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2008 HypnoBirthing Stats
births: 9
unmedicated:7
home births: 6
intact perineums: 1
Congratulations to all!
Please send in your
Birth Reports so that your birth is included in these stats!
And remember to announce your births to your classmates.
They are waiting to hear your news! |
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Next available 5 week series begins:
Mon. Mar 31
Thurs. April 10
Mon. May 26
Thurs May 29
Learn more:
Having another baby?
Take your second HypnoBirthing class for half price! Attend as many classes as you like!
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When the images start to hurt you, sit down and work out the antidote. When disturbed by disturbing thoughts,
think the opposite.
Patanjali's Yoga Sutra
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Stem Cells in Breastmilk
At the 2008 Conference of the Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation an Australian molecular biologist announced his findings that human milk contains cells with the physical characteristics of stem cells (found in and sometimes collected from the blood in the umbilical cord).
Dr Cregan believes that within a few years these cells may well be used to find a cure for Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and a host of other conditions.
His findings reinforce the gap between formula and breastmilk. Dr. Cregan postulates that breastmilk performs many other functions beyond nutritional and that the mother's breasts provide for the newborn much like the placenta did before birth.
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The 'SOFT' Approach
The Perinatal Services Network at a hospital in California developed an approach to encourage nursing staff to be more aware and respectful of the needs of parents and babies at birth.
They call it the SOFT approach and ask staff to support:
S - skin-to-skin between baby and mum
O - open eye to eye, parents and baby gazing in each other's eyes.
F - fingertip touch. Stroke and explore your baby's soft skin
T - Time together for parents and their unwrapped baby, unhurried, free of interruptions or procedures.
This bonding time of at least 15 minutes supports a natural progression to the first breastfeeding. (Ideally this period lasts until the first breastfeeding is completed, usually an hour or more. - Ed)
For more info:
www.lomalindahealth.org
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HYPNOSIS HELPS!
Learn how hypnosis is used for weight loss at:
www.youtube/watch?v=msa
ONd9IC08
Private hypnosis sessions to
enhance fertility
cope with medical conditions,
connect with her baby,
turn a breech baby,
release fears, and
let go of disappointing birth memories.
To book an appointment
contact Jennifer at 416-462-1938 or jennifer@lifesjourney.ca
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Purchase a CD for yourself or a friend:
Birth with Calm and Confidence
Calm and Confidence for the New Mother
Relax and Refocus
Experience mind and body relaxation and train yourself to think positively.
Destination Graduation
a great gift for your favourite university student.
These CDs are written
and recorded by Certified Hypnotist Jennifer Elliott
at Zoo Music
in Toronto
Available from
www.lifesjourney.ca
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Interesting websites
Animated Birth
Watch an animated view
as a woman's body opens and the baby descends, rotates and emerges.
Watch the baby's
movements and imagine your baby participating
in his/her birth:
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Greetings!
 Reductionist Science
In 1840 the German chemist Baron Justus von Liebig identified the three chemicals essential to plant growth: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. From there, some drew the conclusion that the entire mystery of soil fertility was solved. Just 3 nutrients were needed to grow our food, and there was perhaps no need for the many other ingredients of good soil such as humus and fungi and earthworms and trace elements.
Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, (which I have been reading) suggests this simplification is an example of 'reductionist science'. Complex biology (the interplay of animal waste, plant decay, insects, earthworms, bacteria, fungi, water and the plants themselves) is reduced to chemistry. He worries that, "once science has reduced a complex phenomenon to a couple of variables, however important they may be, the natural tendency is to overlook everything else, to assume that what you can measure is all there is, or at least all that really matters." He further suggests that, "when we mistake what we can know for all there is to know," we begin to see nature as a machine.
I wonder if he isn't also describing how some see birth in our culture, wanting labour to proceed according to a particular timetable with procedures and drugs to ensure it keeps that pace. The body as a machine, the process predictable, the opening of the cervix giving us the only measurement that matters. Reducing a human mystery to a graph of expected progress and a few vaginal exams to assess that progress. Along with chemicals to assist that progress.
