[Birth Stories] How This Fitness Coach Trained to Use Hypnosis During Childbirth

[Birth Stories] How This Fitness Coach Trained to Use Hypnosis During Childbirth Adriana Lozada:     I’m Adriana Lozada and this is Birthful, here to inform your intuition.

Taylor Sinning:    I would picture being in a field, in like Tuscany, kind of like if you’ve ever seen the Gladiator, just that beautiful golden hour, and I pictured a weeping willow tree, and I was holding my baby under this tree. And when it got hard, I would literally close my eyes and go there, or I would go to the clouds.

Lozada:    That was amazing new mom, Taylor Walker Sinning, sharing one of the visualizations that got her through labor. Now, even though at some points things were incredibly intense, her hypnobirthing practice and having trained for labor like you train for a marathon made it the dream birth she was looking for. Now postpartum, that was another matter altogether.

Sinning:    Hi, I’m Taylor Walker Sinning, and my pronouns are her and she. I identify as a mixed race, biracial woman. I am a mother. I am a personal trainer and nutrition coach, and social media advocate for equality.

Lozada:    Welcome, Taylor. It is lovely to have you here. I can’t wait to hear about your story.

Sinning:    Oh, thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Lozada:    Yeah, and before we get deep into how your baby boy was born, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sinning:    Sure. Right now, I’m living in Miami. Originally from New York. I’m a former PE teacher. I taught ninth grade PE. And when my husband proposed, we actually found ourself moving to Oregon, so I left my teaching job and had to kind of reinvent myself a few times over. So, I was a professional dancer for years and ended up getting back into that space, and working with brands as a fitness model, and from there, started to acquire certifications in fitness because I knew that there was going to be life after both chapters, and I eventually wanted to be a mom and be able to be home with my kids, but also work and do something I’m passionate about.

Once I became a mom, I also added pre/postnatal fitness into my armor of training and now I’m just a holistic health coach, a personal trainer, a group fitness trainer, and mama.

Lozada:    That is awesome. So, you said your son just turned two. Let’s take you back to when you were pregnant. And at that point, what was your approach to pregnancy? What were your wishes?

Sinning:    Lots of wishes. My wishes was just to bring a baby into the world healthy, just like many moms, but because my focus and my area of expertise is in fitness and wellness, I actually started my pre/postnatal training the second I got pregnant, because I was like, “I want to learn really what is happening to my body, how can I continue to train safely, what are the benefits of training,” so I was able to tailor my workouts and my training to my growing body and changing body. And you know, a lot changes very quickly.

Very fortunately, I wasn’t extremely sick. I hate to admit that sometimes. So, I was actually able to progress throughout my pregnancy and workout up to week about 38, and then it was just waddling down the street from that point on. But I think my approach to pregnancy was just my approach to life. It’s like how can we approach it in a realistic way, where my diet and my workout routine doesn’t feel like work? It feels like brushing my teeth. Of course, I opened the books, I Googled everything, I downloaded all the apps, because I wanted to know what does this child need from me. And a lot isn’t about popping pills. It’s a lot we can get from our refrigerator.

So, it’s whole foods, eating from the earth, eating pizza when I felt like, because you know, those carb cravings in the beginning are real. And just embracing the change.

Lozada:    Excellent. Okay, so you went deep into in your wheelhouse, your fitness, your core, your focusing on what you are eating and giving this baby and yourself the best nutrients. What else did you start preparing for as you looked to that birth experience? What were you looking to achieve?

Sinning:    I think when I really started to kind of take a deeper dive into what I was putting into my body, it was really… It was eye opening on so many levels because all of a sudden you realize you’re building a skeleton, and you’re building lungs, and a brain, and what does that look like for your child? So, it started to open up this other journey for me, like what are the other layers? What are my options for birthing this baby and how am I going to heal after this baby comes out into the world?

