Medical research is now proving the effectiveness of hypnosis in making for a relaxed pregnancy and far more comfortable delivery. This article is simply intended as a brief guide to how hypnosis can help in many different ways, ranging from its successful use in prolonging pregnancy, reducing complications and thereby preventing premature delivery (Schwartz, 1963, Omer 1986, Omer 1987) to the reducing of delivery time by a massive 2 to 4 hours (Jenkins and Pritchard, 1993).
Most people do not understand what hypnosis really is and therefore cannot appreciate how vitalMichael Emery
Michael J. Emery
its use can be in taking control of your pregnancy and well being. Hypnosis is normal and natural and is finally becoming recognized in the medical profession as an extremely valuable tool to assist in many areas of health, not just in pregnancy and childbirth.
In the Jenkins and Pritchard study referred to above, not only was delivery time dramatically reduced, significantly less pain medication was administered. They also found that the incidence of postpartum depression was reduced and the incidence of spontaneous deliveries was increased. All this of course, is better for mother and child, and also the medical personnel dealing with mother and child. In the Omer study mentioned above the birth weight of the babies was significantly greater than in a control group. Again, this is much better for the baby.
Hypnosis is also known to be a natural aid to increasing your chances of conception. This makes very good sense as hypnosis is a state of relaxation and reduces stress which is known to be a barrier to getting pregnant. It is also quite logical that the more relaxed you are during pregnancy the more comfortable and relaxed your baby is as well. Once again, medical research supports this phenomenon. Mothers using self hypnosis to reduce stress and anxiety whilst pregnant had fetuses that moved more actively than those who didn’t. (Zimmer, Perets, Eyal and Fuchs).
Other than the prime importance of having a healthy baby, the thing that every single prospective mum is interested in is, of course, pain control. A lot of research has been carried out in this field and so I’m not going to refer to part
