The Ultimate Birth Affirmations
The ULTIMATE birth affirmations to get you calm and confident and ready to boss your birth.
How to use Birth Affirmations in pregnancy?
Everyone has their sayings that they repeat in their head when they need a little pick me up. It might be a, “ Come on… You’ve got this!” before you stand in front of your team to do a presentation at work or “Stay calm, stay calm.” when you’re driving in the car and some douchebag has pulled out in front of you.
It’s commonly seen amongst sportsmen and women where they shout, “Come on! Come on!” when they are walking on pitch or warming up. We see it as psyching themselves up but they’re actually just telling themselves to come on. They’re telling themselves that they can do this and they have got this.
It’s the phrase that you remind yourself when you want to behave in a certain way. Now, often these phrases are so engrained in us that we now don’t even see it as an “affirmation” as that’s just sooo hippy right? They are phrases that are so engrained in us that it’s just something we say or do. And this kind of familiarity is what we want to achieve in pregnancy through birth affirmations.
Using birth affirmations in labour.
In labour, during contractions, there will be times where they are so intense that you will feel like you can’t do it any longer. Now, if you have been practising your birth affirmations throughout pregnancy then it will be at this point where you might start repeating over in your head, “I can do anything for 60seconds, I can do anything for 60 seconds, I can do anything for 60seconds.” (FYI – 60 secs is about how long a contraction lasts). You will say it till you believe it to be true. This is easier to do if you have read them to yourself every day or couple of times a day in the build up to your labour. It will be even more helpful if your partner knows them too, as these phrases can then be reminded to you when you need a pep talk in labour.
If I said to you names such as Wayne Rooney, Andy Murray, Johnny Wilkinson and Jessica Ennis. What would you say they have in common? They are all sportsmen/women, yes. All great achievers in their chosen sport, yes. But did you know they all attribute a lot of their super sports powers to visualisation? They basically HypnoSport. They use techniques that are used in hypnobirthing to improve their athletic performance. Let’s high five birthing women everywhere – althetes could learn a thing or two from us. Head here to read about Sports Psychology vs. Hypnobirthing – why are they so similar.