So, I actually… There’s a great location in Miami. It’s called Amazing Births and Beyond. They offer hypnobirthing, breastfeeding classes, acupuncture, pre postnatal chiropractic, so that was really my Mecca for how do I want to bring this baby into the world. So, when I signed up for hypnobirthing, and I started reading the Mongan Method, and the books, and I got laughed at. I mean, my family was like, “What are you thinking? Why are you gonna do this? Just get the epidural.” But as a health professional and someone who is so in tune with her body, I wanted to see what is going to benefit my baby and what are my options.

Really, I think I should say options, because safety is key. You just want to get this baby out safely. However you bring the baby into the world, it is your decision, but when we went to the hypnobirthing class and I was seeing these testimonials, and I was actually seeing videos of these beautiful births that were unmedicated, using the power of the breath, and the power of the breath is something that I harness every day in my work in fitness. So, I thought to myself if my body is able to do this, what does the other side look like? So, that is really the area that I started to explore.

Long story long, food as fuel and really the breath work, and the Mongan Method of hypnobirthing.

Lozada:    And I know that the experience of having that pushback from people around you, and family members, and society, and cultural norms of why don’t you just do it this way, right? That tends to be… Pregnancy tends to be a time in life where people think they can… they’re invited to tell you their opinion and that they know best over your body, right? Instead of how about we treat birthing people as the experts in their own body and their own experience?

But, so how did you navigate that? How did you deal with those comments? Because that’s always a difficult thing to do.

Sinning:    It is. It is. And especially for someone who isn’t in a space of their body, right? If that’s not your job, you trust your doctor to give you the best advice, and you trust the people that you’re surrounded with. Your community. There’s so many moms out there that all have expert advice to give, but for me I was so thankful to be able to do my certification at the same time, so I started to learn what questions do I ask. When I was looking for the doctor, what was the most important thing to me? It was someone who allowed me to practice birthing the way that I truly wanted to and that wouldn’t give me as much pushback. Someone that wasn’t very quick to cut.

So, I kind of just tried to silence the noise, and then once I got my husband to come take the class with me, and once we had our first class, his mind was like, “Okay, I get this now. I didn’t get this.” He doesn’t come from the same field. He actually worked in medical devices. People in the prolapse field that know him very well were just saying different things to him, so then once he sat there and he saw exactly what I saw in front of me, there was no turning back for both of us.

So, I think finding that support is really, really important. Finding that circle, that safety circle, if it’s one or two people that say, “Hey, this is your birth plan. This is what you want. Let’s take the steps to get there.” And whatever was intended for you will happen.

Lozada:    And I think that is so key, because it brings it to what fits. What fits with you and what is gonna give you, allow you to go into this experience from a place of safety, and confidence, and I’ve got this, and this aligns with my beliefs, wishes, thoughts, all the things. As opposed to I’m doing this from fear, which is what I find a lot of the what we know culturally about birth comes from fear, and why, which is my favorite part, it is so easy to kind of topple that fear once you get the information and you inform your intuition, and like your husband did. He went to one class and went, “Oh.”

It’s not a big leap to understand this makes sense, right? Why have I thought the other? Yeah.

Sinning:    No. I think the biggest piece of advice I got was train for birth like you would train for a marathon. You wouldn’t just show up on marathon day and run a 26-mile race. So, how do you train for it? How do you learn? How can you grow? What resources do you have so that you can have the optimal birth? And of course, everyone’s birth experience is so different. You know, again, at the end of the day, it’s a healthy baby, but I think knowledge is power. It’s such a cliché thing to say but know your options.

Lozada:    Yeah. And figure out what works best for you. We are not knocking epidurals. We’re not knocking cesareans. We’re not doing any of that. But we know there’s a trade off and every choice has consequences, good and bad, so you… There’s fortunately lots of options for you, and nuances, and then there’s the thing about the baby having their own ideas, and circumstances having their own ideas, so a lot of flexibility to be required. Yeah.

