Every woman that goes through labour knows that this is a profound and personal journey. There is beauty in bringing life into the world. This is the basic principle of hypnobirthing, and it helps expecting parents prepare for a beautiful birth with the power of various relaxation and self-hypnosis techniques.
The term hypnobirthing at its core aims to help birthing people to deal with any fear or anxiety related to giving birth. The theory is that when the body and mind are calm, birth may occur more swiftly and with greater ease since the body is not trying to fight the natural, physiological process. Hypnobirthing classes in Melbourne will help you in creating a toolkit filled with a variety of techniques and strategies that will help you to relax and surrender to the incredible feat of the human body that is labour and birth. It is about ensuring that your birth partner has the confidence to support you in any moment, no matter the circumstance..
How does it work?
The basic idea is that you use the tools and techniques already inside you to connect the mind and body and bring them to a completely relaxed state. Instead of resisting the natural birth process, you learn to surrender to the sensations of your labouring body. Breathing exercises are only one part of the entire hypnobirthing system, but they have already long been part of antenatal classes. Our hypnobirthing courses take breathing and add other techniques like relaxation, visualisation, light touch massage and mindfulness to help you concentrate on your body and the birth of your baby.
Hypnobirthing is about understanding birth, the mind-body connection and filling yourself with all the knowledge so that you can make safe and empowered choices for you and your baby. Hypnosis is just 10% of what we teach in Hypnobirthing Australia’s Positive Birth course but it is an integral part to creating your positive and empowering birth story. The Hypno in hypnobirthing refers to internalising and achieving a deep state of relaxation and releasing fears. We teach you self-hypnosis (which is just another form of meditation) to condition your body to release all the right hormones at all the right times, we also teach you how to utilise self-hypnosis to drop into a more calm and relaxed state within your mind and body so that you labour with greater ease. A comprehensive hypnobirthing program will explain how the birthing muscles work best when they are relaxed, the way the body was designed. Some of the teachings have been a suggested form of pain management through meditation by a national health body in Australia.
Hypnobirthing won’t magically take away how intense labour can be, but it gives you more control to reduce the stress involved and deal with pain in a healthier way.
Hypnobirthing is one of the most well-rounded antenatal classes around and whilst it is about educating the birthing person and giving them all the knowledge, tools and techniques to help them through labour it also places a huge emphasis on how birth partners can support them. Hypnobirthing will teach birth partners a range of tools and techniques that will help them better support their labouring partner. It will also give birth partners the confidence to ask questions and advocating for the birthing person. You can attend face-to-face hypnobirthing classes or virtual hypnobirthing classes. We also have learn at your own pace classes.
There are precise breathing rhythms and patterns that can significantly help you stay calm and reduce discomfort in labour. Focusing on breath during birth helps to relax the body and centre the mind.
Visualisation is a powerful tool because it focuses on productive and positive thoughts instead of the negative emotions that can so often surround our understanding of labour and birth. Hypnobirthing techniques teach you how to visualise your birth in a more positive light For example, you could picture what it will feel like to hold your baby skin to skin after they’ve been born. It’s like a visual rehearsal that you do in your mind of things to come that help you feel more prepared and positive.
Meditation can be used in every aspect of your life, quite often being used to quieten the noise of your mind so that you can focus on the task at hand. It therefore, makes sense as to why we would utilise these two incredible tools to help a person labour and birth with greater ease and confidence. In labour you can use meditation in a variety of ways to help your body to labour more instincitvely (undisturbed). You might use self-hypnosis or meditation as a way to focus on your breath, or you might use it as a distraction tool during a surge and pair it with visualisation of holding your baby for the very first time. There is no right or wrong way with hypnobirthing.
If you still have some questions, feel free to give us a call at Little Bird Flies, and we can discuss our range of courses that cater to any schedule and any learning pace. We offer hypnobirthing classes in Melbourne. And you can take online classes from anywhere in Australia – Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Townsville, Darwin, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Central Coast, Geelong, Newcastle, Canberra, and Wollongong.
