I’m a pregnant roller derby athlete part four: Hypnobirthing and the mental side of birth
I have fallen pretty far behind in recording my pregnancy journey, but I’m finally coming up for a bit of air! I don’t have tons of spare time now with a baby on my hands, but my brain feels far less foggy than it did while I was still pregnant. Anyways, I digress. The next topic is one that I found extremely valuable in my pregnancy and in birth, and that is Hypnobirthing. Don’t let the name throw you off, it’s not all about hypnosis or some hokey stuff. The basis of hypnobirthing is understanding more about the natural process of birth, and how we can help eliminate fear and empower our bodies to do what they were designed to do. I got into it because a friend, Kitty, mentioned how much it had helped her. Kitty had gone through hypnobirthing with our friend from Southern Coed Roller Derby, Heisenbird. HB used to own a company and has since retired, but helps out pregnant couples here and there. Kitty spoke so highly of her birth experience and the process with HB, that Balls and I were definitely interested. Honestly, before going through those classes with HB, I was definitely intimidated about giving birth. No matter how I shook it, it seemed like something that was extremely painful, and downright terrifying. I never felt too massively anxious about the ability to care for a kid after the birth, since I have 13 nieces and nephews. But the birth part.. that was always a bit of a dark spot in the back of my brain ever since we even talked about trying for a baby. It was new and unknown, and we felt a bit over our heads about the big day ahead of us. (by the end the photo below is how I felt, so totally 180d the feelings I had above. PS MAKE CHEESY IMAGES OF YOURSELF TO PUMP LOOK AT OFTEN AND BUILD UP CONFIDENCE )
Now in general, I am pretty into homeopathic ideas, especially when it comes to the brain.. so for me, the ideology of hypnobirthing was not a hard sell, but for others I can see how you might need to take some time to really buy into the whole concept. You need to let go of all the things society has taught you about birth because a lot of it is downright wrong and fear mongering! It can be really difficult to let go of all those imprints you have in your brain of media portrayals and horror stories from people you know. Letting go of that was part of the hypnobirthing process. I’ll briefly summarize some of what I learned and found super interesting, but if you’re pregnant definitely experience it for yourself! We did it in a series of 3 classes, in conjunction with reading the book - Hypnobirthing by Katharine Graves. In Session 1 we learned more about the history of birth, and the anatomy of it, and common misconceptions. Summarized History - Many of the specific reasons of why we give birth the way we do in modern society and are so godamn afraid of it comes down to simply trends through history set by the royal families. Here is the gist - One of the Kings wanted to see his wife give birth, so they had her lay on her back so he could watch the baby emerge... this resulted in a much more painful birth for the mother. But since the royals were doing it, everyone started doing it! So now birth is associated with extreme pain. Later, one of the queens decided that she didn’t want to have pain during birth so they gave her CHLOROFORM. Obviously when this became common practice people started dying when giving birth... and now death is heavily associated with birth. Fast forward to modern day and we have insurance companies and hospital rooms that need to be cleared and we can’t seem to just let the body do it’s thing. Anatomy of birth - I couldn’t believe that as an adult woman I was unaware of how my uterus actually worked for giving birth. Seriously I’m 31, how did I not know that. If you don’t, here is a really great example explaining contractions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URyEZusnjBI We also learned about the hormones that get released during childbirth are our natural painkillers (good ol’ oxytocin). We also learned about how our bodies can’t do this effectively if we go into a fight of flight response. BOOM ANXIETY STRIKES IT’S UGLY HEAD AGAIN. Not only does stress affect our ability to deal with pain, it also affects our ability to progress in labor. If something seems scary or off, your body will naturally not progress with contractions. Evolutionarywise this is smart though - if you were giving birth out in nature, and your body sensed danger, well having a baby would be a pretty bad idea so it would stall the process. Modern birth settings doesn’t really help this very much though... “Hey let’s take you to a place you don’t really know well and you associate with sickness... THEN let’s have different people stick their fingers up your vagina to check your arbitrary progress and let you know if we think you’re going quickly enough... oh and THEN lets have machines all around that you have no idea what really do.” All of this monitoring leads to very common cascade of interventions. (Which also happened to a certain extent in my birth story, see Blog part 5, coming soon).
Long story short, I learned that birth isn’t something I needed to be saved from as a default. My body was designed to do this.
Breaking free of our common misconceptions - The other thing we did at the first session was to privately write down all the things we thought birth was. Both balls and I came up with our lists and then we shared. It was really interesting to see the similarities and differences of our lists. There was a large chunk of the list that was all revolved around fear and HB went through all of it with us - the good and the bad. It was really therapeutic and even with just that first session my ideas of birth had started to change. I was starting to look forward to that day, instead of dreading it.
In Session 2 we worked on relaxation techniques and more on the mental side of things. Basically thinking about how to get in the zone. This.. this I could instantly relate to. Felt so similar to the focus needed in sports. You have to relax but be sharp, and most of all you have to pay attention to your body. That was my job. Ball’s job is basically to be my bench coach, hilariously. His role was to shield me from things that might make me anxious, to be my advocate to the refs (medical ppl), and cheer me on while I got in the zone.
HB described the upcoming day like my own “birth champs”. That really resonated with me obviously. It was something I had to prepare for, just like I would a big game. I would need to practice, but most importantly if I wanted to perform I would have to be able to relax. Being afraid and anxious would actively work against my birth going smoothly, so it was something I needed to commit to. We went over some ways of releasing oxytocin, different breathing techniques, and ways to get into your reptilian brain so you don’t get anxious. This is where the “hypno” part comes in. Some of the specific scripts for relaxation were not so much my cup of tea, so I took from it what I wanted. I ended up getting a meditation app called HEADSPACE to help me with that aspect because I found it more digestable than the scripts from the book. https://www.headspace.com/headspace-meditation-app They have very short scripts that helped me to work on not being to distracted. I worked up to meditating longer and longer, and the app even has sequences for pain management and pregnancy specifically. I listened to it daily in the leadup to the birth, (with a side track of the beach going) and I practiced my breathing often. I ended up listening to it in the car on the way to the hospital.
In session 3 we worked on birth plans. We basically went through all the things you might include. And while most births don’t go exactly to plan, it was really good to talk about all the possible outcomes, and in which situations we might seek certain interventions. I was really glad Balls and I had gone through those pro/ con conversations prior to the big day.
Overall, I really can’t recommend doing hypnobirthing enough. It changed my views of birth before labor so much so that I really looked forward to the birth. Throughout the entire labor I didn’t feel afraid, even when things got a little hairy. It taught me that I always had a choice, even if that choice was to simply defer to the doctors. Feeling in control made the world of difference for feeling powerful or powerless in the labor room. Stay tuned for part 5: My birth story