Sinning:    Yeah. Absolutely. And I think as mothers, too, it’s like a judgment-free zone. You know, the pressure that we have today is really, really heavy, especially because everything we see on social media, and the perfection, and the idolization of what new motherhood should be. It makes it so much harder.

Lozada:    I love all your preparation and really getting down into it and finding what was gonna work for you and what was aligned with your wishes. So then, fast forward, it’s baby time. How did you know that things were starting?

Sinning:    Well, the morning I was… I didn’t know I was going into labor, because it was about two days before it was my due date, I started… I was nauseous. So, we went out for bagels, and we were sitting there, and I just felt a wave of nausea, and my mom had an inkling, but we didn’t say anything. And my husband, he just walked me around for two weeks straight, just trying to walk me as much as possible. So, we went out on the boat. I wanted to swim in the ocean. And by the time we got back that night, I started having period-feeling cramps.

So, it was about 5:30 and I started to feel, “Okay, this feels different than Braxton Hicks.” So, I reached out to my doula just to let her know and she gave me some advice and some guidance, and we had the app ready to go, so we were tracking them. We ate dinner. We went up to bed. She just said try to get some rest and see what happens. So, we did just that, and around 8:00 or 9:00, I really started to feel like, “Okay, this is real, but no one can help me right now because the pattern is so mismatched, they’re not super painful, they’re just uncomfortable.” So, I actually left my husband and my mom in bed sleeping and went downstairs and watched Sex and the City.

And it was raining outside, and I was just pacing back and forth, and then when the waves started to get really, really heavy, it was probably about 10:00 or 11:00 at night, so then it was just my headphones went on. I had practiced to two hypnobirthing tracks. One mantra track and then one relaxation track. And we just… My husband and I… I woke him up, and he was in contact with Iana, my doula, and then we went shower, tub, bed, shower, tub, really the hot water was really, really so soothing for us.

And I got sick quite a few times, but again, because I knew that right before things progressed, you would either go one way or the other, so there was never a feeling of fear. And I think that was so amazing, even looking back on it, because there were moments where I was like, “This could get really scary or really painful.” And at one point, I said to my husband, I was like, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” I was like, “Please don’t be disappointed if I need to get an epidural.” You know, it’s that moment. The pressure that we put on ourselves as women and moms is far and away that you could be mid-contraction and thinking this or saying this.

So, around 3:00 AM, doula came over and she just… Iana is… She’s just a real life warrior woman, and she got me dressed, and we were swaying back and forth. It felt like we were at the hospital in 10 minutes. It was a 30-minute ride to the hospital. By the time I got there, the power of the breath is incredible. I was seven centimeters dilated. They got me right in the room. My water hadn’t broken yet, but I actually had that feeling, felt like I had to go to the bathroom, so I went in the bathroom, my mom was holding my hand, my husband was holding my mom, the tub was getting filled up, and this was in a hospital setting.

So, the four of us kind of worked in tandem. Right before I felt like I had to put… My water broke naturally about 30 minutes before he came.

Lozada:    Were you in the tub then?

Sinning:    I wasn’t in the tub then. I was just on the toilet. I felt like I was gonna have to go to the bathroom, so the pressure started to build.

Lozada:    Okay, and so you never got in the tub then.

Sinning:    I did. I did. But at the very end. They actually put me on a peanut ball, which was probably the worst part, because I started shaking, but at the same time I had a girlfriend who told me, she’s like, “Right before he’s ready to come out, you might start convulsing.” And I was so thankful that she reached out. It was like a distant friend that I haven’t spoken to who had a home water birth, and she was like, “You’re gonna start shaking, but just know that that’s when your baby is coming.”

Lozada:    Oh, my goodness. I’m so glad you brought that up, because I will put it on the show notes. I will link to an episode that I have with Leslie Everest on the nature of the shaking of labor, and how it’s a protective mechanism of your body, and how it will happen probably also during postpartum, like those immediate postpartum. It is annoying, because it’s not like your cold. It’s just you’re shaking and can’t stop.

