Birthing Children with Little to No Pain with Hypnobabies

Keri Touschhoff is the founder and director of HypnoBabies.  She is an instructor for HypnoBabies, a certified Hypnotherapist, and pretty much anything related to getting pregnant, dealing with pregnancy, birthing, fertility, and postpartum. Keri is the expert. Join our conversation about options for pain-free birthing. 
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Transcript

Colleen Stone, LMFT 2:11

Hello, swimmers. I have an amazing guest today joining us to talk about probably the most important thing that humans do, and that is making babies. Carrie Tuchoff is the founder and director of HypnoBabies. She is an instructor for HypnoBabies, a certified Hypnotherapist, pretty much anything having to do with getting pregnant, dealing with pregnancy, birthing, fertility, postpartum. This girl is the expert. And so today we welcome

Keri Tuschhoff 2:48

Keri. Hi, Colleen. Thank you so much for having me. I absolutely love talking about helping everyone who's pregnant or trying to get pregnant to understand their own power and how they can help that to happen in the way that they want to with the power of their own mind and body together. So I'm super happy to be here.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 3:11

Thank you so much, Keri. Listen, I just can't wait to dive into your story about how it is that you even created this, right? And how you've applied that in your own life. And now, not only is this your business, it really is your life,

Keri Tuschhoff 3:26

right? The way that Hypnobabies began and obviously we don't hypnotize babies, we teach hypnosis, self hypnosis to pregnant people all over the world so they can have a better pregnancy birthing and postpartum time. But the way that hypnobabies started out was through my own births. I was just minding my own business. Many years ago and a friend of mine had a baby and she had it naturally, meaning all births are natural, but she said, I had a natural birth and it was unmedicated. So she had used a method, a natural childbirth method, and she said it was very, very painful, but she could do it. And I didn't know that that was even a thing that P I thought everybody went in and got an epidural. But, I was bitten by the birth bug. I started researching it and I was totally fascinated. I was like, I've always been fascinated by childbirth. I've always wanted to be a mother and I was newly married. So I went and became an instructor in that method of natural childbirth and started teaching and started becoming a doula as well, which is a labor assistant to my students. And Their births were very painful, but most of them were getting through it and I was like, okay, when I get pregnant I'm gonna be fine, and then I got pregnant and I thought I knew everything about having a baby

Colleen Stone, LMFT 4:54

And so then you did it yourself

Keri Tuschhoff 4:57

Until I went into yes Until I went into labor and my baby was posterior, which means her head was turned around so that it was facing down. But the back of her head was grinding on the nerves in my spine all the way down and through making it doubly horrible. And I was shocked. I was so shocked. By the level of the pain, the intensity of the pain and nothing. I was doing work. No relaxation was going to do it. And that's all I knew from this program. I was teaching. So breathing and relaxation. So the short version of it is 26 hours into it. When I was screaming my head off, I went across the street from the freestanding birth center to the hospital and had an epidural. It was horrible. And I was never so happy in the world to see anyone as I was that anesthesiologist coming at me with a big long needle to stick in my back. And then after it took effect, I was just I just cried and cried and cried because my natural birth was gone. My unmedicated birth was gone. I was in a hospital, which I never wanted. I just wanted to have a freestanding birth center water birth. that was like in my head for years and years. So when it was all over, I could barely, the baby had to be pushed and pulled out of me because I couldn't push because I had an epidural and I was just traumatized. I had my little precious darling, but I was traumatized and I relived her birth for months and months on the same day of the week that she was born Wednesday. I just went into shock and relived it and realized I was. heading into a very weird territory and I did have PTSD from it. I had birth trauma. So then four years almost to the day that I gave birth to her, I gave birth to my son in a freestanding birth center and his birth was only seven hours long, but he was also posterior and I was just screaming from the agony and my husband was pushing on my back to try to help that area. And my sister was there with me holding my hands. through each horrible contraction and when a particularly gnarly one was done, I looked up into her face and she was sobbing and she said the words, this should never have to be this hard. And it's like a light bulb went on over my head where I just went, ding, you know what? Right then and there, I decided that even if I never had another child, and I did not, that I was going to find a way that I and other women could have a more holistic, unmedicated birth experience without the screaming. And it took me a couple of years. And I found that hypnosis helped me to be less traumatized, and so I learned hypnosis and then hypnotherapy, and then, found out that there was such a thing called hypno anesthesia. And this is a real thing. where people who have to have surgeries of any kind, whether it's dental or medical, they can't have them with the medical anesthesia because they're allergic. So they work with a hypnotist ahead of time. They practice and practice this hypnosis and they use the post hypnotic suggestions and cues during the surgery so that the surgeon's scalpel feels like tingling or maybe a pulling sensation. Instead of all the pain and then of course they recover much easier with hypnosis as well because that has been retrained in. once I found out that was a thing, I was like, this I, I have to use this. I have to do this. So I created HypnoBabies and as a complete childbirth education course, because you can't be learning. birth hypnosis and that this is going to be so much easier if you retrain your inner mind and then going to a class that's telling you how painful it's going to be. And so either just go get your epidural or just relax as much as you can, but it's necessary pain. It's, everybody has pain in childbirth. So I, created HypnoBabies. It was a complete childbirth education program and that means that we teach nutrition and exercise and staying healthy and low risk and all the stages of birthing and all the positions of birthing and all everything you would learn breathing and Relaxation and you go to a somnambulistic state of hypnosis and create hypnoanesthesia in the parts of your body that you need it most and those cues are retrained in for the length of time that you are practicing the course about two months before your baby's born and then when you're in your birthing then you use the cues and techniques either in your head you listen to you can also listen to the tracks that we have for you. And, your birth partner can help with what we call birth prompts. and then you, And everything kicks in. Everything activates. So the same way that a person who needs this in surgery would do, that's what our moms do. And it's pretty amazing for the people who learn, practice and use it as direct. Great.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 10:39

