Childbirth

Childbirth

SILVA MIND CONTROL AND PSYCHOPROPHYLACTIC CHILDBIRTH

Abstract

MINISTRY OF PUBLIC HEALTH PURISCAL, COSTA RICA, CENTRAL AMERICA

1982

SOCORRO RODRIGUEZ M.D. DIRECTOR OF THE MENTAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT PUBLIC HEALTH MINISTRY OF COSTA RICA CENTRAL AMERICA

Translation: Martha C. Saldana

INTRODUCTION

In the prenatal stage, the detection of pregnancy and periodic medical attention up to the moment of delivery, must be complemented with the preparation of the couple for one of the most transcendental happenings of their lives: Childbirth. Mothers clubs and educational courses for couples provide future parents with information and skills for bringing up their offspring. Recent studies confirm the effectiveness of the preparation for psychoprophylactic childbirth (PC), not only because it decreases risk factors in the process of delivery, but also because it improves relations (sexual and emotional) between partners involving both of them in the experience. An example of such studies is the one performed at Puriscal, Costa Rica. Of 120 pregnant women who participated as research subjects, 30 were given the Silva Method techniques, 30 experienced PC, and the remaining 60 were given early stimulation and preparation for PC. The results of this study showed a significant improvement in the couple s relationships, and an increase in the father s interest and participation in the newborn s first months of life.

PRELIMINARY INFORMATION

Based on solid information regarding the effects of PC, the Ministry of Public Health of Costa Rica resolved to officially promote it in the country, and later take this message to other Central American and Caribbean nations. To this day, many of the original premises have become a reality due to the active collaboration of the Departments of Mental Health, Mother and Child Care, and Nursing.

With the authorization of the Silva Method organization, the Silva Method was adapted to PC courses given in 63 public health centers around the country. This joint effort has made possible for the most part of the pregnant women who attend those centers to participate in the benefits of PC, to learn the fundamentals of the reproductive process, from conception to delivery, and to use modified Silva Method techniques daily at home with their partners.

DISCUSSION AND IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS

PC courses prepare future mothers to enjoy the experience of pregnancy and to share it with their partners. Both parents identify, from the first weeks, with their child, they visualize him, program him positively, and fall in love with him before he is born. It is also advisable for doctors and nurses to attend these courses and become interested in the couple that is going to have a child. In the following discussion we approach these three interacting elements.

The Mother-to-be. Women are taught to imagine in Alpha their ovaries with healthy ovules, and to focus on one of them as being fecundated by a spermatozoid in perfect condition. With Jacobson relaxation techniques as complement, they are then introduced to relaxation of mind and body as means to program each stage of their pregnancy and the adequate functioning of organs, such as the kidneys so that they may perform their filtrating function at their best in this stage when pregnancy-related wastes are produced.

