Pregnancy and pre-conception is a stressful time for many women. Whichever stage you are at, you want to give you and your baby a healthy start.
As one of the UK’s leading Master Clinical Hypnotherapists, I have helped numerous women either conceive or learn to manage their stress levels through hypnotherapy.
Hypnosis is similar to daydreaming or meditation, in essence an altered state of awareness thereby creating a relaxed subconscious state of mind. In this relaxed state, the subconscious is open to receiving helpful and beneficial suggestions thus enabling an individual reach their desired goal, in your case: getting pregnant.
The calmer and more relaxed you are, the less strain on your immune system and the better chance you have of allowing your body to get on with the job of becoming pregnant.
Ideally, hypnotherapy should start before IVF treatment begins and continue for as long as a couple feels it is necessary, perhaps around three to six sessions.
If you’re considering IVF, you will have already exhausted every other possible means of getting pregnant. This leads to a great deal of stress and anxiety, so you will be going into the consultation with a feeling of elation (that you’re getting help at last) and trepidation (will it work? What will it entail?).
Your programme is worked out and your starting date fixed. Up to now you may have been able to handle the stress. But when you actually start the programme, medication will start to influence your hormones.
Without warning you find yourself on an emotional rollercoaster, veering from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. You cry, shout and find that you are not reacting in character.
This in turn takes its toll on your partner – you snap at them – they might feel in turn rejected, dejected, and angry. They too have feelings and emotions; these negative emotions bounce off one to the other in a highly charged game of emotional tennis.
It can turn into the most trying time of your relationship. This is natural and should be expected. This is where hypnotherapy can help.
Hypnotherapy can prepare both partners for what you are about to go through, by teaching you to recognise and accept that this will be a very difficult and trying phase of your life.
It can help you handle and control your anxiety, nerves, stress, anger and other negative emotions. It can also help you learn to relax.
Hypnotherapy exercises can be done alone or together: whatever works best for an individual couple.
It can also help prepare you for the worst-case scenario, that IVF fails and you do not conceive.
Hypnotherapy can also help you cope with stress during pregnancy.
Very high levels of maternal stress may contribute to pre-term birth, or low birth weight in full-term babies; a study by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists found that unborn babies suffer stress from as early as 17 weeks into the pregnancy. This can be caused by hormones transferred from anxious mothers through the placenta.
Whether this is your first or a subsequent baby, each pregnancy brings its own unique levels of stress. Trying to deal with this stress before the birth will help your unborn child in the womb as well as post-natally.
Hypnotherapy can help you cope with any pregnancy anxieties you are suffering and help guide you towards a calmer state that will enable you to cope better with both labour and looking after your newborn baby.
To find out more contact Monica Black: monica.black@hampsteadhypnotherapy.com www.hampsteadhypnotherapy.com