So when you're working with moms, do their birth partners go through this educational process as well?

Keri Tuschhoff 10:47

Yes, they do. And thank you for asking. so you can learn hypnobabies different ways. We have maybe 500 hypnobabies instructors who are teaching group classes. So instead of going to Lamaze or whatever other wonderful class, you go to a live class, you sit with the instructor and they teach you over a period of six weeks, this entire course and the hypnosis, you go home and you practice it together. The hypnosis cues and techniques and all the things that are being retrained in so that when you get into your birthing time, you are very used to your birth partner saying all these cues and techniques to you and touching you in different places that are cues for you to go deeper and have more relaxation and hypnoanesthesia and things like that. So the birth partners travel along, they journey, journey through this whole thing together with the pregnant person. And in addition to that, they get their own hypnosis track. So our students, our pregnant students get many hypnosis tracks that one builds upon another. Every time you listen to a new one, it compounds the last one. Birth partners get one track that they are able to choose an anchor, which is a cue word that they can use to calm themselves down. So they choose that. And of course we suggest it's not the word pizza or beer, but something relaxing like peace or, or love or their dog's name, something that's very comforting to them. And then that is retrained into the subconscious mind so that every time that they say, or. Say out loud or think that word, they become calm and relaxed. So for the rest of the pregnancy, they're much more relaxed about what's to come. And then during the birthing itself, they're the calm birth supporter, which we have taught them all about how to be a calm birth supporter, how to say things and do things to help the pregnant person through their birthing. What's

Colleen Stone, LMFT 12:56

so beautiful about that is that this allows both mom and the birthing partner to energetically show up with calm, right? as a therapist for 30 something years, you can imagine I've talked with a lot of people that have gone through the birthing process and birthing partners are often more traumatized than mom because they can't do anything right. But this program really invites. Both people have an essential role in and coping skills, right? And calming skills so that energetically they're both showing up in this relaxed, calm spot. They both have

Keri Tuschhoff 13:34

tools. Exactly. And the way that I learned that this is a necessary thing is that I was teaching hypnobabies many long years ago in a live class. And this couple came in and they came in because the mother's cousin had taken hypnobabies and had such a beautiful birth. she was fine. She was having her fourth baby and to her, it was just like another baby. The birth partner, the father was a. bag of rags. He was so unnerved. He said, I don't know what to do when I get in there. They treat her so badly in the hospital and I don't have a thing to do or say, to help her at all with the pain, with the emotions, nothing. And I said, Oh my gosh. first of all, we're going to teach you a lot. And second of all, I'm going to go and record a track just for you. And so I wrote a script and I recorded a track and brought it in. I gave it to all the students, of course, who were there. And I was actually at their birth. They asked me to be their doula and oh my gosh, this guy. And that's how I knew that birth partners really needed help too. Not every single one. Some are just. super confident and they just roll with whatever but along with all the things that we teach them both the couple to about how to create their own birthing and that not only includes the hypnosis portion of it but the benefits and the risks and the alternatives of all of the treatments and procedures and what people call interventions that could come up, that they will be offered, that they could be suggested by birth professionals. they are very well educated how to research those things for themselves and make those choices themselves and that the decisions all belong to them. So they work as a team on that. And then in the birthing, they work as a team to decide what. They want. It's no one else's choice, right? That's the