Sinning:    Yes, and I had no idea about this. So, from there we got into the birthing tub. It was five or six pushes and the pain was there. I can’t remember it for the life of me, but before I knew it he was in my arms, and feeling alive, and awake, and we had our magic hour right away, and he just… To see him crawl up and start feeding, it was magic.

Lozada:    And there’s so much to learn around that golden hour, as well, because you think, “This baby needs to come out, and as soon as they come out, come to the chest and start feeding. We have to get that working.” And it’s really you gotta slow down to their pace, but if you let them do it, it can take a whole hour. That’s why it’s called the golden hour. It can take a whole hour for them to get that instinct, but if they start showing signs, like go on their cue. Which is a perfect way to start postpartum, because you just need to observe and follow their cues.

Sinning:    Yes. No, it’s so true. I mean, that… They just kind of left him, and they literally wiggle their way up. It’s like once he got up there, they helped latch him, but it was amazing. And we did say no to the eye ointment right away, because I didn’t… I wanted him… His eyes were open and working, and he was able to come right up, and he latched, and he fed well, and then we did the eye ointment a little bit later after our hour was done. But it’s nature knows what to do if you allow it.

Lozada:    Right. And if it somehow is interrupted or doesn’t get to happen, that rhythm doesn’t happen, because we’re so resilient, you can always recreate it later and have those neurons fire and that instinct be recreated so that baby gets it. So, I love the fact that yeah, if you can get it right away, go for it. But if it doesn’t work there, you get do overs.

Sinning:    There’s plenty of do overs. I think I got a do over every other day in those first couple of months, because it’s necessary.

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Lozada:    So, Taylor, your baby’s on your chest, but there was a lot that happened before that. And it happened quite quick. I’m trying to do my timeline here. You started getting period-like cramps at 5:30 the night before. When was he born?

Sinning:    6:20. So, it was basically 12 hours. Yeah, it really wasn’t… and they didn’t rev up until I’d say 10:00 or 11:00 were they really I needed help and I needed support. So, we were very lucky for the first one.

Lozada:    Yeah. So, during that time, because I know you got to the hospital at 7:00, and this is where you had been working with your breath and really being in focus and staying on top of your contractions, your sensations, with your headphones, with the hypnobirthing track that you had on. How were you able to stay in that zone and go deep and not be distracted by everything happening in the hospital once you got to the hospital?

Sinning:    Just like anything, practice. We started hypnobirthing every single day and night around month five. So, my husband and I did it together before bed every night, and then I would do kind of every other day during the day, just because I didn’t know when I was gonna go into labor, so I wanted to not just make me fall asleep, but be able to fully relax during the day and then come out of it. So, practice, practice, practice as much as possible, and then the headphones, they were noise canceling, so I was able to literally let everything go, and I actually had an eye mask on, because when we got to the hospital, it is tough in a hospital setting. The bright lights, it’s not conducive to birthing naturally.

Once I was out of the hands of, “Hey, let’s check you.” They didn’t realize I was so far along. So, that was kind of the worst part of it, when I first started to get checked in, they need me to sign paperwork, and they didn’t realize how far progressed I was in the labor because I was kind of so calm and in the zone. So, really just practice. Practice, practice, practice. Using that breath. Using the J breath. Deep inhalations. And that’s also gonna benefit the baby, as well, just practicing that deep breathing. And for the life of me, and I know this is probably built in for all women, you just, you forget the discomfort. You know? You forget after all this time. But I know there was discomfort. I know that there was pain. But I remember more powerfully the breath and utilizing that.

Lozada:    I think that is huge, because we are so obsessed with the sensation of pain. And what we see in the movies and on TV and think, “Okay, if I needed to scream that loud,” which isn’t to say that it’s not intense sensations. They are very intense sensations, like I’m not… This is not… It’s probably the most intense things you’ll ever feel. However, because pain is such a subjective thing, you can learn as you said, practice, how to have ways of distracting the mind from that sensation. Yeah.

