
Birth Breathing
In a Hollywood birth, babies often pop out in a hurry. Yours will likely take longer than that. When the time to give birth comes, you’ll use your breath to breathe the baby out rather than relying on pushing. The better your breathing skills are at birth, the less pushing should be needed to complete your body’s natural process. Breath in a two count and then out a ten count. You can flex those numbers to fit your body, but the longer out breath helps to open the pelvic floor and allows your body to completely relax. On the out breath, direct your breath downward and allow your attention to relax your pelvic floor.
Perfect Pushing
So much of your childbirth prep will be focussed on avoiding interventions. But to be realistic, modern medicine has created these helpful interventions because they are so often necessary for a safe and healthy birth. By learning to breathe in an ideal manner at the moment a contraction arrives, we can significantly reduce the need for modern medicine to get involved. Breathe in for a two count and then plunge that breath out as you tighten your abdomen and push your breath down. You’ll be relaxing your pelvic floor muscles as you continue to breathe throughout the surge you are experiencing. Repeating your quick in breath and long, deep out breath until the contraction passes or your baby arrives is the ideal way to support your body’s natural instincts to give birth.
Light Touch Massage
Massage allows us to release endorphins and reduce our perception of pain so we can ease the experience of childbirth. A light touch brushing the fingertips across the birthing person’s back creates a tingling sensation that results in relaxation. Following that with a series of “s” patterns up and down the back is a great continuation of the light touch massage technique of the HypnoBirthing method.
Counter Touch Massage
Close to the moment of birth, a firm touch near the lower back can assist the birthing person in increasing their relaxation. Using acupressure to reduce surge discomfort and letting the pressure hold through the duration of a surge is a great way to reduce pain. Using massage tools like a tennis ball can allow the birth partner to continue their counter pressure massage efforts without exhausting their hands and arms in the process.
Birth can become a joyful experience for the birthing person, the baby, and the birth companion with the application of these HypnoBirthing techniques. The benefits of a calmer, more joyful birth can last a lifetime.
HypnoBirthing Tips
Taking control of your childbirth experience allows you to relax, suppress the instinct of fight or flight in moments of panic, and self regulate your stress hormone levels through the intentional release of endorphins. These HypnoBirthing tips may help you along your journey.
Allow negativity to fade away
Through intention and practice, you’ll learn to put aside the plethora of birth stories you’ve heard throughout your life and allow your own birth experience to unfold outside of the shadow of other’s fear of birth.
Grow your personal knowledge
There’s just one HypnoBirthing method, but there are countless lenses through which you can study that method. A deep understanding will make it easier to have HypnoBirthing become your default experience during birth.
Find the right practice group
HypnoBirthing is a practice, so you have to actually practice it. The best way to practice HypnoBirthing is with other people. Having a group to answer your questions and help you stay accountable will keep you focussed.
Practice, practice, practice
HypnoBirthing is essentially exerting control over your mind. That in and of itself is a challenge under the best of circumstances. You’re a badass who’s going to do it during childbirth. Get your calendar set on repeat. Stick to it.
Come back again and again
You’re not checking out, you’re checking in. So your thoughts are going to keep coming back and you’re going to keep letting them pass right on by. You don’t need to think. Your body knows how to do this on its own.
Keep your body active
While HypnoBirthing is focussed on controlling the mind, the mind is not a closed system. You are your body and your mind all at once. So it stands to reason that one works better when the other is in healthy condition.
Chill out, at least for a minute
You’re not just having a baby, you’re also still dealing with all the other things you’ve spent a lifetime building and committing to. But you won’t always be growing a human, so try to find at least ten minutes to relax each day.
Focus on the positive
Don’t just let the negative pass you by, fill that fear shaped void with positivity. Find some beautifully filmed, inspirational births to balance out the fear. The alternative to no thought doesn’t have to be fearful thoughts.
Make a mantra
Birth plans are great but you’re not going to be able to remember line 2 of paragraph 4 on page 3 when you’re 8 hours into transforming into a baby delivery magician. Distill it down to its core elements. Know that one sentence.
