I am proud of the new download Positive pregnancy just released on to hypnosisdownloads.com.
Hypnosis is a wonderful way to lower blood pressure, manage discomfort, inspire positive healthy expectation and maintain and boost healthy immune function. (1) We had a request from a person who had been helped by our fertility hypnosis download and wanted to feel relaxed and positive about her pregnancy. I have helped many expectant mothers relax and feel good during pregnancy and have always found hypnosis to be a wonderful tool.
Pregnancy and stress
I always reassure pregnant clients that, of course, some stress is natural during pregnancy (as it is at all other times too), but obviously the more the pregnant mother can relax the better.
Maternal stress during pregnancy can affect the baby as early as seventeen weeks after conception (2), with potentially harmful effects on the foetus. Prolonged and severe stress may even lower the IQ of the unborn baby and affect its immune function and mental and physical health once it’s born.
Stress hormone (cortisol) can cross the placenta from mother to baby and increase the amounts of that hormone found in the baby’s blood stream (3). Available blood flow and oxygen for the baby may also decrease as the mother’s system has to cope with her stress. This means less oxygen and nutriments get to the baby in times of high maternal stress.
Hypnosis, relaxation and pregnancy
To feel good in life we all need to feel safe and secure, and we need adequate rest and recuperation. This new Positive pregnancy download session will, I hope, go a long way to help lots of pregnant mothers to relax deeply and thereby boost their own and their baby’s immune functions and general health. It will also help them adopt a powerfully positive attitude towards their pregnancy.
Mark
Notes
(1) In a study of medical students suffering exam-time stress, investigators found that those given ‘hypnotic-relaxation training’ didn’t show as much reduction in key immune system functions as their untrained counterparts.
The researchers looked at 33 medical and dental students during relatively low-stress periods and around the time of the first major exam of the term. Half of the students attended sessions where they learned to relax through self-hypnosis.
The investigators found that during exam time, the self-hypnosis students showed much stronger immune responses compared with students who did not learn the technique. And the more often students practised the relaxation strategy, the stronger their immune response.
In previous studies, the researchers found that stressful times may impair the body’s wound-healing process and response to vaccination. They and other researchers have also found that relaxation techniques may combat these effects by relieving stress and boosting the immune system.
The data from this study provide encouraging evidence that interventions may reduce the immunological dysregulation associated with acute stressors. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 2001;69
(2) Anxiety during pregnancy can double a mother’s risk of having a hyperactive child, according to research released to on 3 Sept 2007 for National Pregnancy Week. Professor Vivette Glover of Imperial College, London, presented new findings from a study of more than 7,000 mums-to-be alongside an overview of how stress and anxiety during pregnancy can affect the unborn baby’s development and birth. Professor Glover and Dr Tom O’Connor studied women living in Avon and expecting their babies between April 1991 and December 1992 (the ALSPAC Study, also know as Children of the 90s).
Each woman completed questionnaires designed to measure their level of anxiety at 18 and 32 weeks of pregnancy. Women were identified as anxious if they scored in the top 15 per cent of respondents. Children were assessed for behavioural and emotional problems just before their fourth birthday.
Researchers looked particularly at women who were anxious during their pregnancy, but whose levels of anxiety fell after delivery. This was to see how the baby’s behaviour was affected by antenatal anxiety rather than their mother’s mood during their early years. Results showed that women who were anxious in the last trimester of pregnancy had children with more behavioural problems. Those who had boys were twice as likely to have a child who showed problems with hyperactivity and inattention problems at age four.
(3) The findings, published in the journal Clinical Endocrinology, come after separate research on animals showed that high levels of stress in a mother during pregnancy could affect brain function and behaviour in her offspring, and other evidence suggesting that maternal stress in humans can affect the developing child, including lowering its IQ.
