HypnoBirthing® – The Mongan Method – is a unique method of relaxed, natural childbirth education, enhanced by self-hypnosis techniques. HypnoBirthing® provides the missing link that allows women to use their natural instincts to bring about a safer, easier, more comfortable birthing. Emphasis is placed on pregnancy and childbirth, as well as on pre-birth parenting and the consciousness of the pre-born baby. This birthing method is presented in a series of five, 2 1/2-hour classes.

Next Session: Upcoming session dates to be announced. Contact Bobby@ShaktiYoga.ca for more information.

HypnoBirthing® classes are instructed by Bobby Bessey, who trained in this beautiful birthing philosophy with the program founder, Marie Mongan herself. She is honored to provide expectant mothers in St. John’s the opportunity to avail of this incredibly powerful birthing option. Bobby holds a B.Sc, is a certified prenatal yoga instructor, a birth doula and a mother herself. She is passionate about giving women the tools to create beautiful births for themselves and their babies. Bobby has two wonderful children and has experienced first-hand the power of self relaxation and visualization techniques in bringing about tranquil, joyful births. She is excited to share the beauty that she feels is inherent in bringing new life into the world by sharing the Mongan Method of birthing to St. John’s.

About the Course

HypnoBirthing® – The Mongan Method is as much a philosophy as it is a technique. The concept of HypnoBirthing® is not new, but rather a “rebirth” of the philosophy of birthing as it existed thousands of years ago and as it was recaptured in the work of Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, an English obstetrician, who, in the 1920s, was one of the first to forward the concept of natural birthing. The method teaches you that, in the absence of fear and tension, or special medical circumstances, severe pain does not have to be an accompaniment of labor.

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 and you trust birth. 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 birth.

When you have your baby with HypnoBirthing®, you will not be in a trance or a sleep. What you will experience is similar to the daydreaming, or focusing, that occurs when you are engrossed in a book or a movie or staring into a fire.

You will be conversant and in good spirits—totally relaxed, but fully in control. Awake throughout, you will be aware of your body’s surges and your baby’s progress; but because you will have trained yourself to reach complete relaxation, you will be able to determine the degree and the manner in which you will feel the surges. You will experience birthing in an atmosphere of calm relaxation, free of the fear that prevents the muscles of your body from functioning as nature intended them to. In this calm state, your body’s natural relaxant, endorphins, replaces the stress hormones that constrict and cause pain.

Watch the news report below for an overview of the HypnoBirthing Method (9 minutes in length).

What You Will Learn in HypnoBirthing® Classes

Unit 1: Building A Positive Expectancy

• Introduction to the remarkable HypnoBirthing® philosophy
• The History of Women and Birthing
• Why and how you can have an easier, more comfortable, and safer birthing
• How Nature perfectly designed women’s bodies to birth
• How to assist, rather than resist, your natural birthing instincts
• The vocabulary for calm and gentle birthing.
• Visualizing gentle births by viewing beautiful birthing videos

Unit 2: Falling in Love with Your Baby/Preparing Mind & Body

• The remarkable mind of your newborn baby—Prenatal bonding techniques
• Rapid and instant self-relaxation techniques and deepening techniques
• Breathing techniques for labor and birthing
• Hypnotic relaxation and visualization
• Selecting the right care provider
• The Birth companion’s role in birthing
• Preparing your body for birthing with massage and toning

Unit 3: Getting Ready to Welcome your Baby

• Preparing Birth Preference Sheets
• An orientation to birthing at your local hospital
• Preparing the Body for Birthing
• Light Touch Labor Massage
• Your body working for and with you
• Avoiding artificial induction and achieving a natural start to labor
• Releasing negative emotions, fears and limiting thoughts.

Unit 4: An overview of Birthing – A Labor of Love

• Onset of Labor – Thinning and Opening Phase
• Birth explained simply
• Settling in at the hospital or birthing center
• Preparing for home birth – or baby’s choice of birth
• As labor moves along – passing time through labor
• Hallmarks of labor
• If labor rests or slows – Companion’s prompts and activities
• As labor advances – birthing with your baby
• Protecting the natural birthing experience
• Birth rehearsal imagery

Unit 5: Birth – Breathing Love – Bringing Life

• Moving into birthing
• Positions for descent and birthing
• Breathing baby down to birth
• Baby moves to the breast
• Family bonding with your baby

Testimonials:

The HypnoBirthing® course helped my partner and I reframe our expectations of birth from a medical event that routinely requires drugs and emergency interventions, to something that we could plan and prepare for together using the breathing and relaxation exercises and the general HypnoBirthing® philosophy of having a natural hospital birth. The result was a relaxed and controlled labour that was drug and intervention free and even impressed the caseroom staff!

-Susan Pardy, First Time Mom, St. John’s, NL

Baby and I are doing great! HypnoBirthing was definitely a huge part of our birthing success story – she was born vaginally and 100% naturally in a Frank breech position 🙂

-Ashley, 2013, St. John’s

During my third pregnancy I decided to do the HypnoBirthing® course along with my partner. Although I had given birth twice before, had a lot of knowledge about childbirth, and had supported other woman in their births; I wanted to have a different experience this time around. I strived for a drug-free, intervention-free, beautiful birth. I wanted to be calm and in control during my birth; aware of what was happening to my body. Most of all, I wanted to enjoy my birth.

Taking the HypnoBirthing® course gave me just that. The beautiful, gentle birthing videos inspired me to visualize how I wanted my own birth to be.  The CD with the birth affirmations and relaxation techniques was invaluable. For weeks before the birth I listened to the CD over and over, conditioning my body to relax whenever I heard it. During the birth, the CD was playing repeatedly, helping me stay calm and focused and providing constant reassurance. The breathing techniques I learned came handy from the first surge and until I was helping my baby slide into the world. I used the Ocean Sound Breath for every surge, and smiled at the end of it.

The prenatal and childbirth information that was taught in the course was comprehensive and included a lot of info about birthing at the local hospital. I wish I could have done this course way back when I was expecting my first child.

I had a home birth, with a midwife, a doula, my partner and my kids. Fifty three hours had passed from when my membranes ruptured until I hugged my baby girl. I was calm the whole time. The surges were not painful. I had the most beautiful, perfect birth I could of had. What I learned at the HypnoBirthing® course definitely played a huge role in my experience.

Thank you Bobby for making this type of prenatal education available to women and their birth partners in St. John’s. You are an amazing teacher.

-Inbal Bahar, Third time mom, St. John’s, NL

I wanted to tell you how grateful i am for your HypnoBirthing® class! Maybe you heard thru the grapevine, but little Xavier’s birth went really well. I couldn’t have imagined it any better. All the HypnoBirthing® relaxation scripts, the visualization, the breathing, the positive perspective – all of it worked to keeping me/us calm and comfortable. The months of preparation also contributed to shape my entire view of pregnancy and birth in such a beautiful, natural light. So thank you Bobby.

-Anne Shigeshi, First Time Mom, St. John’s, NL