A certified hypnobirthing class practitioner is there to help mums and dads across Australia to gain the confidence they need to handle whatever comes their way during labour. They will guide you through Positive Birth techniques and principles that aim to ease fear and anxiety during the birthing process and reduce overall pain.
Your experience of labour and pregnancy doesn’t have to just focus on pain and suffering. Hypnobirthing classes will provide information about how the body is designed and show you that it can instead be a joyful experience. Keep reading for a little more information about hypnobirthing and why you should consider it.
What is Hypnobirthing?
Hypnobirthing is highly regarded as a well-rounded pregnancy and childbirth education program in Australia. From doctors to doulas, they will tell you of the naturally enhanced mental, physical, and emotional strength its techniques can give you. It offers a holistic learning experience for expecting mums and dads and uniquely empowers them. The principles and techniques become tools for expecting parents to continually refer back to and use throughout their journey. They include the practice of meditation, affirmation, massage, and fear/anxiety management. You will also learn breathwork to help you move through the sensations of labour. Your birthing partner will gain their own set of supportive skills and principles to support you throughout your labour and birth.
Hypnobirthing classes are assisted by the use of various learning materials and resources like handouts, music, videos and articles. These techniques and resources aren’t intended to take you into a true hypnotic state. The aim is to learn how to experience deep relaxation to dissociate from pain and feelings that worsen it. Many people think of it as pregnancy meditation that changes your mindset from only experiencing pain to welcoming the sensations that are creating the miracle of birth. You will learn to embrace the mysterious parts of birth with confidence, empowerment, and awareness.
How does hypnobirthing work?
One of many ideas behind hypnobirthing is that learning to control your thoughts, and other natural body responses, can help control pain. Pain is a highly subjective experience, and it can be interpreted differently. Pregnancy, labour, and birth are guaranteed to come with feelings of fear and anxiousness. The problem with these responses, albeit natural, is that they trigger your body’s production of the hormone adrenaline. Adrenaline will raise your heart rate, and blood pressure and re-divert oxygen away from the places it needs to be. This is your body’s way of kicking into survival mode, but this is also the quickest way to slow down labour by inhibiting oxytocin, the hormone that helps with contractions. Our body can counteract things, make muscles tighten and make us feel more pain. Hypnobirthing techniques aim to trigger the release of oxytocin. Which, instead, allows the muscles to relax and decreases the awareness of pain during labour and birth.
Benefits of hypnobirthing classes
Hypnobirthing classes and the people that take part in them believe that it is possible to create an experience that feels sweet, tender, and peaceful. The techniques have been put together and practised for years now because they have indeed resulted in positive and joyful experiences. Our minds can be very powerful at reducing tension in our bodies and letting nature take its course: allowing your cervix to soften, shorten and dilate, creating the pathway for your baby to move down into the birth canal. Your thoughts, and the subsequent physical reactions, should work towards ensuring that this journey is faced with as little intervention as possible. Our comprehensive hypnobirthing courses will teach you the techniques that will help you trust in the ability of your body. Positive affirmations, visualisation, meditations, breathing techniques and other skills will help you to embrace that journey with calm confidence and let your body do the rest.
