Hypnosis as a help at birth

Hypnosis as obstetrics without PDA

16/10/2014

Hypnosis does not generally have the best reputation. In the context of hypnotism, many people inevitably feel reminded of the circus or similar public events where people were presented as a joke and viewed by the audience as remote-controlled, mindless beings.

However, this has nothing to do with clinical hypnosis. Because modern hypnotherapy in obstetrics sees women as active creators of their trance process. Nothing happens against the will of women. Rather, the pregnant women under hypnosis in a state of increased attention and take the physical processes very intense true, so the St. Sixtus Hospital in Haltern am See on the house's portal geburt-unter-hypnose.de.

Renaissance of a treatment method
Discovered by medical professionals and midwives just as obstetrics, this therapy comes according to hebammenblog.de more and more in vogue. Hypnotherapy is by no means a medical discovery. Hypnosis has long been used in birth preparation. In Germany, for example, 100 years ago, it was not uncommon for women to get their child under hypnosis. Between 1920 and 1930, births under hypnosis were carried out almost everywhere in Europe - and this continued until the beginning of the 1960s. Only with the increasing mechanization of childbirth was the hypnosis in obstetrics almost completely forgotten and only slowly rediscovered as a gentle and natural method in birth preparation, so the portal geburt-unter-hypnose.de.

Less painkiller by hypnosis
In principle, the hypnosis should take pregnant pain and anxiety. „It is a state of deep relaxation that is between being awake and sleeping“, so Claudia Müffler, midwife at the St. Sixtus Hospital opposite the Allgemeine Zeitung Rhein Main. And Helga Hüsken-Janßen, Managing Director of the German Society for Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy (DGH) says: „Many pregnant women compare the experience of a trance with the pleasant state just before falling asleep.“

Thus, Ulrich Freitag, member of the board of the professional association of gynecologists (BVF) confirms to the general: „Self-hypnosis can be an effective way to reduce tension and anxiety during childbirth“. And gynecologist Joscha Reinhard from the St. Mary's Hospital in Frankfurt am Main also confirms that there are many indications that hypnosis can foster anxiety and that less painkillers are needed.

Trained staff obligatory
Crucial in this context, however, is a very good guide. Therefore, in the hypnomental birth preparation with the women a mental test run of birth is practiced. But hypnosis belongs only in the hands of qualified therapists, advises the DGH. A therapist should have a certificate from a reputable hypnosis company that guarantees that the therapist has completed a solid education. Claudia Müffler e.g. She learned her technique during a 40-hour training course with a hypnotherapist.

The BVF also points out that therapeutic hypnosis should only be carried out by qualified psychotherapists and doctors. For even if a woman were just taking a hypnosis course for birth preparation and hoping to capitalize on her strengths, "it may be that strong unpleasant or unpleasant feelings and experiences break out," Freitag told the Allgemeine. Mental illnesses e.g. would be an exclusion criterion for this type of treatment, so the St. Sixtus Hospital. In addition Claudia Müffler: „We take a close look at the woman's health history“. So she would interview the pregnant woman in advance for mental illnesses or traumatic experiences.

doubt
Marion Schulze-Efting has tried the hypnomental method. In the preparatory course, the hypnotherapist used certain keywords again and again. „When the midwife told me that the cervix was open, I automatically entered the state of trance“, she says. But does this technique work even if the clinician is unfamiliar with hypnotherapy??
The midwife Jana Friedrich, who is permanently employed in a clinic in Berlin, doubts that. She has experienced pregnant women there who have prepared themselves in hypnobirthing courses. „I had the feeling that the women have a list in mind of how the birth has gotten lost“, she says. (Jp)