Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method, The Breakthrough Natural Approach to safer, easier, more Comfortable Birthing Book

Well, well. What to say about this book.

To preface, I should say that I grew up being told by my own mother exactly what this author is saying, namely, that contractions during childbirth don't hurt and that giving birth is just a lot of pressure "down there". My mom described the feeling of contractions to me as a heavy truck hanging from a rope that is attached at your cervix, pulling down into a deep abyss of nothingness, but not painfully. And so, for most of my teenage years I assumed that most other women who gave birth were just a little overly sensitive, imagining pain were in fact there wasn't any. Then I gave birth the first time, and I thought I had been lied to my whole life, because, oh man, did it ever hurt! In fact, hurt and pain were an under-statement, I felt. The second time giving birth, I came in more prepared, and I tried to do the things my mom told me she did while laboring with me (which was essentially a form of self-hypnosis and deep relaxation), and although it did help me stay in control of the pain, it did NOT take away the pain. But it did make the whole experience easier and more peaceful, at least up to a certain degree. (The last 15 minutes of an un-medicated birth are CRAZY, CRAZY, no matter how relaxed you are.)

A long preface to say: I came into reading this book without prejudice, but excitement to learn more about why I was experiencing pain in my deliveries when my mom didn't, and to find out what I was doing "wrong."

Pain during childbirth, the author claims, is something Western women experience because they fear childbirth, and it is this fear, not any physical reality, that tightens the muscles in the uterus, making labor painful (where really it shouldn't be, if one only kept the uterine muscles relaxed.) As proof for this claim she tells second-hand stories of "simple, uneducated, poor" women who give birth under a bridge, or in a ditch during WW1, or "African" women simply squatting next to a wall and having their babies with great ease, and mammals who calmly give birth, without pain and screaming. Not only are most, if not all, of these stories offensive, but they are also completely unscientific. First of all, who is to say that mammals don't experience pain during childbirth only because they are quiet during it? I once saw a cow giving birth on TV and it did not seem like that poor animal was comfortable. Secondly, who are these anonymous women whose stories she is telling us as proof, whom we know nothing about, who even the doctor who first told these stories knows nothing about, who were never asked about their experience, who never even told their own stories? How can some stranger, a random male doctor assigned to oversee their deliveries, tell how these "simple" women experienced childbirth? I was mostly quiet while giving birth, but I was quiet because it was hurting so much, and I felt like I was going to lose it if I let myself talk or scream or interact, in any way, with the outside world. Only because someone looks calm, doesn't mean they are calm. So, all these little anecdotes are really all beyond bogus and completely unconvincing to me. Also, err, if childbirth doesn't hurt in and of itself, why the need for deeper and deeper relaxation as labor progresses? Why the need for an imaginary "endorphine glove" with the power to numb your abdomen?

I'm not saying that pain-free labor doesn't exist, it probably does, sometimes, for some women. But nothing the author writes in the book proves to me that it is self-hypnosis that makes it so (no-one asked those "poor" women, or those "African" women or all the mammals in the world how, or whether, they did it pain-free, after all). And nothing she writes proves that it is fear that causes pain. I kept waiting for her explanation of why women experience after-pains, something that certainly isn't related to fear given that the birth is already over at that point and you have your lovely little baby in your arms... but she didn't mention the after-pains, not once, ignoring them completely.) Now, I have done years of yoga, and I know that you can stay in control and breathe through pain, to a certain degree. And as a former dancer I also know that relaxing tired, aching, tight muscles while you are using them can go a looong way in pushing your body beyond its own capacity. And I do believe that there is a body-mind connection that is lost on a lot of non-athletes.

So, in a way, I agree with some of what she is saying. I believe in relaxation.

But to claim that pain during labor is a social construct that you can just visualize away... and that most hospitals and practitioners are mostly there to make birth complicated for you and to make you feel powerless... well, that's simply irresponsible.

It's irresponsible and counter-productive because it causes what it seeks to prevent, namely fear of the system. And it also adds a whole ton of guilt, guilt about feeling pain, guilt about having chosen the wrong practitioner, guilt about not doing things right, guilt about drugging up your baby with an epidural (which, she says, is a terrible, terrible thing to do, making you an "unloving" mom before your baby is even born)... and so on. And I feel like we modern moms have quite enough of guilt to deal with already. We need to do and be so many tings before the baby is even born to qualify us as good mothers, from the choice of diet (she, of course, has a whole chapter to say about that, too), to the choice of diaper, to the choice of hospital, to the choice of underwear, that I sometimes wonder if the reason not more women have more babies is simply that they are tired of feeling guilty and useless.

The author talks of giving birth in a nice, trusting, positive environment, where you feel calm and loved and accepted. But she does very little to help you feel that way, making you think hospitals (where most of us do give birth) are evil, untrustworthy institutions and doctors unknowledgeable fools (a problem with most natural-birth advocacy books). I wish her book was more like that trusting place she describes, a place where women can go to feel hope and good about themselves, no matter how their deliveries go, where they can tap into their own maternal power. I do believe there is communication that needs to exist between mothers and hospitals/doctors/midwives. I do believe we need to be knowledgeable about our own bodies, I do believe we need to try to relax and trust our own strength, to have a say in our birth experience, and I can imagine that self-hypnosis might help some women go to that place of calm and peace, but this book, unfortunately, does nothing to create that trusting atmosphere or feeling of self-empowerment.

Instead of reading this book, I recommend listening to some relaxation or hypnosis videos on youtube. And do search for some that work for you, not everyone responds to images of lying in a rainbow field and turning the color of red or green or purple with feelings of calm. (I for one, must giggle). Anyway, I think, listening to a good relaxation video and doing a yoga class will get you in a much more at-ease, confident state than reading this book.

EDIT: Sorry about this blob of a text, I'm too tired to clean it up.