The UK National Council for Hypnotherapy has issued a “research snippet” on the effectiveness of Hypnosis for Childbirth. In it they say:
Studies [Hoffman & Kipenhaur (1969)] reported that hypnosis eliminated or substantially reduced the pain of childbirth for 50% (median) of women, with individual studies reporting success rates ranging from 35% to 90% of cases. That suggests that the chances of having a painless childbirth with hypnosis varies enormously, depending upon the specific characteristics of the study, i.e., the way hypnotherapy is conducted and the characteristics of the women participating, including their level of motivation, expectations, etc. Roughly half the women typically experienced substantial freedom from pain in these old studies.
Yes, that’s an AVERAGE of 50% pain reduction for women using self hypnosis for pregnancy and labor, with up to 90% pain reduction in women who were motivated to use it.
Across three studies, involving 142 women in total, they found that the hypnotised group were about half as likely to require pharmaceutical pain relief (analgesia) during childbirth compared to women giving birth without hypnosis. More specifically, 62% of hypnotised women (mean) did not require analgesia compared to only 26% of non-hypnotised women.
So you more than double your chances of giving birth without needing chemical pain relief – just by learning to focus your mind in self-hypnosis…
[In] a study by Mairs (1995) … hypnotised women rated their pain as 5.41 on average compared to 7.58 in the non-hypnotised group, excluding those (n=7) who required caesarean sections.
The great thing is that these studies show what learning self-hypnosis can achieve all by itself.
Our Blissful Birth programme goes even further – teaching you how to overcome your fears so that you can be more relaxed in labour too – which can speed up the whole process.
But even if you only managed to reduce the amount of chemical pain relief you needed by using self-hypnosis, it would be worth learning, wouldn’t it?
Give me your thoughts below…
