Dawn sobbed as she told me she felt heartbroken since her second round of IVF had failed. Distraught and feeling cheated Dawn and her husband couldn’t understand the agonising journey to create the child they so longed for.
Having met ten years ago in their late twenties Dawn and her partner John soon knew they had found ‘the one.’ They shared many dreams and one was a desire to have a family, so were soon planning a pregnancy but three miscarriages and unsuccessful assisted fertility interventions their joy and excitement turned to misery.
Although Dawn had come to see me to help her over the trauma of the loss of her baby and the raw emotions that brought, I knew once we had worked to help ease that pain and some time had passed I would be able to use hypnosis help her conceive naturally.
Having seen many couples who have sought help with conception and keeping a baby to term I have witnessed the power of the mind to bring about changes in the body.
The role of a persons mind in their physical well-being is now more widely accepted as science can now demonstrate the connections between your thoughts and your biology.
This understanding has escalated the amount of people turning to talking therapies to help with fertility as more couples of all ages groups find difficulty with getting pregnant and sustaining a pregnancy.
The rise of infertility
Studies show that 1 in 6 couples now experience problems with conceiving or sustaining a pregnancy. This has caused the medical world to offer increasing amounts of intervention. However the procedures address purely the physical manifestation of problems and don’t take into account the mind/body relationship.
Reasons for infertility
Although some couples will have problems due to environmental toxicity, poor nutrition, past infections or structural problems. Studies show many reproductive difficulties are responsive to mind body therapies.
Studies show success with talking therapies and hypnosis
In a study in the USA, 16 women with functional hypothalamic amenorrhoea (absence of periods related to brain hormone production) received Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) treatment. Six of the 8 women in the CBT group resumed ovulation, while only 1 woman in the control group resumed ovulation
Another study presented to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Berlin in July of 2004, demonstrated how hypnosis can improve fertility and effectively double the success of IVF treatments. The study of 185 woman found that 28% of the women who were hypnotised for the IVF treatment became pregnant, compared to 14% of the women in the control group.
In a study of 16 women reported in 2003 in the journal Fertility and Sterility, fertility specialist Dr. Berga showed that ovulation was restored in 7 of 8 women who underwent cognitive behavioral therapy, compared with 2 of 8 who did not get this talking therapy. (2006 The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.)
Stress has been identified as a contributor to infertility.
When couples or a woman comes to see me, it is usually with a long story of trying to get pregnant and a rollercoaster of excitement and sadness. The dawning realization that there is a problem brings medical intervention, increased stress levels and an increasing expectation of a negative outcome. Medical processes, disappointments, and feelings of failure causes stress and this has an additional negative effect on the body.
Often a chicken and egg cycle but in many cases one or both partners will have been suffering from some level of stress even before they tried to get pregnant. Again it is documented that anxiety stress and depression cause fertility in men and women to decline.
When stressed your body goes into emergency economy mode
And lowers the energy given to non-essential functions like the reproductive cycle. Creating a baby is well down the pecking order when your body thinks there is a potential threat around.
Infertility is no longer just a biological process
Every thought in your mind influences every hormone and chemical in your body so has the power to create or wreck fertility. The ancient Chinese knew that women who couldn’t conceive often had some underlying emotional block, a concept largely ignored until the last couple of decades. Dr Christiane Northrup in her book ‘Women’s bodies, women’s wisdom’ wrote.
‘Regardless of what you have been told about your fertility, you need to know that your ability to conceive is profoundly influenced but the complex interaction among psychosocial, psychological and emotional factors, and that you can consciously work with this to enhance your ability to have a baby.’
Your mind and body work together and studies show that emotional blocks are the root of many infertility issues. The difficulty is that you may not be aware of just what those blocks are? And many people will dismiss this concept as they consciously really want a child and are not aware of the subconscious roaring a conflicting message. This conflicting dialogue will disrupt a man or woman’s fertility
Blocks to fertility
In my work I have come across three main types of emotional blocks.
Unresolved beliefs, common ones are
- ‘I don’t deserve a baby.’
- ‘I might be a unkind/unloving parent like my Mother/Father.’
- ‘nothing ever goes right.’
- ‘I’ve got to, or won’t get it right.’
Experiences such as
- Past abortions
- Rape
- Sexual abuse
- Dysfunctional past relationships
And fear of
- Hospitals and medical procedures
- Concerns about the partner either not being right for them or not being a good parent
- Change of status/independence
- Changing body image
These beliefs, fears and experiences create blocks to fertility that remain undetected and only show their influence when the body mirrors the minds subconscious blueprints.
Your subconscious accounts for at least 95% of your daily thoughts actions and emotions and hypnosis has the extraordinary power of being able to work with and resolve those beliefs and the disruption to fertility.
Hypnosis helps clear blocks to having a baby
Because hypnosis is a natural process that works with changing negative subconscious beliefs, it is a powerful tool for resolving emotional blocks to parenthood.
In one study Dr. Peter Quinn a pioneer in the field, used hypnotherapy with a group of women between the ages of 26 and 42 who had durations of infertility lasting from 2-12 years. 65% of the women went on to have a successful full-term pregnancy. And there is another proof that hypnosis increases fertility.
And as for Dawn and John I worked with them both and the main process for change came when we dealt with Dawn’s memories of unhappy childhood times and a belief that she would turn out to be a Mother like her unloving Mum.
They now have two children and are exhausted but really happy.