Sadly, the approach of fertilizing soils with chemicals has led to the depletion of that soil. What might the effect on humans be if we take away a sense of awe in how a baby is born and reduce birth to a science?
I like what Pollan says next, "a healthy sense of all we don't know - even a sense of mystery- keeps us from reaching for oversimplifications and technological silver bullets."
Someone else put it this way: don't let science overrule commonsense (or the wisdom of your body). Of course science and medicine have a wonderfully useful place. But we shouldn't let them replace our respect for nature's own wisdom.
I hope you'll experience the magic and the mystery in your birth. Embrace the unpredictability. Be prepared to be amazed. And may that wonder continue as your baby grows and develops.
JenniferHypnoBirthing Childbirth Educator
View past newsletters in our archives through the HypnoBirthing page of Life's Journey
Unsubscribe at the bottom of this email.
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Sara shares the story of her son's recent homebirth.
Birth of Amitav
On Saturday morning I began to notice that I was getting surges. They began at about 5am, after a full night's sleep. This pre-labour stage lasted the entire day, and was helped immensely by occasionally listening to the Hypno CDs and totally relaxing. I was initially surprised by how intense the surges were! I had no idea what to expect, and found it exceptionally helpful to have a way to work with them (via breath and visualization).
At about 10 pm, after I had been napping, the surges suddenly took on a totally different character. WOW intense, and very close together. I told my husband to call the doula and midwife and get them over right away. We were birthing at home, so at this stage I continued to wait, relax and experience these totally surreal sensations in my body.
When the midwife arrived and checked me, I was 6 cm dilated so she let me into the birthing pool for my active labour. The second I went into the water the sensations in my body completed changed again - they practically disappeared. The water was SO calming and soothing. I didn't get out of the water for hours, after this. Active labour was the most calm and relaxing part for me, though still extremely intense. Everyone said I looked calm, but if any of you have gone through this yet you will know that the 'calm' comes with total and utter concentration. I was so focused!!!
My doula is a hypnobirthing instructor, so she was able to keep the energy in the space aligned with the system and she helped me breath and visualize with every surge. She and my husband massaged my back and my sacrum, which was wonderfully soothing. Active labour lasted for about 6 hours, I think (though I was so working so hard internally that I really didn't perceive time). It was incredible. Magical.
Transition (or the baby dropping from the cervix to the vaginal opening) began at about 5 am. I kept being told to push, which was counter to what my mind wanted to do. It felt better to relax, after all. After an hour, the midwife got me out of the pool to check me and she said that a tiny bit of my cervix hadn't 'melted' and was caught around his forehead, preventing him from dropping!! In retrospect I wonder if I should have done a little more breathing and a little less pushing, to make sure I was completely ready for this part of the process. The midwife slipped the tiny bit of cervix up and away from him, to help him on his way.
On a better note, I did have a bit of a blessing happen at this time as well. All through my labour, my membranes never released. We thought he would be born inside his little sac!! After the prolonged transition, however, the midwife decided to break the water to help him come faster, because I had been working so hard and was getting exhausted. When the water was broken, the midwives found meconium. Uh oh. They didn't mention a thing to me and in about 15-20 minutes he was born, totally healthy and fine.
I didn't know until my doula visited a few days later that if I had had a different midwife I may have been rushed to the hospital. Thank goodness we were blessed with a very good team, who honoured our birth plan and knew what they were doing.
So highlights of this birth were: hypnosis combined with aqua-therapy - VERY good combination. I highly recommend water! And the moment he came out... as his head appeared, the first ray of morning light came in through our bedroom window and illuminated the room. My doula says it was a very beautiful and powerful moment (I had my eyes closed in concentration, understandably...). My husband then caught his son... something we are both very grateful for... and Amitav was placed on my chest, calm, alert, healthy and happy.
He latched perfectly, right away, and has burrowed himself deep into our hearts where he now lives. I can't imagine not having him to touch and smell and love. He is so beautiful to me. We are so grateful that he is out, that he is perfect and whole and healthy and happy, and that we got to experience this together.
