Afraid to give birth? Where does your fear sit?
Fear of birth is common
If you're afraid to give birth, the first thing to know is that it would be surprising if that wasn't the case. Fear of birth comes from several sources so immunity to fear would pretty much mean you're living under a rock. So if fear of birth is all around us, how do we deal with it? This post is a simplified approach to a very complex topic, so please always consult your mental healthcare provider for additional support around fears you may have. We suggest hypnotherapy as one powerful way of offering focused support around releasing fear which doesn't serve us.
The first step is to identify where the fear comes from.
Does any fear serve us? Yes, some of it does. In its most common form, the root of fear in childbirth is biological. However now that we have evolved to a much safer lifestyle than our ancestors once experienced, how do we work towards shedding engrained fear that once meant survival but now means unhelpful anxiety about imagined danger? Well, as people with thinking brains the good news is that we can use the power of our minds to create an outlook which more closely matches reality!
Using the power of language to our advantage is one of our best tools.
Since negative language and self-talk, such as "there are so many things that could go wrong," or "my best friend told me that giving birth was a horrible experience," or "my doctor said she's only seen one patient give birth unmedicated and it wasn't pleasant" are so commonly heard in our culture, we have to take a proactive approach if we want to counteract the toll that this takes upon our own experience. In HelloBirth classes, we implement a daily practice of Positive Pregnancy & Birth Affirmations. This gives your brain more helpful ideas to work with. The only way to allow these helpful and more realistic ideas to take hold is to play this track on repeat as often as you can.
So... what's that about... reality? Doesn't birth really hurt? Is it pain with a purpose?
Another source of fear around birth in our culture is a little more difficult to contend with, and that's a desire to control the birth-giver's body. Throughout history, we've been told we must behave in certain ways during pregnancy and birth. A lot of the advice can be confusing and conflicting, and much of it is frankly insulting. "Don't vocalize." "Give birth lying down on your back." "Your baby is too big to fit." The bottom line here is that when birth-givers are given autonomy over their bodies, also known as the big P or Permission, they will typically choose quiet, dark, undisturbed settings where they move into upright positions for birth, allowing gravity to help move their babies out. They can often push without damaging their tissues because they're able to follow their body's signals. Is birth a powerful, sometimes intense experience? Absolutely, it can be. But painful? Not always.
In the modern world, we have hospitals which can feel chaotic by their nature. So that if a person is experiencing intensity with their contractions, the environment they are in can actually push that intensity over into the realm of painful. Enter: HelloBirth hypnobirthing tools which provide your mind with a powerful way to focus your mind right where it needs to be: on your own experience and needs.
This absolutely does not mean that a person who chooses to use an epidural or even prefers certain aspects of a medical setting over their own home is making some sort of inferior choice. Far from it! There is room in each and every HelloBirth class for different interpretations and philosophies around using medical tools for birth.
No really... what about complications?
So yeah, birth does carry some risk. We completely understand that some fear comes from very real situations. However, we invite you to take a closer look. That's right, don't turn a blind eye. But take a closer look because when you do, your eyes will be opened to something called iatrogenic complications. That is, side-effects actually caused by the medical tools themselves.
For example, Pitocin is a drug given to either attempt to cause uterine contractions to occur or to make uterine contractions stronger. If not enough is given, a person can be left for hours in a hospital room just waiting. Not exactly healthy for a person's mental state. Now of course if there's a true medical need for induction then there are some helpful ways to ease the experience of a long, slow induction process. And we discuss this in HelloBirth class.
If too much Pitocin is given, the parent and baby can both become distressed from too much stimulation and not enough oxygen to sustain them, creating irregular and concerning heartrate patterns for the baby. This scenario typically doesn't happen all of a sudden, but can happen over the course of 12 to 24 hours of Pitocin administration, creating the need for a Cesarean to relieve the distress.
So in other words, medical tools should be available but they should be applied much more judiciously than they typically are in our current healthcare system. Our completely non-medical advice? Go easy. Go gently. Make decisions step-by-step. True emergencies do occur, no doubt about that. Thankfully, they are quite a bit more rare than our culture tells us they are. And if an emergency does happen, thankfully we have hospitals equipped to care for us.
Midwives specialize in normal, healthy birth. As such, they know with advance notice when birth does not appear healthy and recognize when it's time to facilitate a safe and smooth transfer of care. However, to use medical tools before the need arises causes more harm than good.
Bottom line: be sure you trust your provider and never be afraid to switch if something feels off or it's a philosophical or even simply a personality mismatch.
You deserve nothing but total ease. If something is making you uneasy, there's probably a reason for it. Ask for help and support! Start by writing down the need or concern and sit with it for a day or so. Is there something that can be done to address the fear? This can help tremendously in identifying the difference between fear stemming from that biological carryover from our ancestors and a real concern that is actually before us.