Sinning:    I would do it a lot in my workouts, too. I would use visualization. And there was like… I would picture when the workouts got really, really hard, I would picture being in a field, in Tuscany, kind of like if you’ve ever seen the Gladiator, just that beautiful golden hour, and I pictured a weeping willow tree and I was holding my baby under this tree, and when it got hard, I would literally close my eyes and go there, or I would go to the clouds. Those are the two places I would go. And it just… You start to get to this place of training yourself and it’s almost like this meditative state.

And then when you actually go into labor and it gets real, you have a source to pick from. But if I were a few weeks or a week before, I’d be like, “I’m gonna start using my breath and then try to birth,” it probably wouldn’t have had the same outcome.

Lozada:    And I will link on the show notes also an episode I did on hypnosis for birth. And because you do have to practice. If you think that tool is gonna be in your toolbox and don’t practice it, it’s not gonna be, and then you’re gonna feel like let down. I hear from a lot of people who’ve used hypnobirthing that it works to a certain point and then things get super intense and they have to do something different. And so, I always want to take it back to the physiological aspect of it, meaning that birth is a mammalian process. And at some point, you’re probably gonna make these really intense, guttural, powerful noises, and not think that because you’re not being quiet and calm when you were expecting that from your early hypnobirthing practices, that then you’re like doing it wrong somehow.

No. It’s just that’s part of it. Did you experience that, as well? Did you end up having some guttural sounds?

Sinning:    I did, but I think they were more like from utilizing my breath, as like it was the deepest breathing I have ever done in my life, so it wasn’t this like super visceral, like, “Ahh!” But it was like this… like just trying to force that breath down. But it was… I was like, “Wow.” It was almost like a vibration inward, if that makes sense.

Lozada:    Yeah.

Sinning:    You know, it just… It felt like the most animalistic, raw thing I’ve ever done in my life, but it just felt right.

Lozada:    Yes. If we look at the physiology of it, we need to get into deeper brainwaves to go into labor land, right? Like that’s the labor land that we talk about. It’s not that you are in a trance or unaware, but you’re just so internal, and so deep into that different kinds of knowing. Not just the thinking brain, knowing that the more you practice doing that, getting out of the thinking brain, the more you can access that during birth and then things go faster and smoother because you’re not creating interventions, or blocking, or staying away from there. And that’s a skill that we don’t have, right? We want to think everything and probably overthink it.

Sinning:    Yes. Definitely.

Lozada:    Yeah. Oh, I love hearing stories like this that have that testament of the importance of going deep and practicing what… Because you see the results. Now, what was the hardest, most tough part of this experience for you?

Sinning:    About two weeks after he was born everything just felt terrible.

Lozada:    Tell me more.

Sinning:    You know, I will. Postpartum, he fed right away, so I didn’t have those issues. My body, there was no tearing, so I didn’t have those issues. Emotionally, and we were on the verge of moving cross country to California when he was 90 days old, so I had this kind of impending doom. I also am an overachiever. Obviously, birth was tackled. Pregnancy was tackled. I was gonna tackle postpartum life the same way.

My baby proved me wrong. He was extremely alert and very hungry, and I cried a lot, and it got to the point where… And my husband also travels for work, and once my mom left, I felt myself… I was alone. I was supported obviously in the home when my husband was home, but the second he was gone, I just started to become overwhelmed. I loved my baby, but I wasn’t this earth shattering in love that everyone told me I would experience the second I held him in my arms. He was my child, he was my flesh, but I was surviving at that point.

And I actually made a stop back at Amazing Births and Beyond and I’m so grateful for the owner there, because she said, “Taylor, I know you’re used to going 200 miles an hour.” She goes, “I need you to go home and get in your pajamas and live in your bubble for at least the next two weeks.” And it was the best advice I got, because all of a sudden that wall came crashing down, where you energetically are just so depleted. I didn’t have time to cook. I didn’t have time to nourish myself the way that I was used to.

