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Everyone has different pain thresholds and frequently find their own coping strategies. Some need a lot of analgesics, to anaesthesia. Fear, anxiety and stress cause pain to feel more acute (as highlighted by studies into the fear – pain – tension expectancy links). It is your right to ask for pain medication at any time.
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It is generally believed that women suffer great pain and discomfort during childbirth. Indeed the average woman has had this fact dinned into her so consistently throughout the years, that she is bound to suffer pain at her confinement because her mind has been so conditioned to expect it.
Grantley Dick-Reid”s recognition of this fact, and his explanation of the fear-tension-pain syndrome, has done much to alter the whole approach to obstetrics. The methods to be employed during your hypnosis for childbirth training are very similar to those which he successfully employed to deal with this, consisting of education, relaxation and suggestion. Although he described a “trance-like” state which occurred in some of his patients during labour, he stoutly denied that hypnosis played any part in the techniques he evolved.
Nevertheless suggestion forms such an integral part of the Dick-Read procedure that there is not the
slightest doubt that hypnosis can greatly enhance the use and effectiveness of his methods. Since the causes of pain during childbirth are largely psychological, it is obvious that the most effective methods of dealing with them must also be psychological. It must be remembered, however, that the hard work and effort connected with labour cannot be avoided, but the pain and mental anxiety can. Training you,
the mum-to-be, in achieving relaxation and where possible the hypnotic state can teach you to exercise aremarkable degree of mental control over your bodily functions.
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In obstetrics there are three essential requirements that the ideal anaesthetic agent should fulfil:
1. It should be capable of affording complete relief from pain however severe;
2. It should not interfere with the normal mechanics of labour;
3. It should not depress either the respiration or the circulation of the child.
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Whereas the best chemical anaesthetic agent is at best a compromise, hypnosis fulfils all these conditions and has been rightly called the ideal anaesthetic agent in midwifery.
The pain that is commonly experienced during labour is always caused by two main factors:
1. The physical contractions of the womb and the distension of tissues as the baby is born;
2. The psychological overlay of fear, anxiety and tension, arising from expectation and belief.
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A mum-to-be”s ability to relax depends not only upon the extent of her suggestibility, but also upon her
attitude to pregnancy, her emotional reaction to the event, her previous conditioning to pain, the level of her threshold of pain, and whether or not she is primagraveda. All the emotional factors, which play an important part in influencing labour pains, can be controlled by hypnosis. The greatest value of hypnotic training lies in its ability to achieve the following:
1. The eradication of erroneous ideas by the use of counter-suggestion;
2. The teaching of relaxation;
3. The teaching of auto-hypnosis to the mother and the ability to produce such relaxation whenever
required
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the induction of hypnotic anaesthesia is of secondary importance since relaxation itself will always automatically raise the threshold of pain. When the mum-to-be receives proper psychological preparation for labour, it is questionable whether induced anaesthesia is necessary since labour will tend to proceed with a minimum of discomfort except for that associated with hard work.
It is true that the mum-to-be can be taught to relax, to feel confident, and look forward to her confinement with pleasure as a most rewarding and satisfying experience. Her labour is likely to be shortened in duration (on average by 3-4 hours in the first stage of labour for a primagraveda, and at least 2 hours otherwise, lessening the likelihood of the mum-to-be exhausting). The labour will also be much easier and far less distressing. Fortunately, this can be achieved without deep hypnosis.
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Early training in both mental and physical relaxation can be achieved even in lighter or medium stages of hypnosis and can prevent a great deal of anxiety, apprehension and tension. The increased confidence acquired will minimise the amount of anaesthesia required, should this be required in the later expulsive stage of labour. the evidance based reported an average reduction of 20 per cent in the length of the first stage of labour in all women who had had prenatal hypnotic training, and some 20 per cent of mums were able to achieve the deepest hypnotic states with spectacular results in the complete elimination of pain. When questioned post-natally, the greatest value of hypnosis has been amply confirmed by the mum-to-be”s own reactions to the experience. Almost invariably the reply has been that future confinements will hold no terrors whatever, and that the mum-to-be will even look forward to having another baby under similar circumstances, irrespective of whether complete pain was eliminated or not.
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The Advantages and Disadvantages of Hypnosis in Obstetrics
(extracted from p.308 – 311, Medical and Dental Hypnosis and Its Clinical Applications, John Hartland, 2nd Edition).
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The Advantages of Hypnosis are:
1. It can greatly increase the mum-to-be”s ability to relax, both mentally and physically. Under hypnosis