HypnoBirthing Classes
Practicing HypnoBirthing techniques in a classroom setting allows the birthing person time to establish a firm understanding of the relationship between fear and pain. After the birth is complete, this studied lesson becomes a life lesson that assists students of HypnoBirthing classes with both improved parenting and life skills. Implementing the calming techniques learned in HypnoBirthing classes helps students to create endorphins, counteract negative stress hormones, and open their bodies to avoid pain causing constriction throughout their lives.
HypnoBirthing classes build the birthing person’s confidence, teach them what causes labor pains, and show them what to do to prevent that pain. Birthing people and their birth companions will learn about both the chemical and physical changes that occur in the human body as stress and anxiety build up over time. When the mind reacts to this build up of anxiety with a classic fight, flight, or freeze reaction, HypnoBirthing techniques help the birthing person to instead enter a state of calm relaxation.
Your childbirth experience will require that you make many choices such as your birth setting and the healthcare providers you will have supporting your birth. You will also have the choice of selecting which childbirth education courses you attend to prepare for your birth experience. HypnoBirthing classes are an excellent way to bring a sense of peace and ease into your baby’s birth.
What is included in HypnoBirthing classes?
HypnoBirthing classes generally span a 5 week period, are often 2-3 hours in length, often cost between $350-500, and include the birth partner. HypnoBirthing classes typically include the official HypnoBirthing book, lists of HypnoBirthing birth affirmations, and other related materials such as Rainbow Relaxation guidance. Some local HypnoBirthing courses even offer email and phone support for up to six weeks after your baby’s birth.
HypnoBirthing classes are designed to be comprehensive childbirth education resources, freeing you from the need to learn many complex pain management techniques by reminding you of your natural birthing instincts.
Topics covered in a HypnoBirthing class
The way a human body has evolved to give birth
Techniques for assisting those natural birth instincts
Techniques for prenatal bonding
Techniques for immediate deepening of self relaxation
Techniques for breathing during labor
Techniques for visualization to bring about relaxation
Techniques for the birth partner to use
Massage and toning techniques to help you prepare your body for birth
Techniques to lessen the likelihood of interventions
Meditative techniques to release fear and negative emotions that will benefit you throughout life
Labor preparation techniques
Techniques to assist in your baby’s descent
Breastfeeding techniques
Techniques for postpartum bonding with your baby
The curriculum of a HypnoBirthing class
HypnoBirthing classes are often broken up into five separate sessions. Those sessions can sometimes look like this:
Day 1
Theme: Preparing your body for birth
Description: Learn how to emulate the calm birth experience of almost every other creature on the planet by preparing your body for a calm, simple, quick birth experience.
Topics:
The calm and pain free birth experiences of other mammals
Society’s misconceptions about birth
Preparing your body for birth with exercise
Using massage techniques to ease childbirth
Quick relaxation techniques
Bonding with your baby
Personal affirmations for pregnancy and childbirth
Day 2
Theme: Preparing your mind for birth
Description: Your mind is a wildly powerful tool, but like any tool, it can be used for both positive and negative results. Learn to bring positive visions into your mind and picture your most desired outcome down to the most minute details.
Topics:
Create your own childbirth reality
Subdue the adrenaline beast
Release fear and doubt
Release emotions with your mind
Learn to experience childbirth without fear
Day 3
Theme: Learning the tools for birth
Description: The key to a calm, natural birth is a relaxed body and mind. Learn to relax deeply with specific triggers, breathing methods, and visualization techniques that can help you maintain control of your body in moments of panic. Learn more techniques to let your birth partner calmly and confidently support you through your child’s birth.
Topics:
Specific breathing techniques for each stage of childbirth
Relaxation triggers to let you go into deep states of calm
Understand your full range of options during the stages of childbirth
Full list of techniques foto help the birthing partner be prepared
Rainbow relaxation techniques
Birth visualization techniques
Birth affirmations
Breathing for relaxation
Breathing for surges
Breathing for birth
Day 4
Theme: Learning the process of childbirth
Description: Learn about your body, how it works, and how it was designed to give birth. Know how the process of childbirth works so if you need to change your birth plan in the moment, you are fully prepared to do so with confidence that you understand the decisions you are making.
