Blissborn birth hypnosis natural childbirth

Pain meds don't help babies, but hypnosis does!

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Created on Thursday, 12 May 2011 06:48

It's easy to get bummed out about this: Pain medications taken during labor reach the babies inside and increase their chance of drug dependency in adulthood.  Twilight sleep, for example, was used in the late '40s and '50s on many moms giving birth in hospitals, and those children grew up to be part of the 'sex, drugs and rock-n-roll' generation, with drug use more common than ever before.  The feeling of 'turning on' likely links back to their first impressions of life outside the womb.

Babies back then were separated from their moms at birth, sometimes for days, as the moms recovered from the drugs and the violence of their medicalized births.  Their infantile unfulfilled longing for acceptance, touch, bonding, and reassurance would easily have been re-kindled in a drug-induced haze, and would finally have been satisfied in the environment of free love.

Studies show that the children of epidurals have somewhat impaired motor skills, language development, memory and judgment, from an early age.  With those kinds of challenges children often turn away from formalized, rule-driven environments because they just can't keep up ... and if most of the children are in the same boat, the system has to change to accommodate them.  As young adults they demand change.  As full adults they can create a revolution on all fronts: social, cultural, economic, spiritual, etc.

Read more: Pain meds don't help babies, but hypnosis does!

One born every minute

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Created on Thursday, 03 February 2011 06:39

"There's a sucker born every minute" ~ PT Barnum

Yes, Mr. Barnum of circus fame. How appropriate for this new TV show on Lifetime that glorifies epidurals, pitocin, and women who hand over their power to the omniscient nurses of the labor and delivery unit.

What do you think of this show? 
Did you cry to see the moms humiliated, the babies dopey and the nurses triumphant?
Were you sickened by the circus music that played during the one (attempted) natural labor?
How does it affect pregnant moms to hear each segment of the show open with sirens and screams?

We encourage you to think critically about how birth is presented in the media and speak your mind.  Use your social media connections, which can reach to every corner of the world.  Speak up for moms and partners and babies everywhere!

~ Shelley

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Enjoying birth on your terms

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Created on Monday, 17 January 2011 06:50

By Janet Balzer, CHt, BHE

“…I had the labor and birth of my dreams…” …”The affirmation ‘birthing is easier than I thought’ not only kept me going during labor-it summarizes my amazing experience…” “K’s birth was the most beautiful, perfect, incredible experience of my life…” “…The nurses couldn’t believe I was walking around and in labor…then 3 easy pushes and she was out…”

“Let Go,” that’s it, “Let Go.” That is the self hypnosis trigger which brings about instant relaxation. Mom starts perfecting it in the very first Blissborn birth hypnosis class. This self-hypnosis discovery gives mom a great deal of relief when she realizes that this incredible self-empowering tool delivers freedom from believing she has to have will power, or that her only choice is to have an epidural. Instead, she trains herself to drift into the space within herself where all of the essential energy for this stage of pregnancy and birth are gathered, and she realizes she was built for a better birth.

As mom experiences her last weeks of pregnancy, Blissborn also trains her partner. The skills that her partner develops as her hypnosis coach allow him to recognize what really helps mom. Mom’s partner experiences total relaxation and self-hypnosis along with mom in every class. Both learn how to reduce the influence of the conscious brain and shut out distractions. As a hypnosis coach, the partner learns to help mom focus, to help with affirmations and scripts, to make decisions, and to understand the risks and benefits of an intervention if one is offered or needed. The partner is not only a coach, but a supporter and protector as well. A laboring mom needs to feel safe, protected, and unobserved, and after the second class her partner understands he can simply love her through the entire process and allow this beautiful experience of love and bonding develop as they get ready for their baby. Because the course also focuses on the partner’s involvement, many couples report that their relationships improve during and after the course. Better communication, greater confidence, and a deeper bond can benefit both partners and the new baby.

By this point in the education the difference between Blissborn birth hypnosis classes and other classes that offer ‘birth hypnosis’ is very clear: Blissborn focuses on hypnosis as the main element of the class. Relaxation and hypnosis are not additions to the program, they are the program. So, in lieu of a laboring mom who may choose interventions or rely on outsourced forms of relief for pain, with their documented risky side effects, Blissborn teaches mom to trust her herself as she dials inward to connect with her primal brain, and to allow the birth process to happen comfortably, naturally, and peacefully.

Most moms come into class with differing expectations, however, the one common question is, “Can I control the pain? I have heard horror stories from my friends.” This is one of several fears that we learn to face in class three. We learn to identify fears that could derail an otherwise perfect birth and transform them into calm and confidence. By facing fear before labor, learning how it affects the baby, and how it makes labor more painful, we teach mom how to make labor shorter and easier, think more clearly, keep mental focus and control, reduce baby’s stress and trauma, and be more likely to remember this incredible experience. Mom learns to turn the fear-tension-pain cycle into the peace-relaxation-comfort cycle. Isn’t that a practice that you as a laboring mom you would want to learn?

Working with the energy of birth is a fabulous tool to carry in your tool belt, and by class four you will be feeling increasingly more confident. You will learn the secrets of the mind that have allowed people to reduce and change sensations in their bodies and suffering in their minds for thousands of years by experimenting with both physical and philosophical pain. You will learn how to control the elements of pain signal transmission, and how you can control or stop pain through hypnosis. Through hypnosis, you will become more objective about sensations, allowing you the emotional distance to work with them and the clarity to choose new positive meanings for them; you will learn to think of contractions in terms of how much they accomplish instead of how they feel. You will learn to appreciate that your body is designed for birth and surrender to the energy of birth.