Colleen Stone, LMFT 15:43

part that is so crazy about the birthing process in our culture, right? We don't. thank God for your work, because I would say the average mom that goes in doesn't understand. She has a vote. She gets to say. No, I'm done laying down. I'm going to stand. I feel like standing up. That feels more aligned right now. And when we have a girlfriend, she was in labor for I don't know how long, forever. And it wasn't going well. And she's like, I just had this urge. Like I wanted to stand now. She didn't even know going into it that she was allowed to ask for that. But she kept saying, I feel like I just need to stand up. I say, sure enough, they eventually get her to stand up and, had everything set up and she had the baby within minutes. But we don't, as mothers, when we're in that situation, having the knowing, here are your options, honey. do know that you get to ask these things, right? How beautiful

Keri Tuschhoff 16:36

is that? Exactly. And most people who come to us do not know that before they get to hit no babies. Now a good childbirth education course of any kind will teach you that. Okay. And I'm going to leave it there. So it's important for people to understand, throughout the process, whether you're, whether it's when you're pregnant, they're offering you tests, they're telling you at the end, they want to do a vaginal exam when there's absolutely no reason to do that. there's a bunch of different things. You get to choose. You get to say, I want or I don't want this particular test. No thank you. And if they say, I, we're going to do an internal exam your 39 weeks. We want to see where you are. You get to say, No, thank you. That is not of service to me and keep your panties on. then when you're in your birthing time, there are a lot of different benefits, risks and alternatives of a lot of different interventions and treatments and things, which we call choices. And the reason we call them choices is because it's your choice. It's not necessarily an intervention. It could be something that you need. It could be something that you want. It could also not be so up beforehand when you're still pregnant, you learn all about these things. You can research and make a birth plan based on what it is that you would like. And then in the moment, of course, you can change your mind. And if there's any complications, then, of course, we're on plan M, So there's a lot to know. Postpartum, it's the same thing. If they tell you, afterwards, we're going to do this to you, we're going to give you this drug and you don't want it, then you can say no, thank you. And the same applies for your baby's care. Most babies, unless there's something wrong with them, do not need to be taken out of the room. They can be assessed for the APGAR score, breathing, heart rate, tone, muscle tone, all that stuff, right on the mom's chest. Right here, next to her heart, where the baby has been hearing that heart for nine months.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 18:50

Oh my god, Carrie, that makes me tear up. the hard part about this is... And these are huge generalizations, but bear with me for a minute. We as women often struggle with using our voice, especially when in situations that, we don't really know what our options are. And look at the gift. First of all, what an incredible privilege we have as women to grow humans. we are a portal for humans, which is just like mind boggling, such a

Keri Tuschhoff 19:22

miracle, right? Oh my gosh. But the beautiful part that

Colleen Stone, LMFT 19:27

your work is doing, Carrie, is giving women not just the education, but the permission that you get to have choices and you get to be the one that says to your providers, Hey, I understand. And no,

Keri Tuschhoff 19:42

thank you. Exactly. Exactly. And it doesn't have to be a fight. It can just be something like thank you for explaining this, and they ask all the questions. We give them questions to ask. What are the benefits? What are the risks? What are the alternatives? What if we do nothing, to whatever they're being suggested to by a birth professional? And then they say, once those questions have been answered, We're going to have a moment here together to discuss this, and then we'll let you know what we decide. So there's ways to do it that are not. confrontational. And then the nurse goes out or the doctor goes out and you guys get to decide what do you want, what is, they've told us what the risks and benefits and the alternatives of this procedure are. now we get to decide if we want to have it and they can choose fully. Here's the thing. I learned this from a book that a doctor wrote called Complications. And, I think his name is Atul Gawande and he, he said, this was, I'm totally fascinated by having a medical perspective on the medical world. So I have several books like this, but what he said was that there used to be a very paternalistic medical model. So everybody was just told, don't you worry, honey, we got to take care of it. Yeah.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 21:15