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Research: Second Stage
Is it really possible and safe for a women to birth without being coached to push? Here's what the research says:
Spontaneous Pushing Gets Better Results
The March 2008 issue of the journal BIRTH reported on a study of 100 women in Turkey, comparing two approaches to second stage. Women were randomly assigned to either using Valsalva pushing (closed glottis while breath holding) or spontaneously pushing (open glottis, exhaling while bearing down). In the traditional Valsalva pushing group women were coached to push when fully dilated. In the spontaneous group women pushed when they felt the urge.
Spontaneous pushing resulted in a shorter, less tiring period of pushing. Women in this second group reported greater satisfaction and less discomfort and fatigue with this stage of labour than the breath holding group.
The study found no difference between the two groups in the incidence of episiotomy, perineal tears or postpartum hemorrhage, The baby fared better with spontaneous pushing, with higher Apgar scores at one and five minutes.
The authors conclude that women should be educated about spontaneous pushing and supported to do so.
There are no advantages to routine coached pushing
A randomized trial of 320 women looked at coached versus uncoached maternal pushing during the second stage of labor. The research was published in January 2006 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and found that although coached maternal pushing is associated with a slightly shorter second stage (13 minutes shorter), it confers no other advantages and withholding such coaching is not harmful.
Less Pelvic Floor Damage Associated With Uncoached Than Coached Pushing During Labor
At a joint meeting of the American Urogynecologic Society and the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons in 2004 a study was presented that looked at the effects of pushing naturally (following the body's lead) vs coached pushing (the practitioner and others in the delivery room urge the woman to take a deep breath, hold it, and push as forcefully and as long as possible with each contraction.)
The research revealed that Urodynamic stress incontinence was present in 11 women (16%) in the coached group and in seven women (12%) in the uncoached group.
Joseph I. Schaffer, MD, who presented the findings, said, "Coached pushing is a modifiable practice. Everyone uses coached pushing, but it has no known maternal or fetal benefits, and we found that it was associated with negative effects on several urodynamic indices. Our findings suggest that physicians may want to reconsider routine coached pushing."
Women in Labor who Push only with the "Urge"
May Experience Fewer Complications
A review of literature published in the Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health in 2002 found letting the body make gradual changes in the early phase of second stage labor, may have benefits to both Mum and baby.
The authors identify a passive phase of second stage when there may be no urge to bear down. This lack of urge is most likely due to the position of the unborn baby, i.e. how far the baby's head has traveled down the birth path and/or the angle assumed by the head as it travels through the canal. Therefore, unless the mother has the urge to push, or it is determined that the head is well engaged in the pelvis, interventions that promote pushing may do more harm than good, i.e. move a poorly positioned baby further down the birth path where it may get stuck in a position that is not optimal.
By engaging in pushing only when the urge is present - the active phase of second stage - women shorten the pushing period and reduce the incidence of physiological stress in the mother, acidosis in the neonate, instrument deliveries and damage to maternal perineal structures.
The authors state that most women have an urge to bear down and should do so only when this urge is present.
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You're invited to an
Earth Hour
Potluck and Parade
Saturday, March 29
Withrow Park Clubhouse
(just south of McConnell between Logan and Carlaw)
Potluck - 5:30 - 7:30 PM
Bring food to share, your own reusable dishes and cutlery & a drink
Candlelight parade - 7:30
Bring a beeswax candle and a holder and join us as we parade around the park and along the Danforth.
Invite your neighbours to show their commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ALL AGES WELCOME!
Earth Hour is a worldwide event encouraging awareness of the need to take action on climate change. All over the world people will be turning off their lights for one hour from 8-9 PM. You can participate on your own, invite others to join you in a candlelit dinner or join our community event in Riverdale.
For more information contact Jennifer Elliott: 416-462-1938 or jen.elliott@rogers.com or visit earthhour.org
During Earth Hour, governments, businesses, community leaders and individuals will be turning off their lights and switching on their support for actions that can help make a difference in the most significant challenge facing the world today. . . Earth Hour reminds us that each of us can be part of the solution to climate change.
WWF Director General James Leape
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