The Psychology of Giving Birth Programme

Life Balance Exercise

It is now commonly realised that there is a core set of principles for stabilising the human mind. These principles are commonly known as Human Givens. When people's Human Givens are not well balanced, their ability to deal with situations in a calm and logical manner is reduced, this is referred to as a lack of spare capacity.

In order to ensure you have the spare capacity to deal with the pregnancy, birth and the arrival of your baby, you will be walked through each of the Human Givens. You will then score each of them and where there are any that are particularly low, you will create tasks to enable you to balance these out.

This balancing of Human Givens will also have a positive impact on how you feel after you have given birth and specifically help you protect yourself from suffering from post natal depression.

About Relaxation

This recording is an informative guide as to how fear impacts labor and how important maintaining a state of relaxation is. It walks you through how to create an environment that you automatically associate to relaxation. This will enable you to go inward and work with your body rather than against it.

By the end of this audio,

• you will know why the specific reasons why relaxation is so important during labor,
• you will be able to recognise if you are feeling anxiety during your labor and help yourself revert back to a state of relaxation
• you will also understand how to use the patterns your brains create to maximise your sense of relaxation before, during and after having given birth.

About Visualizations and Breathing Techniques

Visualizations and breathing techniques will enhance and maintain your sense of relaxation. They will enable you to maximise each contraction or surge and work with your body to deliver your baby calmly and gently.

I will prove to you that visualizations can make a difference to your birth, but rather than prescribe a specific visualization for you to use, I will teach you how to create the right visualisations which will work in a way that's just right for you. You don't even need to have an imagination!

The three breathing techniques included are incredibly simple and easy to remember. I also explain how these work and pay particular attention to how to breathe a baby down to help you avoid tearing.

Special Place Relaxation

This relaxation recording is a guided visualisation to enable you to begin to practise relaxing. It is not specific to birth, so it's a great one for your birth companion too, as well as for after you have given birth.

By continued listening, this audio will enable you to clearly define visualizations that are your anchors for relaxation. The more you practise relaxing and visualizing these anchors, the more they will automatically relax you.

What Do You Want?

This audio and supporting document will enable you to consider as you may never have done before, what you really want your birth experience to be.

Relax During Birthing

This recording takes you on a journey of your birth day, allowing you to visualise it exactly as you would like it to be. It will enable you to practise the breathing techniques and by listening to it frequently, your trust in your body will increase over time.

By replaying this over time, you will continue to recognise more and more detail about how you want your birth to be. It will enable you to feel more in control of your birth experience and you can play out different locations, people present, etc to see how they fit into your ideal visualisation. All of this rehearsal can take place before the live performance to enable you to be completely calm and in control of all circumstances.

Birth Companion Guide

Birth Companions are often unsure as to how to help a woman in labor. In this document I have described the key ways in which a birth companion can play an active part and make a real difference to the birth day.

The guide includes five key things that will really make a difference and it's explained in a way that is easy to remember on the day. By reading this document and being involved in this Programme, the Birth Companion will come away from the birth knowing that they have played a key role in helping the birth to be calm and gentle.

Birth Companion Interview

This is an interview with Lee, a birth companion who used the skills and techniques within this programme to support a calm and gentle birth.

In this interview I ask Lee a number of questions that I have gathered from people who are about to become birth companions and are unsure how they might deal with various aspects. This is a unique insight into the birth companion experience and is a great addition to the Birth Companion Guide.

Mothers Birthing Affirmations

Affirmations can be strange at first, however I personally find them extremely effective and I have had countless women use them and say that it has made a real difference to them too.

These affirmations are the most effective ones I have found so far, but feel free to create your own using your own words. It is really good to read affirmations aloud into a mirror on a daily basis, so I have included a recording to go along with this document.

If you are still unsure about affirmations, feel free to just humor me for the first couple of days, trust me, I'm so confident that it will make a difference that I know you'll carry on!

Creating Birth Preferences

This is something you should ideally do with your birth companion, so you are both comfortable about what the preferences are. Here I have included a recording to help you visualise how you want your birth to be in order to drive out your own personal preferences, plus an example birth preferences document.

At the end of this document and audio, you will be able to clearly and confidently articulate how you want your birth experience to be. This will enable you to be specific about the things that are particularly important to you and to enable these to be communicated to the care provider who is going to support you in your birth.

Proof of Your Mind Body Connection

This recording is to prove to you just how much you are able to control your mind and body. It will show you how you can influence how your body feels and will leave you feeling confident about how strong your mind body connection is.

By working through this programme you will start to understand just how much influence you can have over your mind and body. This recording will prove how much this is beginning to happen and if you continue to practise the techniques, the influence you have will increase and with it, so will your confidence.

Remove Your Fear of Giving Birth

This recording is especially useful if you have had a previous birth experience, which causes you anxiety when you think of it. It is included in the Programme to remove the emotion from any remaining unhelpful memories of birth experiences, stories or articles, which may be still creating some level of anxiety when you think about them.

If you have multiple experiences that cause you anxiety, then you can simply start with the experience that has the biggest impact on your emotions and go through each of them one by one until your anxiety levels are reduced.

Post Natal Depression Fact Sheet

This fact sheet will show you how you can work together to protect yourselves from Post Natal Depression. Although in some cases this condition is hormonal, in many cases it is more due to the circumstances we are in once we have had a baby.

This guide explains how sleep is key to preventing Post Natal Depression and how the Life Balance exercise you completed at the beginning of the Programme can be utilised to maintain a happy equilibrium.

Remember too that you will have unique skills from this Programme in how to influence how you feel and these skills can be used in situations where you are feeling lower than normal. This applies to both mum and Birth Companion and it's important that both of you recognise the signs and are able to support each other to enable you to enjoy this unique time of your life.

Journey Into Motherhood

We are very lucky to be able to including Sheri Menelli's wonderful eBook entitled : Journey into Motherhood: Inspirational Stories of Natural Birth into The Psychology Of Giving Birth Programme. This book is listed on Amazon and is valued at $17.95

This guide to natural childbirth offers 48 personal accounts of labor and delivery without medication. Revealing the many options women have beyond birthing location, the testimonials offer insight into the joys, concerns, and realities of natural birth. From delivering at home with a midwife and hearing the right words from a hospital nurse at just the right moment to describing a combination of the Bradley method and acupuncture at a birthing centre and discussing a child's birth at home in warm water, this resource combines personal insight with referential information. A glossary of terms and a resource guide to books, magazines, websites, videos, and CDs, and listings of childbirth classes and instructors nationwide are also included.