In the previous articles of this emotional and enlightening series, we have seen—and experienced—how perinatal hypnosis supports pregnancy, assists women, and helps with childbirth. But can it also ease the postpartum period? Without a doubt.
After giving birth, both physically and emotionally, you will need to recover. Add to that the return home, possibly reuniting with siblings, postnatal challenges for you and your baby, your partner’s eagerness to restore intimacy, and your new role as a mother suddenly taking on its full meaning—hypnosis proves to be a powerful postpartum tool to welcome your feelings and relieve their weight, reveal hidden strengths, and regain energy, courage, confidence, and motivation.
Here, Ingrid Regosek, Master Practitioner in Humanist Hypnosis and Practitioner in Ericksonian Hypnosis, who has guided us throughout these hypnotic explorations, offers us a small exercise in inner exploration.
“Regularly take a moment to close your eyes, inhale and exhale slowly and deeply, so you can sense where your bodily tensions sit (often, the shoulders and neck, back, stomach…). Embrace your feelings as they come, symbolize them through an image, object, or drawing, address them, and let them evolve until you feel better.”
It is the nature of all living things to change. However, to truly feel like oneself, every person needs a sense of unity, an identity with defined boundaries. Physiologically, this equilibrium is called homeostasis. It enables us to remain ourselves and adapt to change. Yet pregnancy can unexpectedly disrupt this state. This upheaval is something hypnosis can help to soothe.
“Everything that persists is transformed, is modified, evolves. Everything that persists is becoming.” said immunologist and biology researcher Jean-Claude Ameisen.
Transitioning from daughter to mother, from woman to mother, changing bodies, changing positions in family history, changing status for others and for oneself—matrescence is a major upheaval. Drs. Alvarez and Cayol, in their well-known book “Psychologie et Psychiatrie de la grossesse, de la femme à la mère” (Odile Jacob Publishing), remind us: “The outcome of her (the mother’s) encounter with her child after birth depends on the quality, intensity, and duration of her psychological transformation.”.
This is even more true if labor was difficult, if the birth was traumatic, if there was an unexpected C-section, if you had to make important decisions for yourself or your baby, or if you experienced hurtful words or behaviors; hypnosis is just the tool you need. Commonly used by psychologists and therapists in cases of stress or post-traumatic shock, it allows you to release the emotional charge “trapped” within a painful memory and process it.
CONTENTS:
- Support from the first to the fourth trimester of pregnancy
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Baby blues, maternal burnout, or postpartum depression: the benefits of hypnosis for managing emotions
- A moment to reconcile with yourself
- An opportunity to clear unconscious blocks
- Listening and support
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Hypnosis to ease the relationship with your body after pregnancy
- Postpartum and your bond with your child
- After birth, a therapy to share
- Can my partner join the sessions?
Support from the first to the fourth trimester of pregnancy
Over the first three articles in this series, we discovered together that perinatal hypnosis supports every need, every vulnerability of motherhood. A powerful tool for pain management, even before conception and through the baby’s birth, hypnosis also addresses the well-being and serenity of future parents.
In preparation for pregnancy, hypnosis is a valuable aid for dealing with stress, emotional blockages, or even unconscious fears about motherhood. It encourages a sense of balance that supports conception. These sessions can also provide support if you are having trouble conceiving or for people undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART), helping them to manage their expectations and emotional experiences.
During the first trimester, perinatal hypnosis helps you better understand and accept your emotions: joy, impatience, questions, anxiety, doubts, or fears about the early signs of pregnancy, bodily changes, giving birth, and the baby's health... It can also help you fully recognize your new role.
In the second and third trimesters, preparing for childbirth becomes a priority for expecting parents. To handle pain, strengthen their connection with the baby, and visualize a calm delivery, preparation is essential. And, guess what? Hypnosis can do all this. It also helps you address past traumas or fears about previous difficult pregnancies before the birth.
All too often forgotten, the fourth trimester, also called the “golden month” or postpartum period, is crucial. Baby blues, fatigue, or difficulties with breastfeeding, this stage always brings its own challenges. By boosting your self-confidence and helping prevent anxiety or postpartum depression, hypnosis once again provides a powerful role as a guide and support.
Baby blues, maternal burnout, or postpartum depression: the benefits of hypnosis for managing emotions
Postpartum depression affects 10 to 20% of women in France, while baby blues impacts up to 80% of new mothers.
Often experienced as an emotional storm clouding the maternal sky after birth, baby blues typically lasts around ten days. Although this pronounced form of psycho-corporeal disruption often resolves naturally, you can ease it by taking a break from your daily life during a hypnosis session. Designed to drain the emotional “overflow” that is overwhelming you, a session can leave you feeling more peaceful, calm, and positive.
Postpartum depression, on the other hand, may develop within the first year after birth. New mothers often express their distress indirectly, most notably through chronic fatigue and intrusive thoughts (images or thoughts of catastrophic scenarios) that can leave them feeling isolated, guilty, and stressed.
Sometimes deeply anchored, it can also fade away spontaneously. However, it is important to seek help without delay—not only for your own well-being, but also to keep the precious mother-child bond from deteriorating.
