About HypnoBirthing
What is HypnoBirthing®?
The HypnoBirthing® program is built around an educational process that includes special breathing, relaxation, visualization, meditative practice, attention to nutrition, and positive body toning. Most importantly it fosters an air of mutual respect for the birthing family, as well as the healthcare provider in a traditional healthcare system or an alternative setting.
We know you have many choices and many decisions to make for your birthing experience. You have choices in selecting your care provider; you have choices in selecting the environment in which you will bring your baby into the world. Another important choice is that of the childbirth education classes you will choose to prepare for the birth of your baby. We know you will be happy with your choice of HypnoBirthing®, a premium childbirth education program.
The HypnoBirthing® Premise
For most of their lives, women have been inundated with the negative stories of other women’s birth experiences. Everyone, from their mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends, and even strangers, wants to tell them horrors about giving birth. They have been conditioned to believe that excruciating pain is associated with labor; and because of this, women today hold an unprecedented fear of giving birth. This extreme fear causes their bodies to become tense, and that tension prohibits their bodies from easily performing a normal physiological function. The result is exactly what they feared most–long, painful birthing or unnecessary intervention.
People who are drawn to HypnoBirthing® have long been searching for a way to give birth confidently and as calmly, safely, and gently as possible, whether they have chosen to birth in a hospital, a birthing center, or at home. Since the medicalization of birth, this kind of birthing (HypnoBirthing®) almost seemed unattainable for the general population.
Through a very simple program of self-hypnosis and education, healthy, low-risk women, as well as women who need medical assistance because of special circumstances, learn to dismiss fear-based stories, misinformation, and birthing myths; and they are helped to see birth as normal. They learn to trust that their bodies know how to bring their babies into the world in the calm and gentle way: the way that nature intended.
What is a HypnoBirthing®
Childbirth Educator?
HypnoBirthing® Childbirth Educators are highly qualified birthing professionals who have distinguished themselves through education, experience, motivation, and dedication to the principles and philosophy of HypnoBirthing® and mother-directed birthing. Additionally, each must meet the requirements as set forth by the Executive Board of the HypnoBirthing® Institute.
TerriAnne with her daughter and granddaughter
About TerriAnne Gutierrez
I began working within the birthing world over 45 years ago.
Durning the 1970s hospitals were not supportive of gentle births. A home birth was the only option if you wanted a chance to deliver un-medicated or be allowed to birth at your own pace and in a peaceful environment.
It was rare to find a midwife or doctor to attend a family at home, and women wanting more control of how they would give birth were doing it alone, assisted only by their partners and friends.
It was the need for educated assistance and the intuitive ways in which women were able to give birth to their babies if allowed to, that truly inspired me to become a Traditional Midwife.
Sonoma County was lucky to have Traditional Midwife, Nan Kholer and husband OBGYN, Dr. Don Solomon. They not only attended these women at home, but also trained other’s to become Traditional Midwives. I studied with them for years and attended many births.
In 1993 California began licensing Midwives, and people like me began the long process of documenting our training and births that we had attended in order to add “Licensed” to our title. Ultimately I found the protocols that we would be required to work under to be very restricting and decided to make the shift to being a Doula and Birth Educator.
Years ago, after I hit my 100th birth, I stopped counting.
I have degrees in Early Childhood Development as well as Activism and Social Change from New College of California.
I am the Mother of 3 beautiful humans and Grandmother to 7 Grandchildren.