I was crying. I was surviving. And you know, I tried to be very transparent about that with my community, because I think all we see is just how wonderful everything is, and breastfeeding was great, but he ate a lot, and we ate around the clock, and I had no time for me, and I had deadlines to meet, and it was just this demand that I couldn’t keep up with. But I am happy to say that he just turned two and I have finally found my stride, but it took me almost this whole two years to feel confident in my skin again, to feel happy, and we are so in love now, to the point where the second I see him in the morning, there’s nothing else that I want to do but squeeze him, and love him, and bond with him.

So, to the moms out there listening that might be in that phase or that season, just give it time and go get help. I did talk to my doctor when we first got to California. I wanted to be screened for postpartum depression. I had the worst anxiety I’ve ever had in my life. I mean, to the point where I was vibrating on a completely different level and felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. And that was something that I’ll never forget, and the next time around, I’m gonna ask for more help and I’m gonna take the time off that I need. If I don’t fall in love with the next one right away, I’m gonna say it’s okay, because I know what’s on the other side.

Lozada:    And there’s all these expectations, and that’s it. We’ve started to “tear down” the expectations around birth and are giving ourselves permission to do it in so many other ways, and then in this postpartum period, we’ve got this thing of, “I’m gonna get my body back, and bounce back, and all these things that are back.” And that really does not honor the immense transformation, physical, emotional, identity transformations that birth and becoming a parent has in store for us. And we’re like, “Oh, yeah. Now it’s gonna be me and baby,” and not understand that it’s not you and baby, it’s a new identity of symbiosis.

Sinning:    Everything. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it rocks every aspect of your life and it takes tangible work, but you can be like a phoenix and come out of it stronger and more empowered, a stronger family, a stronger marriage, a stronger foundation. Everything can become stronger, but again, it comes back to the tangible work and just giving yourself grace and giving yourself time and getting help when and if you need it.

Lozada:    And it’s huge to prepare for it. I’m so passionate about that. That’s why I have a postpartum preparation course. And the freebie for my website is a postpartum preparation plan. Just like you prepared for birth as a marathon and practiced your breathing, you’ve gotta prepare for the postpartum. You’ve gotta get it set up. Because otherwise, like you said, the walls come crashing down.

Sinning:    Crashing.

Lozada:    And it just… It tears down your identity. You feel a failure. Like that was my experience, as well.

Sinning:    That was 100% my experience.

Lozada:    I mean, I have an idea of what this question is gonna be, your answer, but what would you change for the next time around if you have a next time around? Or what would you do differently?

Sinning:    Definitely ask for more help. I don’t think I did it enough because I’m so used to being so strong, and I think that’s what women do. We just are fixers and we take care of things. So, kind of setting my boundaries is gonna become really important next time, too. What I feasibly can and can’t do and the help that I need, especially when you have a second at home. How do you balance your time? Making sure that I’m taking the time to nourish myself. Doing those check-ins and then talking to my doctor again if these feelings start to come up again.

Lozada:    How are you gonna practice asking for more help?

Sinning:    Doing it now. Honestly, it already started. And it’s… I think it sounds silly, but I think quarantine changed a lot of things for a lot of families. All of us have slowed down and forced ourself inward, and are really… For my husband and I, we took time to just reassess our values. What are gonna be our values moving forward? And I think especially for fathers, because we forget that fathers… Yeah, so much changes in our life, but a lot changes for them, too. And honestly, I love men, I love you guys out there listening. They’re not as equipped as women to deal with change.

And I think getting them to find their role earlier is very important, because everything… I would just be like, “Oh, I got it. I know exactly what to do.” Right? We know how to pack the bags. We know how to get ready for the next trip. We know what they need in our diaper bag. But if you don’t tell them and you don’t share that with them, then you get frustrated with them for not knowing.