Topics:
Learn the steps of childbirth
Effective interventions and when they are necessary
Medical inductions and natural alternatives
Learn the best birthing positions, techniques for active birthing and comfort techniques
Learn to create natural anaesthesia
Develop your birth plan and learn to communicate your choices
Day 5
Theme: Accepting that you are ready for childbirth
Description: You’ve learned all of the tools and hypnobirthing techniques and it’s time to accept that you have the knowledge you need to give birth with confidence in a calm, safe, comfortable inner and outer state.
Topics:
A summary of your birthing day with a step by step guide
Birthing early and in comfort
Traveling to your birthing place
Establishing your presence in your birthing place
Breathing your baby into the world
Changes of plans and quick release techniques
Your birthing day – step by step summary and guide
Checklists and summaries – know you are ready for birth
Practicing HypnoBirthing tools and techniques – timetables and suggestions
Birth partners key tips, tools and summaries to build confidence
HypnoBirthing classes: online vs in-person training
In the age of the internet, why do in-person schools still exist? Practice! Having in-person HypnoBirthing classes spread out over 5 weeks allow students to practice HypnoBirthing techniques, receive real time feedback from trained HypnoBirthing teachers, and build the internal conditioning needed to have those techniques at the ready when it’s time for birth. In-person courses allow you to ask questions as you practice and work through your personal fears of childbirth. That personal attention will help build the confidence in you that will leave you relaxed and calm when it’s time to have your baby.
HypnoBirthing classes also offer birthing people a community or people to connect with who are going through a similar life experience at the same time as you. HypnoBirthing classes create a structured time for you and your birthing partner to step away from your daily routines and focus entirely on preparing for the adventure you are setting out on together.
If I take a HypnoBirthing class, do I need to also take a traditional birth class?
Most HypnoBirthing classes are designed to be comprehensive so that expectant parents can simply focus on this one curriculum rather than also taking a separate birth class. From another perspective, you could say that a HypnoBirthing class is designed to remind students that giving birth is a natural process that we have been experiencing for hundreds of thousands of years and that knowledge lessens the need for a full understanding of the minutiae of the process.
Hypnobabies vs HypnoBirthing
The difference between Hypnobabies vs HypnoBirthing is a common question among expectant parents researching various childbirth education program options. Here are some differences between the two competing versions of applying hypnosis to childbirth:
The Hypnobabies course offers a more regimented experience with a larger number of scripts that are often of greater length.
The Hypnobabies program claims to be targeted more directly at childbirth by using medical hypno-anesthesia that has been customized to the childbirth experience.
The Hypnobabies materials are designed to be usable in a more active birth scenario.
Hypnobabies courses directly discuss the pains of labor and include coping mechanisms to utilize in the event that the self hypnosis techniques are not working well enough.
Hypnobabies classes tend to be available in a self study format more so than HypnoBirthing course materials which are often taught as in-person classes.
Lamaze vs HypnoBirthing
Lamaze is a childbirth education program centered around the physical experience while HypnoBirthing takes all of that into account and also dives deep into the headspace of the birthing person.
When comparing Lamaze vs HypnoBirthing, consider that Lamaze includes these practices:
Let labor begin on its own
Stay active throughout labor and change positions regularly
Bring a doula or birth partner into the childbirth experience for continuous support
Try to avoid medical interventions
Push from an upright position
Let the body’s natural urges guide the childbirth process
Keep the baby and parent together with a focus on breastfeeding
The HypnoBirthing Method Summed Up
The commonly held belief within modern culture that birth is a pain-filled experience worthy of our deepest fears causes our bodies to tense up and interfere with their own natural birthing functions. HypnoBirthing techniques enhance the childbirth experience through education in self-hypnosis and visualization to help birthing people experience more easeful, safer, more joyful births.
During childbirth with HypnoBirthing training, a birthing person does not experience a trance and does not fall asleep. On the contrary, the mental state brought about by HypnoBirthing techniques is a deep state of relaxation with full control and awareness of one's own body.
HypnoBirthing techniques allow the birthing person to release societal fear programming and self-limiting thoughts that would otherwise lead down the path of resistance, fear, and pain.
