HypnoBirthing, Fourth Edition

Book excerpt: HypnoBirthing® has gained momentum around the globe as a positive and empowering method of childbirth. In fact, more than 25,000 books were sold in 2014 through the author's website alone, and according to Nielsen BookScan, over 70,000 were sold through reporting retailers since its publication in 2005. Here's why: HypnoBirthing helps women to become empowered by developing an awareness of the instinctive birthing capability of their bodies. It greatly reduces the pain of labor and childbirth; frequently eliminates the need for drugs; reduces the need for caesarian surgery or other doctor-controlled birth interventions; and it also shortens birthing and recovery time, allowing for better and earlier bonding with the baby, which has been proven to be vital to the mother-child bond. What's more, parents report that their infants sleep better and feed more easily when they haven't experienced birth trauma. HypnoBirthing founder Marie Mongan knows from her own four births that it is not necessary for childbirth to be a terribly painful experience. In this book she shows women how the Mongan Method works and how parents they can take control of the greatest and most important event of their lives. So, why is birth such a traumatic event for so many women? And why do more than 40% of births now end in caesarian section, the highest percentage in history? The answer is simple: because our culture teaches women to fear birth as a painful and unsettling experience. Fear causes three physical reactions in the body—tightening of the muscles, reduced blood flow to the birthing muscles, and the release of certain hormones—which increase the pain and discomfort of childbirth. This is not hocus-pocus; this is science.