What is HypnoBirthing®?

HypnoBirthing® is a complete birth education programme, that teaches simple but specific self hypnosis, relaxation and breathing techniques for a better birth. HypnoBirthing® provides the missing link that allows women to use their natural instincts to bring about a safer, easier, more comfortable birthing.

HypnoBirthing® teaches you how to use your mind to relax your body. When your mind and body are relaxed, you eliminate fear. Without fear, there is no tension in your muscles. Without tension, there is no pain!

You will learn proven techniques for achieving a deeply relaxed state of mind and body using guided imagery, visualization, and special breathing techniques. You will learn how to work with, not against, your body.

HypnoBirthing® is much more than just self hypnosis or hypnotherapy for childbirth.

• With HypnoBirthing®, you’ll discover that severe pain does not have to be an accompaniment of labour
• You’ll learn how to release the fears and anxieties you may currently have about giving birth, and how to overcome previous traumatic births
• HypnoBirthing® lets you discover and experience the joy and magic of birth - rather than the horrific ordeal everyone else seems hell-bent on telling you about

HypnoBirthing® doesn’t mean you’ll be in a trance or a sleep. Rather, you’ll be able to chat, and be and in good spirits - totally relaxed, but fully in control. You’ll always be aware of what is happening to you, and around you.

In this course, you will gain an understanding of how the birthing muscles work in perfect harmony–as they were designed to–when your body is sufficiently relaxed. You will learn how to achieve this kind of relaxation, free of the resistance that fear creates, and you will learn to use your natural birthing instincts for a calm, serene and comfortable birthing.

HypnoBirthing® Advantages:

• Eliminates the Fear-Tension-Pain Syndrome before, during and after birthing.
• Eliminates or greatly reduces the need for chemical painkillers.
• Shortens the first stage of labor by several hours.
• Eliminates fatigue during labor, leaving mother fresh, awake, and with energy for actual birthing.
• Eliminates risk or hyperventilation from “shallow” breathing methods.
• Promotes special bonding of mother, baby, and birthing companion.
• Fosters more rapid postnatal recovery.
• Returns birthing to the beautiful, peaceful experience as Nature intended.

If you are interested in attending the HypnoBirthing® class in Malaysia, check out the following:

HypnoBirthing® Childbirth Education Group Class - Mar 09

Date: 14, 21, 28 March, 4, 11 April 2009
Time: 9:30am - 12:30pm
Venue: Puchong
Fee: RM560 per couple, inclusive of the HypnoBirthing® textbook, Rainbow CD & handouts

Below is the class outline:

UNIT #1: Building A Positive Expectancy
*Introduction
*HypnoBirthing®
*Rationale for comfortable birth
*How the Uterus Works
*What’s Wrong with Labor?
*How Fear Affects Labor
*Origin of Pain Concept
*Hypnosis and Deep Relaxation/Creating Positive Birth Outcomes
*HypnoBirthing® videos of labor & birth

UNIT #2: Falling in Love with Your Baby/Preparing Mind & Body
*HypnoBirthing® Stories - 3 and 4
*Prenatal Bonding Techniques
*Relaxation and Visualization for birthing
*Rapid and instant relaxation techniques
*Breathing techniques for birthing
*Progressive, Instant, and Deepening Techniques
*Hypnotic Relaxation and Visualizations

UNIT #3: Getting Ready to Welcome your Baby
*Looking at your estimated due date
*Making hospital, home or birthing center plans
*Preparing the Body for Birthing
*Light touch birthing massage
*Birth Stories Videos 5 and 6
*Preparing your birth preferences sheets
*When Baby is Ready
*Avoiding Artificial Induction of Labor
*Your Body Working for You And with You
*Releasing Negative Emotions, Fears and Limiting Thoughts

UNIT #4: Overview of Childbirth–A Labor of Love
*Birth Stories Video 7 and 8
*Onset of Labor–Thinning and Opening Phase
*Arriving at the Hospital
*As Labor Moves along|
*Birth Companion’s Role
*If Labor rests or slows
*Protecting the Natural Birthing Experience
*As Birthing advances–Nearing Completion
*Birth Rehearsal Imagery

UNIT# 5: Birthing–Breathing Love, Bringing Life
*Birthing Video
*Mother Nears Completion–thinning and opening phase ends
*Birth Explained Simply
*Breathing Baby Down
*Birth of the placenta
*Bonding with your baby
*Forest Fantasy Metaphor

For more info, please visit: http://www.hypnobirthing.com.my/

Tags: breathing techniques, HypnoBirthing
Posted by Nelson | No Comments »

In the old days, the month immediately after delivery is considered a time of great danger, of illness and potential death to both mother and baby. This is because during the postpartum period the mother’s physiological classification changes to a period of strongest Yin when her body is at the weakest.