Lozada:    Yeah, and I’m gonna push back on that a little bit, because here’s where I’m trying to make more change. I think we tend to assume that they can’t handle those things, that they aren’t as good at planning or packing. However, we have evidence that if it’s something that they’re interested in, they plan and prepare the heck out of that. So, they have the abilities. Having those hard conversations and understanding how it is crucial for us to change our relationships, I think COVID has definitely brought that up for many people in the sense of just like we’re looking for equity in our systems and asking of equity within everything in our world right now, and why that is important, right? Let’s eliminate oppression as much as we can.

We have to have equitable relationships. And understanding that the idea that we’ve allowed, because it goes both ways, of having partners say, “Well, I don’t have to…” Have that subconscious of like, “Really I don’t have to make the food.” Or, “I don’t have to clean the house.” And it’s gonna get done anyway. Where in our mind, it’s like, “No, it can’t not get done, so I’ll do it.” That is a big safety net that we’re providing that is unequitable.

Sinning:    I couldn’t agree more.

Lozada:    Taylor, as we close, what is one thing you want to leave parents listening out there with?

Sinning:    I think just living in the moment becomes really important. I think this time in our life is really showing us so much. Good, bad, ugly. And I think a lightbulb just really went off for me, just my son woke up and he’s two, and the newborn phase, I missed it. I have to be honest. The anxiety, the pressure, the constant feeling like I was a failure, when really I was showing up for him every day, and I think just giving yourself some grace and leaning into the chaos, and living in that moment is the most powerful thing you could do for yourself and your child.

Lozada:    Absolutely. Thank you so very much. If people want to connect with you and follow what you’re doing, how can they do that?

Sinning:    Sure. I am always on Instagram. My name is @TaylorWalkerFit, F-I-T. My blog is TaylorWalkerFit.com and there you’ll find health, wellness, healthy recipes, and obviously fitness. And then if you want to train with someone, the app is called Ladder Teams, and you can train one-on-one with me, and find a group, and a community, and we also do pre/postnatal modifications for every workout.

Lozada:    Very cool, and I will link in the show notes. You also have more details of your story.

Sinning:    Yes.

Lozada:    Thanks so much for talking with me today.

Sinning:    Thank you.

Lozada:    This was great.

Sinning:    It was fantastic. Thank you so much for having me.

Lozada:    That was such a good story and you know the experience that Taylor shared about the hospital staff not realizing how far along she was when they got to the hospital because she was so calm, that is something that I see happen to so many people that use hypnobirthing as a tool during labor. So, if you are using self-hypnosis during your birth, it may be worth being a bit more vocal when you’re getting admitted to the hospital, so things move along a little faster. And while you’re practicing your breathing during pregnancy, make sure you also practice asking for help. Like everything else, the more you do it, the easier it will become.

Whether you do self-hypnosis, guided visualizations, or follow a meditation practice, any of these tools can be super beneficial for you during pregnancy, labor, postpartum, and even if you’re working on getting pregnant. So, if you want to do something for yourself today, download a meditation or birth hypnosis app and get practicing. If you are a person of color, the Liberate App is a meditation app created specifically for Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities, and that is something that you can do for yourself. Get a meditation app. Start practicing.

Something you can do for the rest of us is to support the work of the Holistic Life Foundation, which is a foundation that empowers communities through yoga, mindfulness, and self-care practices. Their website is HLFInc.org. For even more resources, remember to check out the in-depth show notes for this episode at Birthful.com.

Birthful was created by me, Adriana Lozada, and is a production of Lantigua Williams & Co. The show’s senior producer is Paulina Velasco. Virginia Lora is the managing producer. Cedric Wilson is our lead producer. Kat Hernandez contributed to this episode. Thank you for listening and sharing Birthful. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, and everywhere you listen. Come back next week for more ways to inform your intuition.

CITATION: 

Lozada, Adriana, host. “[Birth Stories] How This Fitness Coach Trained to Use Hypnosis During Childbirth.” Birthful, Lantigua Williams & Co., September 30, 2020. Birthful.com.