Why I don't teach HypnoBirthing®
This is a difficult post for me, because I have many talented colleagues who are doing awesome work with their clients. So, with great respect to them, let me explain why I disagree with two hypnosis programs: HypnoBirthing® (the Mongan Method) and Hypnobabies®.
I trained as a HypnoBirthing® practitioner in 1999 with Marie Mongan, but I made a clear decision then to not teach this (trademarked) program for a number of reasons - the main reason being safety.
Over the years, and with feedback from parents, one of the most significant differences that my ChildbirthJoy Prenatal Hypnosis programme has is the addition of safety with Medical Safeguards.
As a hypnotist, when I help a client with hypnosis to manage pain (i.e. headaches, backache), I need permission from my client's doctor first. Masking pain with the use of hypnosis is hugely beneficial because people can reduce or eliminate their pharmaceutical use and have a better quality of life.
Masking pain that needs medical or dental attention, however, is a problem.
Hypnotic anaesthesia needs to be done safely and responsibly. The use of Medical Safeguards is one of the most important ways to incorporate safety into medically oriented hypnosis. As far as I can tell, I don't see this incorporated into either the HypnoBirthing® or Hypnobabies® programs.
When I teach prenatal classes, my use of Medical Safeguards first involves reviewing with expecting parents when to call their health-care provider (HCP - midwife or physician) in birth. I never teach parents to withhold information about what is happening in the birth because their HCP needs to be informed in a timely way.
As a childbirth educator, it is more important to me that my clients are skilled in using hypnosis for comfort and calm, than teaching them to be advocates (in my mind, some programmes promote more of an adversarial approach). I know what it was like to be a midwife; I know what it is like to be a doula. It takes tremendous effort to build a relationship of trust, and it would NEVER occur to me as a childbirth educator and hypnotist to damage that relationship.
My use of Medical Safeguards, secondly, is to incorporate the concept of safety into the hypnosis that is provided. For example, I repeat hypnotic suggestions that the baby is born "safely, at term and in the setting of your choice."
If you are an expecting parent, you should know what your prenatal programme is teaching. I teach my own style of hypnosis, and I happen to think that I have a good package, but by no means do I think that my approach is best for everyone, so do your research.
As I read HypnoBirthing®: The Mongan Method, I personally find the following quote very unsettling, because (aside from what the research shows about poorer outcome) an unplanned out-of-hospital birth that is unattended is, at the very least, stressful for the parents, even if, in the moment, hypnosis allows the mother to be calm:
"HypnoBirthing babies may decide that it is all right to be born en route to the hospital or even
in the comfort of their own homes....Should your baby decide that your bedroom or the backseat
of your car, away from the hustle and bustle of other people, is perfectly fine with him, you can
remain calm..."
HypnoBirthing®, Marie Mongan, 2005, page 114
I don't know anyone who thinks that the back seat of a car is an acceptable setting for birth. Nor is your bedroom an ideal place if you have made clear plans to birth in a hospital or Birth Centre. From what I've seen, parents spend quite a lot of energy thinking and planning on the birth place that best fits their needs. Pain that is hypnotically masked in such a way that the birth happens in a different setting is never ideal in my mind.
I have an extremely low incidence (one that I know of, a second birth) of unplanned unattended birth. This, in a practice of thousands of clients who have learned hypnosis with me.
And as there is always room for improvement, I continue to modify my work based on feedback from clients, midwives and physicians. This research is all that exists to date on the HypnoBirthing® program:
Thirty-eight women were randomized to either Hypnobirthing or a standard childbirth preparation course. The groups were similar
with respect to age, parity, and gestational age at course enrollment.
“The Hypnobirthing group perceived a greater ability to cope during childbirth after course completion compared to the
conventional group. However, after delivery, the Hypnobirthing group recalled relatively poorer intrapartum coping skills (p = 0.02)
[Note: this means the research is statistically significant]. At delivery, there were no differences among groups with regard to
route of delivery, birthweight, Apgar scores, or intrapartum and postpartum epidural and analgesic use.
Hypnobirthing was not more effective in improving perceived coping skills during labor than conventional childbirth classes.”
Fischer, Barbra et al. Randomized controlled trial of hypnobirthing versus standard childbirth classes: patient satisfaction
and attitudes towards labor. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Dec 2009; 201 (6): Supp S61-S62.
www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(09)01252-6/fulltext
My concern with a prenatal program that emphasizes building confidence over competence is that, as this study shows, women were more confident before the birth. When strong contractions happened, however, the women reported after the birth that they were in worse shape than if they had never done the classes at all because they had pinned all their hopes on this type of hypnosis working. This is the reason that I prefer to teach a range of hypnotic comfort strategies, because if one doesn’t work, there are others she can resort to.
Additionally, this program shows that there is no difference in outcome (route of delivery, medication use, etc). In this particular study, both the personal perception (subject to individual interpretation) and the hard evidence (reduction in medication use) show that the HypnoBirthing® program was not effective.
