When you think about meditation – what comes to mind? Sitting on a mountain top, cross legged blissfully emptying your mind of all thoughts? That’s what I used to think too. I thought meditation was for ‘those’ people… you know who I mean… the ones who say Namaste a lot or end their emails with ‘love and light’.
So for a Northside Dublin girl it was a non-runner. Then I moved to the high tech capital of the world (Silicon Valley) and meditation was something not just reserved for panpipe music lovers but ‘normal’ people – just like me and I was hooked. A few minutes each day of simply paying attention to my breathing…. or focusing on how my body felt as I sat at my desk – or mindfully eating a piece of chocolate completely changed the way my brain and body dealt with stress (in seriously good ways!).
In the last 12 years I’ve moved out of the tech world and into the baby world and became a midwife with a special interest in emotional health in pregnancy. I’ve been teaching my GentleBirth antenatal classes for 10 years and training Instructors to continue the work in their communities around the world. Modern maternity care only tends to focus on the physical wellbeing of mum and baby. Although my amazing midwife colleagues want to provide that extra support– having 150 women sitting in antenatal clinics every day makes that extra care next to impossible.
In 2014 I found myself back in Silicon Valley building the GentleBirth App to give mums those essential mental health building blocks for pregnancy, birth (and parenting). Mums to be (and their partners) are guided each day through short mindfulness sessions (like the one in the video) as well as hypnobirthing, sports psychology and CBT training. There’s lots of evidence that show mums who experience high levels of anxiety pregnancy tend to have longer labours and more intervention such as cesareans and women who aren’t getting enough restorative sleep are at higher risk of preterm birth.
GentleBirth Mums are fearfree as well as sleeping like a baby (those unicorn babies that really do sleep) throughout most of their pregnancy simply by listening to their daily Mp3s. They are ready for whatever cards they are dealt on the big day and so are their partners.
Pregnancy brain is always thought of as a big joke but in fact it’s a real phenomena. Our brain is extra ‘plastic’ in pregnancy so we have a 9 month window to optimise all of these brain changes that are taking place with intentional activity such as mindfulness. Thing of it like a fitness App but for your brain to change it in positive ways so you can ride that rollercoaster of pregnancy and parenting emotions with more ease. We all know that a happy mum = a happy baby and as an emotionally fit mum you can attune to your baby’s needs more easily so your baby’s brain growth is optimised too!
So enjoy this 5 minute trip to the beach (not far from the frenzy of Silicon Valley) and give yourself a moment to breathe in calmness and breathe out fear as you prepare for your baby’s birth. Trust me you DO have time to do this – if you have time to watch YouTube videos of cute baby goats in jumpers you have time to make your mental health and your baby’s mental health a priority.
The GentleBirth App is available on iTunes and GooglePlay. For more information visit gentlebirth.com
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