Going into class five, you will have listened to each of the five CDs that were provided to you for the class, and you will have read the accompanying manual written by caring professionals. Above and beyond classwork, you will have studied the additional chapters, The Anatomy of Birth, The Stage of Labor, Handling the Unexpected, and After the Baby Comes, which put the best information and birthing tools at your disposal.

You will realize that, as each class has built on the last, you have learned the techniques to realize the birth that you and your partner envision. You will have learned to communicate with your baby regarding the birth journey. You will know how to change the way you experience time in labor. You will have expressed your choices during labor and birth as well as your choices after birth, and you will trust your body’s wisdom to do its best. You will emerge from this class prepared to take hypnosis beyond birth and use your skills to achieve any goal, and will join hundreds of thousands in past generations when you step into your power and embrace a new way of being.

Thank you for your interest in this unbelievable birthing program which can change your family’s lives. These affordable classes are offered in five weekly two-hour sessions led by certified clinical hypnotherapists. We at Blissborn look forward to sharing with you these amazing tools for a faster, easier birth, and are honored to be a part of your miracle.

Janet Golden Balzer is a Blissborn Educator and represents Blissborn for the Frontrange in Colorado. Janet lives in Broomfield, CO where she, Natelle Brown and Jennifer Welch are joyfully educating the public in and around Denver through seminars and classes.  She attended the Hypnotherapy Academy of America where she earned her credentials as a Medical Support Clinical Hypnotherapist.  Janet can be found through blissbornfrontrange.com or flatironshypnotherapy.com

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Crying it out

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Created on Thursday, 04 November 2010 06:52

Question from a Blissborn mom:

I am assuming you didn't let your kids ‘cry it out’ at night.  Did you use a sleep method?  Or were you just lucky and they slept?

Answer (from Shelley)

I didn't really use any method for sleep for my kids; I just went with my instincts, which were to keep them close. Each of them slept between me and my husband until they were about three, then moved onto a mattress on the floor at my bedside and stayed there until they were asking for their own rooms.  My 5-year-old is still there, but my daughter (now 10) wanted her own space when she was that age, so I'm ready when he is!  I love having them close and hearing them breathe at night.  We never have to argue about going to bed — they don't mind a bit.  My husband and I have found creative ways around the obvious problem with always having kids in your bedroom.  It hasn't caused any trouble for us (but we both agree on co-sleeping — or at least he doesn't disagree too much).  Read this article explaining the scientific defense of bed-sharing by James McKenna, MD.

The main thing I tell people when they ask me for sleep advice is to do whatever it takes to reassure your children that they're safe and loved and all their needs will be met.  Without that, the problems will be endless — way beyond sleep!

Sometimes we have to let them cry (like if you're feeling you have to have a break OR ELSE!), but as a general rule I think it's important to respond with love and reassurance every time they need you.  Even if you want your baby to sleep in her own room, she will want to know you'll always be close by.  She's too young to understand that you still exist when she can't physically see and touch you.

When they are little they are helpless and I think they know it instinctively, so their cries are not just about sadness or physical needs. They are about the threat of a bond being broken — the bond they depend upon for their continued existence.  They can be very upset by being left alone — scared that they've been abandoned — and some part of the subconscious mind can easily conclude that means death is imminent. I just hate the thought of it!  I've done a lot of work with people whose abandonment issues messed up their relationships and their lives, so I've tried really hard to avoid that with my kiddos.

I have a theory about why the ‘cry it out’ sleep methods get kids to stop crying:  Like all baby animals, they have a deep instinct to lie quiet and still if their caretakers seem to have left.  If you've ever seen a baby deer left by its mother, it is frozen, even when discovered. Baby birds do the same — they only peep if they think their mother is coming. Being quiet is the instinct that kicks in to avoid being found by predators.  Once babies un-learn that someone is there to protect them, they rely on that instinct.

My mother tells a story handed down to her by her grandmother who was a full-blooded Cherokee.  The grandmother said that when she came to live with my great-grandfather in 'white' society, she was shocked to see the women leaving their babies unattended.  It broke her heart.  She attributed all of their fussiness, digestive problems, sugar cravings and tantrums to this.  She said Cherokee babies never cried.  Never! (I found this hard to believe but my Mom says she challenged her grandmother on it and her grandmother swore they just didn't cry — I'm sure sickness or injuries were the exception.) And she said they didn't have all those other problems with fussiness and digestion either.

What was their secret?

These babies were always with their mothers, every minute of the day and night, and the mothers kept their babies in constant physical contact until they began to crawl.  She said that as a result, the bonding among parents and children and throughout the tribe was profound.  The mothers nurtured that bonding, and that was the glue that held their societies together so tightly.

The 'crying it out' philosophy is so strange to me because it views crying as a problem to be solved, and in my opinion it's just a symptom, a message given in the baby's first language.  Emotional and physical distance may be what's causing the crying, and the experts who recommend even more distance are really missing the point and creating more problems.  Parents may get more sleep, but at what price?  Long-term, I think it damages trust and bonding, and without those, how can we have harmony and maintain our authority with our kids?  What does it take to rebuild trust when it's lost at such a young age, during the child's imprinting process of "the way the world is"?  I subscribe to the philosophy that if the kids are doing something we don't like, our job is to love them more (not withdraw love in an attempt to control them or teach them).  Relationships solve problems much better than rules do.

Anyway, our bodies are chemically and physically wired to sleep at night and be awake during the day.  Given time, patience and love, your baby will slip into a natural rhythm that matches yours.  It may take a while for her quickly-changing body to adjust, but sleeping on the circadian rhythm is as natural as breathing, and her body will naturally tend toward this, especially if all of her emotional and physical needs are being met.

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