In this sense, we have had interesting experiences. Of a group of women who were not fertile, some of them having more or less four years of marriage, we were able to help half of them get pregnant through relaxation techniques involving visualization of a healthy uterus and egg, and a child in their womb. Pregnant women are taught what a conditioned reflex is. How contraction and relaxation of muscles feel, so they may tell the difference and, when desired, control mind and body to relax. Mothers-to-be learn to decondition their learnt fears in connection with delivery. This should be a painless experience, withdistress appearing only when something is not functioning as it should. With Silva Method techniques we help mothers deliver from the onset of uterine contractions. We ask the woman in labor to bring to her imagination the memory of her childhood days when she played and lost track of time. When a woman is relaxed, she can even fall asleep between contractions. For this reason, we teach in the PC course how to find the most adequate position for relaxation, and how to breath normally; we also ask her partner to help her rest and relax. One of the variations regarding the traditional Silva Method relaxation method, is that we ask our students to say "We are relaxed, comfortable, our body is becoming relaxed ...." In our experience, this change to the first person plural has been very useful. It allows everyone present to participate in the process. In the PC course women are taught to be relaxed in the most important moment of their lives. We train them to create rich mental images, to think positively and to watch over their breathing. If they can stay relaxed once the contractions are present, then it will be possible for them with eyes open to work in Alpha visualizing their uterus and the unborn child and help in the meantime the uterus and the cervix get slacken. So when the mother-to-be is taken to the operating room she is in a condition to program in Alpha the physicians and nurses that will be aiding her, so that her child be born under the best circumstances. For the moment of expulsion, the women in the course are prepared with techniques for pushing and relaxing the perineum. After each contraction they are able to get relaxed, reach the Alpha level and send positive thoughts to the child; when they have to push again, the same process is repeated until the delivery is over. The position they are advised to adopt enables them to see their child the moment he is born, as well as their partner who has participated with them in the experience. If the newborn has to be separated from his mother because she is under the effects of the anesthetic or the child requires special care, the PC course trains her to go to level and imagine the child on her breast while she is caressing him. By doing this, she will never have the feeling of being separated from her offspring, since for her they have been together from the very first moments. Relaxation techniques are also important to prepare future mothers for the care of their offspring, stimulating them to look for the positive outcome of every experience, once he is born. Her partner In order to obtain better results with women who attend PC courses during pregnancy, in the perinatal stage and after the child is born, their partners are also invited to participate. In the first phase we ask them to imagine they are pregnant. Each member of the couple imagines a child being formed in their entrails. The partner or husband is taught Pavlov s conditioning methods, and is trained to live the experience of pregnancy with a positive attitude, sharing it with the woman who is actually going to give birth to their child. Studies have made evident the high percentage of men who are afraid of blood, injections, and hospitals. With the aid of Silva Method techniques we help them understand that blood is not something to be afraid of, nor injections; and that hospitals are places where they can enter with absolute confidence. For the actual process of delivery, they are prepared to be able to help the mother-to-be to breath and relax, and to go through it not as passive spectators but as active participants. The fact that partners share this very important and transcendent landmark in their lives, has resulted in improved interpersonal relationships between the couple, which become strengthened and constitute fertile soil for their offspring to develop. Studies conducted by Claws demonstrate that when man and woman together deliver their child, they never abandon him. This is why PC has become a strategy to prevent maltreatment and abandonment of children. Perinatal assistance. The year 1975 marks the introduction of seminars where thousands of people in Costa Rica coming from different profesional backgrounds _ among them physicians, nurses, teachers, social workers and psychologists _ had the opportunity to receive theoretical and practical instruction and training to qualify hem for the implementation of PC courses and programs for child development. As complement to such work, training programs in PC for empirical midwives, and the promotion within the medical community and hospitals of PC-related attitudes, methods and techniques enabling the conditions that would make it possible for the woman in labor to be accompanied by her partner at all times and to make of the couple the main characters in the scene, is an expected requirement. Of course, the latter would imply in the case of hospitals for the physician and the nurse to act as observers in the delivery stage and whenever their participation is deemed necessary, they would have to act in a way that would not stand in the way of the intimate experience that is being shared by the couple. And whenever PC is involved, they should be familiarized, if not knowledgeable, of its corresponding techniques. In our studies we have observed how minutes after a woman prepared for PC arrives in the operating room practicing Silva Method relaxation techniques, both doctor and nurse relax as well and in this state assist in the delivery of the child. When physicians accept as part of their medical practice relaxation techniques, their relation with the patient, in our case the pregnant woman, becomes more human.

ABSTRACT

An effective way to contribute to healthy pregnancy, in all its stages, and safe delivery is through programs of early stimulation to parenthood and psychoprophylactic childbirth techniques. Studies and experience in this field in Costa Rica show that through simple PC methods and Silva Method techniques adapted for this purpose, women and their partners can participate in the childbearing process from its very beginning to actual delivery. The couple is introduced to relaxation and visualization techniques along with physical exercises that, if properly put into practice, guarantee better conditions during pregnancy and perinatal stages. The fact of undergoing a shared experience results in improved interpersonal relationships, reinforced commitment to the other member of the couple and the newborn, and in the prevention of maltreatment and abandonment of offspring.Our research continues and we hope that the program will extend to all of Latin America as a helpful tool for our women, fathers and families. Only through the practice of Psychoprophylactic childbirth, the introduction of early stimulation programs and the effective practice of relaxation and visualization techniques, as taught by the Silva Method, we will be able to guarantage in Central America. The road towards peace and harmony is difficult, but possible. Our program is one of shared knowledge and unity that promotes individual inner peace through deeper levels of mind and carries a message to wherever pregnant women, and parn of tomorrow.