What do you think of when you hear the word "hypnosis"? For me it conjures up images of Kenny Craig, Little Britain's hopeless hypnotist, chanting "Look into my eyes....look into my eyes...not around the eyes". When it comes to hypnosis, I'm about as cynical as they get. But when faced with the options for giving birth - none of which are frankly that appealing - it's amazing how you can suddenly change your mindset. Given a choice between a needle in my spine, hour upon hour of screaming agony or being slit open like a haggis, you know what? I'm ready to give hypnosis a try. So off we went to our first hypnobirthing class, with Dom under strict instructions to keep an open mind - and under no circumstances to suggest that it was "a load of old bollocks".
Hypnobirthing is the brainchild of Marie Mongan, who developed her own self-hypnosis techniques for childbirth at a time in the 1950's when standard protocol was to slap an ether mask on the mother and drag the baby out using forceps. Yet apparently childbirth never used to be like this. Back in 3000BC childbirth was considered to be a celebratory event rather than an ordeal. Midwifery bloomed under Hippocrates - and Aristotle emphasized the importance of relaxation and the power of the mind during childbirth.
By the end of the second century AD, however, an uprising against women shifted the goalposts of science and religion, and pregnancy - once viewed as a miracle - was now seen as the product of a carnal sin. Female healers were executed en-masse and with the abolition of midwifery, giving birth suddenly became a lonely and painful ordeal. In a further twist in the 1800s, Queen Victoria's insistence on being given chloroform when she birthed shifted the emphasis to the hospital, heralding the era of medicalized births.
So it's not difficult to understand why today's average birth experience reads more like a medical encyclopaedia than a natural event. I saw this dreadful programme on channel 70 which epitomised the medical approach. Woman comes to hospital to give birth. She is checked to see how far her labour has progressed. "Oh dear, you're only 2 centimetres dilated" tuts the midwife. "And how are the PAINS?" she practically spells out the word, as if the mother-to-be is deaf. Without waiting for the answer the midwife concludes that it would be best to crack on with a pitocin drip to "speed things up - oh, and maybe we'll just break your waters as well dear". By this stage the poor patient is writhing around in agony and is then subjected to an epidural. Several hours, a lot of pushing and a face full of exploded capillaries later, the baby still hasn't emerged, so it's deemed that a C-section is the only way forward.
Hypnobirthing takes the approach that your body is designed to give birth, as long as your mind doesn't get in the way. When you fear pain, you tense up, whereas in order to give birth you actually need to relax, open up (quite literally!) and let the muscles do their thing. Hypnobirthing uses a combination of visualisation, relaxation and breathing techniques to achieve this. The most startling revelation of all was that you don't even need to push to get the baby out. Nope, apparently all that purple-faced pushing to football terrace style chants from the nurses is totally unnecessary. As our hypnobirthing coach, Di, explained "What you see on TV is not real birth - it's Hollywood".
We watched two videos of actual hypnobirths at our first class and you would simply not believe these women were giving birth. They could have been asleep for all I could tell, until POP - suddenly out came a little head. What really struck me the most was the peace and quiet. You could hear a pin drop. It was a welcome relief from all the wailing and gnashing I had seen on channel 70 and I left the class with a renewed sense of hope about the birth. The medics with their battery of drugs and tools may mock, but hold off with the giant salad tongs please - maybe the best medicine is the mind.
For more information on hypnobirthing classes in Singapore, and hypnobirthing generally:
OH how I wish this option was explored when I had my babies.... the scenario leading to Csection was exactly what I've been thru with Bez.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the next class ;p