The August 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry has recently caught my eye as it contains a new study looking at the impact of postnatal depression on infant development. There are many studies which show the impact on the person (mum or dad) dealing with depression, however very few showing the impact on their baby.

Israeli researchers reviewed the infants on the basis of three foundations of social-emotional growth which are associated with an infants ability to manage stress and regular negative emotions. These three foundations are social engagement, fear regulation, and physiological stress reactivity.

Out of a group of 100 mother-infant pairs, researchers found that babies of depressed mothers scored the poorest on all measures after 9 months. The infants showed the lowest levels of social engagement during interactions with their mothers, were unable to self-regulate during situations that introduced novelty, fussed and cried more often, and their physiological stress response showed both higher baseline levels and a more pronounced stress reactivity.

Other than pushing for additional research in this area, the key here must be for people to do more to prevent postnatal depression. So many people who experience postnatal depression do not actually have a hormone imbalance and for them, it's something which can be either prevented or if experienced it can be overcome quickly and effectively. Increasing the knowlegde of mums, birth companions and care providers about depression and how to prevent it is key to reducing these cases. From my own experiences of treating depression, both for those who have recently had a baby and others who have been through other changes in their lives, I'd absolutely recommend How to Lift Depression…: ….fast (Human Givens Approach)

Remember that if you are pregnant and have purchased the Psychology of Giving Birth Program, this includes some excellent information and exercises both for mum and birth companion focussing on the prevention of post natal depression as well as a free guide.

Link to summary at Psych central.
Link to source.

Yours for calmer births, more often,

A little while ago I reviewed a DVD called Orgasmic Birth. Although the DVD was filled with great birth stories, expert opinions and facts about hospital vs home births, it didn’t really meet my expectations in terms of telling people how to actually achieve the big “O”. That’s when I decided to research the subject and create a product which would enable just that.

From reviewing circumstances in which Orgasmic Birth’s have happened, I have been able to extract the common behaviours and environmental elements of the experiences and combine them into a hypnosis download. Not only does the download include a hypnosis session, it also includes a full explanation of how you can help yourself ensure that an Orgasmic Birth can occur.

One thing which was absolutely obvious to me when reviewing the births, was that all of the women were already feeling calm and relaxed about their birth day and were confident in having a natural birth. So before you even begin to think about purchasing this product I urge you to ensure that you are extremely comfortable about your birth day and that you are confident in techniques which will help you maintain a state of deep relaxation. If you have any concerns or anxiety about your birth day, I recommend you work through my programme the Psychology of Giving Birth, or any other antenatal class which you know will help you, before moving on up the scale to an Orgasmic Birth.

Another thing to mention is that of course, because of the nature of the subject, this audio download is a just little more sexually explicit than the others you will find on my website, so if you do not want to think any sexual thoughts, then I recommend you do not proceed with purchasing an orgasmic birth audio download!

Have fun with it and as always I look forward to hearing your interesting feedback

Today has been an extremely exciting day for me, as after months of discussions with Doula's, Midwives and other birth care providers, we have finally launched The Psychology of Giving Birth Affiliate Program.

This program brings together Solution Focused Brief Therapy, Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Human Givens to deliver a targeted and fully downloadable antenatal course, focusing specifically on the psychology rather than the biology of birth. The affiliate program gives its members all of the information they need to integrate it within the services they currently offer which will not only differentiate themselves from competitors, but will also of course result in more calm and gentle births.

This affiliate program is pretty unique in that it's limited to only 100 members. This enables me to keep in regular contact with everyone as well as focus on working together as a team to improve the program together. As a member you receive the theory behind the program and additional information about each of the techniques used, you also get full access to a forum where you can talk about how you can integrate it within your business, raise any technical questions, chat to other affiliates, as well as telling me about anything you think should be added, changed or removed.

For those of you already signed up I truly look forward to working with you. To those of you thinking about joining the team, as I mentioned the numbers are limited, so sign up here now to avoid disappointment!

Yours for calmer births, more often,

Yesterday I went to watch a local event on Hove seafront. It was the annual Superhero 10KM race where everyone dresses up as a recognised superhero. (See this link for more information Superhuman Effort Breaks World Record )

As I was standing there it got me wondering about whether the NLP technique of "standing in someone's shoes" to improve your success in something, would result in the runners taking on elements of the superhero they were dressed up as, and whether this would actually impact their run time.

For example, would the Hulk be slowed down and more lumbering, would Spiderman feel as though he were swinging from lampost to lampost to make him quicker and would Superman run his all time best? I actually think the Silver Surfer won and as it was torrential rain at the start, maybe there is something in it!

Anyway, why am I posting this on a birthing blog you may ask? With any activity there are people who excel at them and people who don't do so well. The NLP technique I mentioned of imagining as though you were standing in someone's shoes applies just as much to birth as it does to say public speaking. If you were to speak in public and imagine you were Barack Obama, Steve Jobs or Richard Branson then this would have a huge impact on your performance. So, if whilst in labour you take on the persona of Naolí Vinaver Lopez from the Birth Day DVD (see sidebar), or maybe of someone close to you who has told you of a great birth experience, then standing in their shoes will enable you to tap into the skills they used.

This technique involves firstly finding someone who is a role model for the particular behaviour. Then you try on their body language, how they hold themselves, how they walk, how they talk, see how it feels to be them and how just by stepping into their shoes, it has an impact on you. This exercise can be done in a mirror, physically pretending to try on a coat/shoes/whatever of the role model and becoming them as they do. This technique can be seen quite easily when you know someone who wears a uniform for their work. Perhaps you know someone who is a policeman or policewoman or a traffic warden?

So why not consider who your birthing superhero might be and try their suit on for size…?

Take care… and remember…"I have the power!!!" (He-Man was a particular favourite of mine - just wish I'd thought of shouting it out whilst in labour!)

It was the middle of the day when Shirley started to go into labour. She had already transferred to the birth unit where she was to give birth; it was comfortable and familiar to her. As labour progressed she chose to walk around and get into whatever position she needed to in order to help the birth process. She was left alone so she could listen to her body and baby and do whatever she needed to birth calmly and gently.

People looked on in awe of her and what they were seeing, but nobody intervened in any way, she was completely protected in her birth environment. She felt safe, secure and in control. As the moment of birth came closer, she knew she needed to change positions and she was completely free to do so. There were no monitors, no noisy machines and no white coats to be seen. There were no examinations, no dilation cm's to be achieved within a set time frame, labour just progressed exactly as it needed to.

She intuitively knew how to breath her baby down and there was no forced pushing and absolutely no sounds of discomfort. She birthed her baby extremely gently; a beautiful natural birth. The baby stayed with her mum and they bonded. There was no cleaning or wiping, just mum and baby sharing that beautiful unique moment.

You might think that this wasn’t typical of births, however for Shirley and her friends and family at Combes Farm this is a regular experience. Now you've read the story, why not watch the birth video and see for yourself. I'm sure you'll agree that we can learn so many things from watching calm, gentle, natural births, even when the circumstances are not quite what you first perceived.

Yours for calmer births, more often,