Pre and postnatal yoga instructor Tiffanie Kendall said the technique, called ‘hypnobirthing’, was all about giving people confidence to get through the tough time. 

“Hypnobirthing is designed to give women and birth partners the tools to inform them about birth, take away fear, and also tools to manage the intensity of labour,” she said.

“For women, this may be coping mechanisms, and for their partners it’s ways to support birthing women.”

Mrs Kendall assured skeptics not to be misguided by the term ‘hypo’, and said it was not what people expect. 

“People tend to get tripped up by ‘hypno’ part of title, but it actually just refers to lots of tools like breathing, acupressure, all of those things,” she said.

“For my course specifically, it means self hypnosis, which isn’t like on TV where they have swinging clocks and clucking chickens, it’s a very deep form of relaxation.”

The hypnobirthing instructor has been training for the last year to prefect her course, and said the inspiration to learn the techniques was sparked by her own pregnancy.

“When I was pregnant with my 2 and a half year old I was looking for ways myself to reduce fear because I was quite nervous and scared, all I knew about birth really was what you see in movies where a woman is lying on the table screaming, so I started looking around for things to do to prepare myself,” she said.

“There was a woman down in Albury I heard about teaching a hypnobirthing course, so I went down as a student and had a great birth experience, then through my yoga noticed woman wanted what I had experienced too so decided to start my own training.”

Mrs Kendall said the relaxation technique works to eliminate a lot of the physical and mental pain associated with labour.

“There is a concept of fear when you give birth that leads to tension, which leads to pain so it’s a constant cycle which heightens the actual pain we feel,” she said.

“We need to break that cycle with tools like this that target mostly being calm, through releasing endorphins and other hormones, to reduce fear, which in turn reduces tension and then pain.”

Mrs Kendall’s courses run for two, six hour days and can be taught in groups or privately.

“I’ve got a couple of people signed up for the first group with a few places left, and a few private sessions already, but it aligns really well with the prenatal yoga that I already teach so I’m lucky to get interest from that,” she said.

“My first group class will be the weekend of February nine and 10, which will just be small groups I’m hoping to run every six to eight weeks.” 

Mrs Kendall is excited to begin a steady routine of classes, and said she can’t wait to see the results.

I just want to help more women have positive birth experiences,” she said.

Related articles: