How hypnotherapy can ease pain

placeholding invisible text

Average rating:

How does it work?

Hypnotherapy cannot override your own instincts. It's nothing like stage hypnotism where you might pretend you're a race horse in the final furlong of the Grand National! With clinical hypnotherapy or 'HypnoBirthing', you're always in control and won't do anything you don't want to do. The aim is a calmer, more comfortable birth.

Hypnosis is a feeling of relaxed concentration, like when you're absorbed in a good book and manage to 'tune out' other distractions. The idea is that you'll be taught relaxation, breathing and visualisation techniques that get rid of fear, tension and pain.

HypnoBirthing is based on the work of Dr Grantly Dick-Read who wrote the book Childbirth Without Fear, originally published in 1933 and still widely read today. He believed that fear and tension had an enormous impact on labour, causing pain for 95 per cent of women. By taking away fear and tension, the pain is reduced, if not eliminated.

HypnoBirthing, originally established in the USA by Marie Mongan, is one technique that involves a series of classes where the birthing partner is a central part of the process. Throughout the classes, techniques will be learned that help the birth to become an easier, calmer and more comfortable process, through the use of easily learned self-hypnosis and breathing techniques.

- More on hypnotherapy: is it effective?

More on pain relief options during birth

- Read how Ceri used hypnobirthing for a pain-free birth
- Pain relief during labour
- Your pain relief options for a home birth

By Anne Richley, midwife