Easy, short, relaxed, and comfortable birth

We spent our entire afternoon attending the first part of the hypnobirthing course. It was in a relaxed setting with warm, dim lights and we were made to sit back on thai mattress and lots of cushions. There were only 3 pairs of us, so it was supposed to be a cosy class size. It was a bit surprising to me to see the other couples because they were almost in their last month of pregnancy!

The lesson began with Ginny sharing the background of hypnobirthing, how it came about, and how it would help labour to be easy, short, relaxed and comfortable. There were some exercises which include breathing techniques to be practised daily. During the breathing exercises, we were guided to make ourselves very relaxed and to fall into a state of deeply relaxed mode and to make our subconscious minds take charge, somewhat. The whole point is, the more relaxed you are, the more your body muscles will loosen up too.

We were also shown how nature had intended the child to be delivered through the cervix/pelvic bones, and how to sit in proper posture (or rather, how to prevent improper posture) from the 32th week onwards, to enable the baby to choose the best way to position himself inside the uterus. The few ways of labouring and birthing were also demonstrated to us - not those typical positions you would normally see on TV whereby the mothers laid on their backs. And one cool thing was, hubbies were shown how to lightly massage their wives during labour to help them relax. One last exercise that we did was to run through a basic hypnosis script - wife laid back in the most relaxed position, while hubby guided wife into a state of hypnosis. My hubby was quite cool with this!

Throughout the class, there were short video clips, mostly on hypnobirthing. It looked really easy and fast! And the mothers were not as vocal as what you would see on TV dramas. In fact, they appeared so relaxed it was a bit hard to believe that this was real. And babies born in this manner appeared less cranky as well, and they only cried a short while to start breathing. We also learnt that it was just as important to have 'prenatal education', as the child would somehow be affected by whatever that was happening outside the womb, eg. the mother's emotions.

The first homework we need to do is to listen to the CD provided on a daily basis. And more homework will be coming via email. We took home some course materials and a book on hypnobirthing. With hubby having to tackle his newly started SAP course with a cannot-afford-to-fail exam, it is going to be tough on him especially. Gambatte ne!