What is the Confinement Month?

The confinement month is an Asian practice whereby new moms are confined to the home for a period of one month after the delivery of their babies. In the Chinese culture that after giving birth, the mum must stay at home, eat certain types of food cooked with the perennial ginger, sesame oil and a good dose of rice wine or DOM and rest as much as possible so that the body can recover from the trauma of delivering a baby.

During this 1 month confinement period, a confinement lady (also called a “pui-yuet”) is normally employed for a month to live with the family to look after the new mother and baby. Pui-yuets are usually middle-aged women who have a great deal of knowledge on postnatal matters through her own experiences.

I just read an article about confinement practices called ‘Doing the month’: Ancient tradition meets modern motherhood - by Anne Williams, and would like to share with you:

Where did confinement come from, and how do mothers safely honour a tradition whose basis was formed long before modern medicine?

Zuo Yuezi
The Chinese tradition of Zuo Yuezi (Cho Yuet in Cantonese) dictates that for 40 days from the birth of their children, mothers must stay inside and avoid bathing, washing their hair or brushing their teeth. They must cover their heads to prevent chills, keep the windows closed, and remain in bed for as long as possible.

Zuo Yuezi – which loosely translates into doing the month – also requires mothers to avoid all forms of stress, including crying, shouting and talking for an entire cycle of the moon.

While ‘doing the month,’ mothers can’t eat ‘cold’ foods such as cool drinks, ice cream, fruits or vegetables. Instead, they must load up on ‘hot’ foods like boiled eggs and chicken and fish soup. Along with the tradition is a famous Chinese postpartum ‘decoction’ known as Shenghua Tang – an herbal cleansing and purifying remedy.

Origins in Chinese Medicine
Medical writings about Zuo Yuezi can be traced to the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911). According to Yi-Li Wu, associate professor of history at Albion College in Michigan, early Chinese medical writings described conditions such as eclampsia, maternal tetanus and other postpartum diseases that are still deadly today if left untreated. Essentially, ‘doing the month’ was a primitive form of quarantine to prevent postpartum complications.

If you analyze Zuo Yuezi in an early medical context, many of the practices made sense. The avoidance of bathing and teeth-brushing was a way to prevent water-borne illness; staying indoors helped women and babies avoid exposure to communicable diseases, and covering the head protected new mothers from catching a ‘chill.’

Food-wise, the proteins and iron found in eggs, meat and fish provided mothers with strength and muscle repair. Rest and heavy consumption of hot soup helped prevent dehydration, kept moms warm and was believed to promote the production of breast milk. Most importantly, the legendary herbal decoction of Shenghua Tang was thought to purify the female body and help slow vaginal bleeding.

The Power of Superstition
‘Doing the month’ wasn’t only a product of Chinese medicine. Without scientific explanations for the phenomena of the times, many ancient cultures developed devout beliefs in the supernatural.

For example, some of the fear of leaving home in the first month after birth had to do with evil spirits seeking to steal babies. More common was the belief that spirits and pregnant women were out to steal breast milk. Out of these superstitions came the avoidance of expectant mothers and strangers during Zuo Yuezi.

Baby snatchers were the reason that the Chinese did not give first-born children their official names until ‘doing the month’ was over. Instead, a newborn was given a little name or nickname to trick the evil spirits. Many parents continued to use the nickname throughout their children’s lives.

Zuo Yuezi Today
Whether or not you believe in Chinese medicine or superstitions surrounding ‘doing the month,’ there is no doubt that belief plays a significant role in one’s feeling of health and well-being.

Are you doing the month? Please share your knowledge/experiences. Do you hire a confinement lady to take care of you & your baby? I hope you are lucky to find a good confinement lady. If you do know a good confinement lady, please recommend here as it would be a disaster if hired a bad confinement nanny.

Tags: confinement lady, confinement practice
Posted by Nelson | No Comments »

Do you want to know more about breastfeeding? I found a nice video about breastfeeding and would like to share with you:

Video Content:

• How to Breastfeed my baby?
• How to position while breastfeed?
• How do I know my baby is getting enough milk?
• How do I know when to switch breast?
• Breastfeed Schedule

Are you a breastfeeding mom? Do you found this video helpful?

Tags: breast milk, breastfeeding positions
Posted by hoho | 1 Comment »

Are you pregnant and trying to decide whether breastfeeding is right for you and your baby? I’ve already talked about how breastfeeding benefits your newborn, but do you know breastfeeding provides substantial benefits to the mother as well?

