My Christmas Wish

I want to thank you all for following my posts!! It makes me realize I am not just another doula out there. I am definitely humbled. Now that I got that off my chests I want to share my Christmas Wish as a Doula.
I wish for peace on Earth. I see so many bad things happening that it is hard to watch the news sometimes. I wish for peace for those that have lost loved ones, and those that are ill. I wish for more Heroes like the principal at the school in CT.
I wish for moms to be supported and feel protected as they give birth and to feel empowered to be moms. I wish for Dads who care enough to support the moms and empower them to do what they need to do as a mom. I wish for more Doctors who are willing to take the time and care for moms without jumping the gun.
I wish for more Preemie survival. I wish for comfort for the parents of preemies.
That is my Christmas Wish.
Love you all! Namaste

Hypnobirthing an psychology of birth

Hypnobirthing is about healthy women giving birth in a healthy manner, and the bond between the couple and the newborn. It’s about mind over matter. It’s a way to give birth without medical intervention. It’s a drug free pain reliever. There are things that go into birth. Women feel pain in birth because of many things like fear, tension and over-stimulation.

  There is a cycle called the fear, tension, pain syndrome where fear causes tension which in turn tension causes pain. We as a culture have been conditioned to fear birth like Pavlov’s dogs have been conditioned to salivate to the ring of the bell. We see it every day through television where the women on the shows are told everything that can go wrong in birth like baby’s death, mother’s death, Cesarean section, injury to baby/mom, etc. We are told it from other women how painful it is. Doctors give just enough information to the mother/ birth partner to get consent to do an intervention.  Doctors use scare tactics and do not give the mother information of what could happen if they wait to do intervention. 

The fear created by all this conditioning causes the woman in labor to tense up. It activates the autonomic nervous system. This makes us feel like we are in an emergency. We breathe faster, our blood pressure rises (can cause preeclampsia,) Our heart quickens, blood is shunted away from the uterus which causes the vertical muscles to constrict instead of dilate. Our hormones get involved. Catecholamines and cortisol hormones are released which makes our body tense up more. When we tense up our body it stops the progress on opening up to give birth. After all this the pressure of the horizontal muscles on the uterus pulling on the constricted vertical muscles causes us to experience pain.

When I started attending the hypnobirth class I learned about how we can use our mind to release our fears. I learned how the mind can enable a peaceful birth. In Hypnobirthing we recondition ourselves to not fear birth through hypnosis, meditation, and relaxation. We change the words normally used in birth like labor, pain, dilating, to less threatening words like birthing, waves, and opening. We get our parasympathetic system to work with the meditations, conditioned cues, and an environment that makes us more comfortable. We practice before birth so that when the big day comes we are conditioned to the cues. We have colors in our mind that deepens us into relaxation. We use meditations to make us feel more comfortable. We use our mind to make it more peaceful to bring our baby into the world. We make our environment quiet, dark and peaceful so the baby feels at peace. We use affirmations to make us feel stronger. We eat healthy like preparing for a marathon so that our body has the energy it needs. We make sure to eat and drink during birth to also give the body what it needs to be comfortable at birth because when it does not have the energy it needs or the water it needs we could experience pain again.

This reconditioning we practice before birth creates a sense of self hypnosis which is a deeper relaxation and focus. Our boy reacts to what happens in our minds. This is a psychophysical correlation. 

If you would like to learn more about hypnobirthing you can contact a local hypnobirth instructor. Local Salt Lake instructors are found on this website: http://www.hypnobirthingutah.com/ 

Our instructor was Rachel Dietrich and her website is http://cachevalleyhypnobirthing.homestead.com

Namaste my friends