Confident Childbirth - Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn by using Confident Childbirth?

You will learn:

• How the mind and emotions affect the body directly during the labour and birth process, learning how many women birth comfortably - without pain.
• Self-hypnosis: how to go into a state of calm relaxation.
• How to prepare mind and body using personal visualisations to aid your labour and delivery.
• How to focus constructively in order to manage the birth of your baby in the best way for you.
• How it is possible for you to birth quickly and easily.
• How to remain positive and in control whilst communicating with medical staff.
• How to overcome concerns about giving birth and parenting.
• Skills to develop and strengthen confidence and calm leaving you looking forward to the birth of your baby.

Surely pain is purely physical - how can my mind have any effect on it?
In fact feelings of pain are a complex response and how the mind is feeling influences the sending of the pain signal. For example, relaxation has been shown to raise the pain threshold by releasing endorphins - the body's natural painkillers which block pain signals from reaching the brain.

And neurologists at the University of Iowa scanned the brain activity of hypnotised people as they dipped their hands in lukewarm water and in painfully-hot water. When it was suggested under hypnosis that the painfully-hot water was lukewarm, the brain activity in the part of the brain which registers subjective pain was the exactly the same as when the water actually was lukewarm.

Your attitude to pain can also diminish its importance to you. Think of how marathon runners cope with and overcome discomfort so that it becomes very secondary in an experience more marked by a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Will I be able to learn self-hypnosis?
It's surprisingly easy. You go in and out of trance all day long so your mind knows how to, even if you're not aware of it!

When you daydream, drive on autopilot or become absorbed in television, a film, music or a book, then you're in a trance. When you imagine yourself on your next holiday or evening out, you're taking yourself into trance. If you find yourself reliving your school days or a job interview, you're in trance.

You'll simply be learning to do this on purpose. Nearly everyone has "got it" by the time they come for the second session. During the rest of the course you learn to deepen it and to prepare for the birth itself.

I don't want to be "out of it" during the birth!
You won't be! You'll be in control, communicating clearly with your partner and medical staff.

So will the birth will be pain-free?
There is no guarantee of this but it is possible. Hypnosis CAN completely remove pain - many people have had surgical operations purely under hypnosis, with no anaesthetic at all. They've remained comfortable throughout and recovered remarkably quickly. (Surgeons Jack Gibson - now retired - and Angel Escudero have carried out over 1,400 operations with only hypnotic or psychological anaesthesia).

It's been observed that plenty of practice increases the depth of trance - so if your goal is to have no discomfort at all, be prepared to spend plenty of time learning to relax profoundly! And as you do, you and your baby can gain huge benefits before and after the birth too.

Attaining even a light depth of trance means any discomfort is likely to be less than it would have been; you can relax more between contractions and so feel better; and labour is likely to be shorter so both you and your baby recover more quickly.

In any case before it even begins, you'll have the reassurance of knowing that you have a range of mental tools to make the whole experience more positive and enable you to manage your feelings.

I'm going to yoga classes, isn't that enough?
Yoga's fantastic. In combination with self-hypnosis you can be even more in control. And then you can use your self-hypnosis to cope more easily with family life (like getting easily back to sleep during those disturbed nights…)

How much does it cost?

Indivual Sessions:  £60.00 per treatment

Couples:                £75.00 per treatment

Group Treatments: £130.00 for four sessions

To book at appointment please contact me: