Dear Readers,
Ilia Blandina taps with a client experiencing high anxiety about induction of labor, bringing her from a high SUD to feelings of relaxation and laughter over her prior anxious feelings.
-Will M.
By Ilia Blandina
Induction of labor is the process of introducing different hormones into the mother’s body in order to start regular uterine contractions that will help the cervix dilate to 10 cm at which point she can start pushing.
In this particular case my client needed to be induced due to medical reasons. It was her first baby and after the first round on medication overnight her cervix had remained unchanged. It was 1 cm dilated, 30% effaced (its length, we want to get to 100%) and 2 cm above the bones of the internal pelvis.
I was visiting with her during daily rounds and explained that in her case she should expect the induction process would take 2 to 3 days depending on her body’s and baby’s response to the contractions. At the time she was having mild regular contractions that she described as feeling like “period cramps”. Her husband was with her being very supportive.
I advised her to keep herself occupied by watching funny and lighthearted movies and to avoid scary or action adventure movies. I explained that by watching scary movies it might artificially elevate her stress hormones which would counteract our trying to convince her body that it is time to be in labor. Chemically her body will think that she is not in a safe environment to give birth.
By the same token, when watching funny movies while being in labor or labor induction, your body is relaxed and many studies have shown that laughter releases endorphins from the brain. The endorphins are chemicals released by the brain that are natural morphine-like compounds that raise the pain threshold and thereby produce pain relief and a feeling of well-being.
After listening to my advice she asked me if there was a possibility that by producing her own stress she was causing the induction process to not progress. I answered that it is possible and asked her if she was feeling stressed about being induced. She said yes. I then asked what the primary emotion she was feeling. She told me that she had anxiety and had not been able to sleep during the previous night because she was very nervous about the induction. She also said she had been crying this morning because she was tired of lying in bed and when she tried to adjust the bed it had broken. Since then the bed had been fixed and has been able to adjust it as needed for comfort.
At this point I decided to introduce EFT to her as a way of coping with her fear and anxiety about labor. She had never heard of EFT before, but after a brief explanation was open to trying it.
I asked her to rate her anxiety at the present time about her labor induction on a scale of 0 to 10 Subjective Units of Distress (SUDS). She reported it was a 6. I explained to her about how EFT would help release her anxiety about being induced. I asked her if she wanted to try it and she agreed. We then went through the following tapping sequence.
Set up statement: Even though I feel all this anxiety about having my labor being induced, I completely love and accept myself. (This was repeated 3 times). We then proceeded to tap on all the points stating the reminder phrases. Her SUDS level reduced to 4 and she stated that she was now afraid that the induction would not work and was fearful about the pain she would be feeling.
We did another round of tapping with the set up statement of: Even though I am afraid of being induced and that it may not work, I completely love and accept myself; Even though I am afraid of the pain of labor, I completely love and accept myself; Even though I am afraid of the coming pain and that the induction may not work, I completely love and accept myself. We proceeded to tap on all the points stating the reminder phrases. Her SUDS level dropped to 1-2 and she reported being just a little anxious instead of being fearful.
We did a final round of tapping with the set up statement of: Even though I have this remaining anxiety about having my labor being induced, I completely love and accept myself. This was repeated 3 times and then we tapped on all the points stating the reminder phrases. She reported feeling quite relaxed and started laughing about having been anxious.
She was very thankful to learn the technique and I referred her to my website, www.AwakenYourLifePower.com, for more information. I told both her and her husband that if she becomes so negatively charged that she is crying to start tapping on all the points right away and that there was no need to worry about what to say due to her being completely tuned in because she is so upset. I wished them well and invited them to contact me for any further explanation.
EFT is such a great tool and easily used during stressful situations. At the start she was anxious and fearful about starting her labor. Then after using EFT for just 10 minutes she became happy and confident about starting labor. This reminds me of the quote “Life is a journey, not a destination.” By Ralph Waldo Emerson and with EFT the journey can be a whole lot gentler!
Ilia Blandina