The followings are some of the breastfeeding benefits for mom:

• In response to the baby’s sucking, the mother’s body releases hormone oxytocin that makes her uterus contract and get smaller. If a woman does not breastfeed, her uterus will remain slightly larger than it was before pregnancy.
• Many mothers also get emotional benefits from breastfeeding because of the closeness of this interaction with the baby and from the satisfaction of helping to nourish their babies. Mothers who breastfeed immediately after the birth quickly develop a strong bond with their baby.
• It may offer protection against some cancers such as breast, uterine and ovarian. Studies have shown that the risk of developing breast cancer can be reduced by almost 50% in breastfeeding mothers. Breastfeeding for 12 to 24 consecutive months can reduce your risk of developing uterine cancer by almost one third.
• It may also help to increase bone density, preventing osteoporosis when breastfeeding ceases.
• Breastfeeding can aid weight loss after birth. Breastfeeding can burn up to 500 calories a day, which can help you lose those extra pregnancy pounds. Breastfeeding mothers showed significantly larger reductions in hip circumference and more fat loss by one month postpartum when compared with formula-feeding moms. Breastfeeding mothers tend to have an earlier return to their pre-pregnant weight.
• Breast milk is free - reducing or eliminating the cost of formula (in the thousands per year).
• Benefits child spacing. Since breastfeeding delays ovulation, the longer a mother breastfeeds the more she is able to practice natural child spacing, if she desires. How long a woman remains infertile depends on her baby’s nursing pattern and her own individual baby.
• Breastfed babies are sick less thus reducing health care costs to family in doctor office visits, prescriptions and hospitalizations.
• Breastfeeding is usually easy and convenient. Breastfed babies are very portable and you have instant, pre-warmed, ready-to-serve food wherever you go.

Tags: Breast Cancer, breast milk, Breastfeeding, breastfeeding benefits, lose weight after pregnancy, osteoporosis
Posted by Nelson | No Comments »

On previous post, you’ve learned about the importance of breastfeeding and some of the benefits of breastfeeding for the baby.

Have you breast fed before? If not why? Check out the following video to learn more about the benefits of breastfeeding your baby:

Video Content:

• Breastfeeding benefits for baby
• Why should I breastfeed?
• When should I stop breastfeed?

Tags: Breastfeeding, breastfeeding benefits
Posted by hoho | No Comments »

Welcome to AnythingMaternity.com! On this first post, I would like to talk about an important topic, which is Breastfeeding.

Why is breastfeeding important?

You have spent nine months nourishing your precious baby in your womb, why start feeding your baby infant formula when you have your own wonderful breastmilk?

Every parent wants to give their child the very best. When it comes to feeding babies, there is nothing as good as breast milk. Do you know the advantages of breast milk? Your breast milk is organic and tailormade for your baby. Breast milk is the ideal baby food. It has the perfect combination of proteins, fats, carbohydrate, and fluids that new-born babies require.

Benefits of breastfeeding should be enough to encourage mothers to want to breastfeed their newborn and for all health care providers to strongly encourage breastfeeding.

What are the benefits of breastfeeding for the baby?

• The colostrum your baby receives in the first few days, and the breastmilk that follows, contain antibodies that provide resistance to infection. Until your baby has had time to build up its own immunities, mother’s immunities will be shared with him/her through her breast milk.
• Breast milk is an important factor in promoting the best possible development of babies. It is well recognised that breastfed babies have better development of their eyesight and speech.
• The unique combination of fatty acids and other components in breast milk contribute to optimal brain development, so lack of these in artificially-fed babies may result in lower intelligence.
• Breastfed babies are less likely to suffer from childhood cancers, eczema and asthma. And if a breastfed baby does get ill, the illness is often less severe than it would otherwise have been.
• Breastfed babies will also have some protection against conditions like juvenile diabetes, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. There is good evidence that Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS or ‘cot death’) is less common in breastfed babies.
• Breastfeeding can protect your baby from developing allergies. Several studies have found that breastfeeding for six months or more makes it less likely that your baby will go on to develop food or respiratory allergies.
• Advantages in long-term health: Many studies have looked at the possible long-term health benefits of breastfeeding. There is now good evidence that, on average, the following health problems in later life are less common in those who had been breast fed compared to those who had not:
  • Obesity and overweight
  • High blood pressure
  • High cholesterol level
  • Eczema
  • Diabetes
  • Leukemia
  • Asthma

Do you know there are also many benefits of breastfeeding for the mother?

Tags: allergies, breast milk, Breastfeeding, breastfeeding benefits, eczema, SIDS
Posted by Nelson | No Comments »