There are other reasons that I don't teach HypnoBirthing® or Hypnobabies® that I may elaborate on another day, but, for now I consider that encouraging the safest birth with Medical Safeguards is my most important job as a hypnotist.
I trained as a HypnoBirthing® practitioner in 1999 with Marie Mongan, but I made a clear decision then to not teach this (trademarked) program for a number of reasons - the main reason being safety.
Over the years, and with feedback from parents, one of the most significant differences that my ChildbirthJoy Prenatal Hypnosis programme has is the addition of safety with Medical Safeguards.
As a hypnotist, when I help a client with hypnosis to manage pain (i.e. headaches, backache), I need permission from my client's doctor first. Masking pain with the use of hypnosis is hugely beneficial because people can reduce or eliminate their pharmaceutical use and have a better quality of life.
Masking pain that needs medical or dental attention, however, is a problem.
Hypnotic anaesthesia needs to be done safely and responsibly. The use of Medical Safeguards is one of the most important ways to incorporate safety into medically oriented hypnosis. As far as I can tell, I don't see this incorporated into either the HypnoBirthing® or Hypnobabies® programs.
When I teach prenatal classes, my use of Medical Safeguards first involves reviewing with expecting parents when to call their health-care provider (HCP - midwife or physician) in birth. I never teach parents to withhold information about what is happening in the birth because their HCP needs to be informed in a timely way.
As a childbirth educator, it is more important to me that my clients are skilled in using hypnosis for comfort and calm, than teaching them to be advocates (in my mind, some programmes promote more of an adversarial approach). I know what it was like to be a midwife; I know what it is like to be a doula. It takes tremendous effort to build a relationship of trust, and it would NEVER occur to me as a childbirth educator and hypnotist to damage that relationship.
My use of Medical Safeguards, secondly, is to incorporate the concept of safety into the hypnosis that is provided. For example, I repeat hypnotic suggestions that the baby is born "safely, at term and in the setting of your choice."
If you are an expecting parent, you should know what your prenatal programme is teaching. I teach my own style of hypnosis, and I happen to think that I have a good package, but by no means do I think that my approach is best for everyone, so do your research.
As I read HypnoBirthing®: The Mongan Method, I personally find the following quote very unsettling, because (aside from what the research shows about poorer outcome) an unplanned out-of-hospital birth that is unattended is, at the very least, stressful for the parents, even if, in the moment, hypnosis allows the mother to be calm:
"HypnoBirthing babies may decide that it is all right to be born en route to the hospital or even
in the comfort of their own homes....Should your baby decide that your bedroom or the backseat
of your car, away from the hustle and bustle of other people, is perfectly fine with him, you can
remain calm..."
HypnoBirthing®, Marie Mongan, 2005, page 114
I don't know anyone who thinks that the back seat of a car is an acceptable setting for birth. Nor is your bedroom an ideal place if you have made clear plans to birth in a hospital or Birth Centre. From what I've seen, parents spend quite a lot of energy thinking and planning on the birth place that best fits their needs. Pain that is hypnotically masked in such a way that the birth happens in a different setting is never ideal in my mind.
I have an extremely low incidence (one that I know of, a second birth) of unplanned unattended birth. This, in a practice of thousands of clients who have learned hypnosis with me.
And as there is always room for improvement, I continue to modify my work based on feedback from clients, midwives and physicians. This research is all that exists to date on the HypnoBirthing® program:
Thirty-eight women were randomized to either Hypnobirthing or a standard childbirth preparation course. The groups were similar
with respect to age, parity, and gestational age at course enrollment.
“The Hypnobirthing group perceived a greater ability to cope during childbirth after course completion compared to the
conventional group. However, after delivery, the Hypnobirthing group recalled relatively poorer intrapartum coping skills (p = 0.02)
[Note: this means the research is statistically significant]. At delivery, there were no differences among groups with regard to
route of delivery, birthweight, Apgar scores, or intrapartum and postpartum epidural and analgesic use.
Hypnobirthing was not more effective in improving perceived coping skills during labor than conventional childbirth classes.”
Fischer, Barbra et al. Randomized controlled trial of hypnobirthing versus standard childbirth classes: patient satisfaction
and attitudes towards labor. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Dec 2009; 201 (6): Supp S61-S62.
www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(09)01252-6/fulltext
My concern with a prenatal program that emphasizes building confidence over competence is that, as this study shows, women were more confident before the birth. When strong contractions happened, however, the women reported after the birth that they were in worse shape than if they had never done the classes at all because they had pinned all their hopes on this type of hypnosis working. This is the reason that I prefer to teach a range of hypnotic comfort strategies, because if one doesn’t work, there are others she can resort to.
Additionally, this program shows that there is no difference in outcome (route of delivery, medication use, etc). In this particular study, both the personal perception (subject to individual interpretation) and the hard evidence (reduction in medication use) show that the HypnoBirthing® program was not effective.
There are other reasons that I don't teach HypnoBirthing® or Hypnobabies® that I may elaborate on another day, but, for now I consider that encouraging the safest birth with Medical Safeguards is my most important job as a hypnotist.
