How can hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis help with natural childbirth?

Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis are becoming popular tools for natural childbirth and during pregnancy because of their success in ensuring you experience as pleasant, fulfilling and natural a childbirth as possible. The main focus of hypnotherapy for a natural birth is to create a relaxed, confident and positive mindset, moving away from a fear/pain mentality that our modern society subliminally puts us in with images and language that can create negative expectations.

Hypnosis, used in natural childbirth, is another name for relaxed awareness; a natural and beneficial state where your critical or analytical mind is more relaxed and passive. This state of awareness is an absolutely ideal state for a natural childbirth - relaxed, calm, confident and inwardly focused and attuned to your body's natural intelligence. Hypnotherapy is a way of working therapeutically with hypnosis. It is particularly useful for ensuring a natural birth because it can help you release and change any unhelpful beliefs or attitudes you may have around natural childbirth so that new confident, calm and optimistic beliefs can be created.

During hypnosis, because the critical or analytical mind is more passive, the unconscious mind is open to new ideas and new learning. It is also open to positive suggestions and visualisations that help your body to relax deeply and open up in the most empowering and positive way for you during a natural childbirth. In this relaxed state of mind it is also possible to release emotional anxieties from the past that may be contributing to current day stresses around childbirth. This is important for a natural birth because the more you are free of stress the more your body and mind are able to let go and flow with your body's natural rhythms.