Finally, although every woman has her own sense of identity, she cannot, at the same time, be entirely someone else: 100% woman on one side and 100% mother on the other. After her child’s birth, this apparent contradiction can cause a loss of bearings.
Therefore, a simple hypnosis session can build a new balance and shift limiting beliefs that wrongly suggest you cannot remain a woman and become a mother at the same time.
A moment to reconcile with yourself
Forgiving yourself when you feel overwhelmed by guilt or resentment towards your loved ones, medical staff, or the lack of respect for your birth plan… is not easy. If that’s how you feel, hypnosis can help you process intense emotions and make peace with yourself.
An opportunity to clear unconscious blocks
“Sabine just returned from a session with her hypnotherapist. She had booked it because she felt guilty for not finding her child as beautiful as she thought she should. After working on acceptance and forgiving herself, Sabine gradually finds joy again in her interactions with her child.”
Listening and support
Most of the time, simply talking about your difficulties—“getting it off your chest”—to a supportive professional already brings relief. First of all, don’t face your challenges and doubts alone. Others have struggled with these same issues before you. Talk with trusted loved ones. And if you prefer, or if you feel the need, hypnotherapists or other emotional support professionals are there to help you.
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📌 It is important to remember that any consultation with a non-healthcare practitioner should only be considered as a complementary support and can in no way replace proper medical care. Only a licensed healthcare professional is qualified to diagnose, prescribe treatment, or provide care tailored to each individual person’s specific needs. |
Hypnosis to ease the relationship with your body after pregnancy
Weight gain, loose skin, stretch marks, acne, fatigue, sore or damaged breasts, changes to your figure, feeling like you’ve lost control of your body (unpredictable milk let-downs, body in the service of your child), loss of libido… Not all women experience pregnancy, delivery, or postpartum the same way. Many have a hard time coping with one or more of these stages.
So, to express in words and sensations what you went through in childbirth, to think and heal your body, to validate your feelings, to support your recovery and reclaim your self-image, trust hypnosis.
Accept emotions (often blocked) and release them to move forward—you will be surprised at your mind’s hidden strengths!
Postpartum and your bond with your child
If the postpartum period should always be devoted to a new mother’s physical and emotional recovery—what is increasingly called the “golden month”—it is also the time for getting to know your child and the bond you share.
Whether that bond comes instinctively or requires time—since each life’s story affects how easily one welcomes a baby who is both part of oneself and yet unknown—perinatal hypnosis can help you start, build, or strengthen this bond, gently and with compassion.
On top of that, if you’re struggling with fears, doubts, or issues around breastfeeding, struggling with its practice or effectiveness, or if you’d prefer bottle feeding but feel pressured by those around you to do otherwise… Once again, perinatal hypnosis can help you put things into perspective, understand, and find peace. You can even bring your baby along to your session to enjoy a “hypnosis bath,” like a bubble of renewal.
After birth, a therapy to share
Amidst the storm of emotions that comes with a new baby, it’s not uncommon for loved ones to have difficult or even hostile reactions. If you’re seeing these sorts of problems, know that many hypnotherapy practitioners are trained to welcome you as a family. Drawing inspiration from Solution-Oriented Therapy, here is one approach.
The practitioner first listens to the primary client (usually the new mom), then goes around the table. Through various questions, they guide family members toward finding common ground: first focusing on what unites them, then on the means to maintain cohesion.
Each person is then invited to pinpoint the specific issue so work can be done more specifically and individually with any family member for whom the situation is complicated.
Finally, the hypnotherapist may invite the whole family back for a wrap-up session—to reinforce the newfound balance.
In the meantime, or alongside it, or just for fun, the comic book “Émotions: enquête et mode d’emploi” from Pourpenser Editions is a wonderful resource to explore together. The nature of emotions, their purpose, how to deal with them day by day… The author, Art-mella, shares her discoveries in a playful and accessible way to encourage everyone to launch their own inner investigation.
Can my partner join the sessions?
Because a happier postpartum is one experienced together, the father naturally has a role to play in setting up the new family dynamic. Especially as he may have lots of questions, may have felt sidelined during pregnancy, may feel inadequate for the new baby, or even feel useless or lost next to your mom-baby duo.
Quite often, fathers bottle up frustrations, tiredness, fears, and resentments… which are best expressed in a session to better understand and overcome them.
“Joe comes to see the hypnotherapist because his wife asked him to. He can’t pick up their 10-day-old baby and doesn’t know why, even though parenthood was a shared dream. But, once in a hypnotic state, Joe brings back a buried emotion: the memory of his own father telling him, “You’ll always break everything you touch anyway.” Was this self-fulfilling prophecy behind Joe’s block? Either way, immediately after the session, he was able to hold his newborn in his arms.”
There are many topics when it comes to birth, lineage, and descendants. There may also be thoughts of surname and heritage that men, even unconsciously, long to pass onto a son. Possible disappointments (of the father or mother), accidental letdowns, and all sorts of less-spoken feelings are welcome in therapy.
It’s during these sessions that doubts, questions, and fears can come out in the open, for freer expression and feelings and a happier postpartum.
