A recent study in the US shows that a relaxation-type CD, asking children to imagine themselves in scenarios like floating on a cloud led to dramatic improvements in abdominal pain. The research, published in the journal Pediatrics, follows on from studies showing hypnosis is an effective treatment for abdominal issues including irritable bowel syndrome.

Out of 30 children using the CD, 73.3% reported that their abdominal pain was reduced by half or more by the end of the treatment course compared with 26.7% in the standard care group. Not only that, but in two-thirds of children the improvements were still apparent six months later.

It's great to see research continues into the effectiveness of visualisations and hypnosis, especially as these are such simple techniques which, once learned can be used again and again and are such a gentle way of healing. A local Professor, David Candy, a consultant paediatric gastroenterologist at Western Sussex Hospitals, said his team had tried hypnosis in a small group of children with severe abdominal pain problems and had 100% success rate. Now he is keen to try the guided imagery technique to see if they can replicate the US findings.

So, other than helping our own children with these techniques, what else can we learn from this study? Maybe the success of these results are due to the participants being children? Children have such fertile open minds, willing to open up and learn new things as well as having wonderful imaginations. Perhaps as adults we need to explore the child within us to enable the door to our child-like mind to be opened to enhance the effectiveness of our visualisations. Certainly in the work I do, I have found it extremely effective to bring about a child-like mind before progressing with visualisations, especially when there appears to be barriers in the way of relaxing.

So, if you are working through birth relaxation CD's or have downloaded the free resources or Psychology Of Giving Birth Antenatal Programme from this website, give yourself a moment before listening to them to open up your child-like mind. It doesn’t even have to be what you were like as a child, just a free mind full of creativity, sprit, openness to learn and no inhibitions.

I'd love to hear from you with how well this technique works for you, so please do drop me a message through any of media on this site and I'll get back to you straight away

Yours for calmer births, more often,

Photo credit: istargazer