Orgasmic Birth on 20/20

In the professional birthing world, there was a lot of anticipation over last week's episode of 20/20. That's because 20/20 talked about the movie Orgasmic Birth, and they have been planning to show the episode for quite some time. There were a lot of rumors about when it would air. And many were shocked (and happy) that it finally did.

You can watch the episode here.

There are other bloggers who are focusing on the public's response to the 20/20 episode. Kim Wildner's is one of the best. I'll leave that commentary to the others.

I want to compare HypnoBirthing to what 20/20 highlighted. Is it really such a "secret"?

"This is childbirth," announced the reporter, while showing movie clips of women huffing, puffing, screaming, cussing, and suffering through (acted) childbirth. Interesting--that really isn't childbirth, 20/20! It's dramatized. Fake. As we teach in HypnoBirthing, both women and men come to believe that it is real because it is portrayed that way in movies. If this is all we see, how do we know that it can be different?

The director of Orgasmic Birth, Debra Pascali-Bonaro, says that the same organs involved in sexual intercourse, and female orgasm, are stimulated during childbirth. So, why is it pleasurable for one of those acts, but not the other?

Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, agreed. She added that all of the hormones involved in the female sexual response, namely prolactin, oxytocin and beta-endorphins, are involved in labor, and in much higher amounts!

Dr. Northrup also spoke of the importance of the expectation of pain, a concept that Dr. Grantly Dick Read brought into consciousness (when he coined the Fear-Tension-Pain Syndrome) and HypnoBirthing continues to talk about. Dr. Northrup said that when pain is expected, muscles get tense (obviously!) and stress hormones increase, which creates and increases pain!

Of course, I was also very happy that one of the orgasmic birthing moms used hypnosis during birth, and she spoke of how she experienced sensation rather than pain. If you have taken a HypnoBirthing class (or, in particular, my HypnoBirthing class), you know that we choose many different words to interpret and describe what women feel during labor.

In fact, the message left by this show is that a birthing woman needs to prepare her body with breathing and relaxation, establish an environment of open expectations about labor sensation, have the opportunity to move and be upright during labor, and MOST IMPORTANTLY--create an environment that is sensual where she can lose her inhibitions...not unlike one where she would plan an intimate, romantic evening.

I guess HypnoBirthing isn't that special after all! We really do have so much in common with what so many others know to be true about creating a birth experience that equals bliss and comfort. We aren't reinventing the wheel here, folks. We are just communicating it in an ever-so-slightly different way.