Walking backwards, we'll plug you in. You're not going to feel anything. And

Keri Tuschhoff 21:19

yeah, but any medicine, And people would just go, Oh, okay. The doctor said fill in the blank. Then people started not wanting that and then wanting more information and to be able to make their own choices. And so it shifted. Now it didn't shift all the way, and you doctors out there know who you are um, with everybody, but we went to a different kind of medical model to communicate, where the doctors would say, We can do this and this will happen. We can do that and that will happen. We can do this and this might happen and giving the people all the information and what they found was by doing studies that the majority of people went with whatever the doctor said originally anyway, because they were scared to make their own decisions. They were not confident enough in themselves. And they had not had time to research those things, and so they just went with the doctors, whatever the doctor said, whatever the doctor suggested they should do. so now we're saying, get all that information. Be confident in yourself that you can research it. There is a plethora of information out there for you to research now and make your own decisions, whether you're going in for heart surgery or to have a baby, be your own health advocate. Be your own person who pays attention when you're in there. do you know you're allergic to something and they're about to come out? Not that they're incompetent, but sometimes mistakes are made. be your own health advocate before, during, and after whatever it is that you're in there for. So this is super important for the general population to know. And act upon. If you had,

Colleen Stone, LMFT 23:20

three words of wisdom for women as they, get pregnant and start this process, what would be some words of wisdom you

Keri Tuschhoff 23:30

could share? Oh, here's three words, believe in yourself, okay, because from the time you read the little stick and you start telling people, I'm pregnant, everybody, everybody, everybody. Everybody, every, oh God, yeah. Everybody. Everybody is all around you saying, oh, you need to do this, you need to eat that. You need to get an epidural at two centimeters. Oh. And even the lady in the supermarket will come to you eight months old, round belly and say, oh, let me tell you about how horrible it was when I had my baby. I almost died. People, your co workers, your friends, your mother, your relative, everybody has something to say about the pregnancy, about the birth. about how long to stay in the hospital and about how to care for your baby. But guess who knows best? it's, it was that helped me out. If this is

Colleen Stone, LMFT 24:41

normal. I remember when I was pregnant, I was pregnant twice. People would touch you. Like random strangers would come up and touch her stomach. Why does, why is

Keri Tuschhoff 24:52

that a thing? I don't know. I think they do it less now since COVID because no one wants to be touched. But, I've always wondered about that because when I was pregnant, people would do it to me. What is that? Isn't that weird? and the words no thank you with a hand up, this is a universal stop sign by the way. No thank you. And then step back. We definitely teach our students all about that, about stopping people, for instance, if they're doing anything, if they're saying anything, for instance, people come up and they start saying like your coworker will start saying, Oh my God, I needed my epidural with the first twinge. It was so horrible. You are going to hate it. You're going to need that epidural. You forget that natural job or thing. The second they start talking. No, thank you. I have a different way. I'm planning a different kind of birth and we need to change the subject right now so that Your conscious and subconscious minds do not receive that message and it's the same thing for everybody who's pregnant Everybody who's pregnant should do that Everybody who's pregnant should stay away from stories of all kinds that tell horror stories people love to tell their horror story births Just love it. And especially at baby showers when the person is just about to give birth. So no, thank you with two hands up. No. And so we teach our students before the baby shower, whoever is that's, arranging it for you, we'll send out invitations. Say no horror stories, please. That's so smart. If you're gonna tell your birth story, it has to be a positive one right on the invitation. And then that is so smart. There's a sign up. There's a sign up when everybody is walking into the baby shower that says, this is Erin's baby shower and we need to all speak with positive language. something like that. And it could be a variation. We give'em a lot of different things they could think about putting on there. And so then the person who has arranged the baby shower has to be the police because people will still be there in a group and all my but you when I and so we got to step up baby shower arrange your friend and say Aaron's listening the baby's listening and we need to keep it positive so if you have something really fun to say something really fun to share that's great how about you tell us the best thing The best, the most joyous, fun thing that happened during your birthing. That's

Colleen Stone, LMFT 27:51

so cool that I so appreciate that because there's a lot of beautiful that happens in the birthing process. I had this girlfriend, my best friend and she, and her husband, she had a baby later in life and she and her husband invited me to the birth. And I was so excited, right? We love Jimmy Buffett who just passed away. God bless Jimmy Buffett. But I had made this whole playlist of Jimmy Buffett music and we spent the afternoon bebopping to Jimmy Buffett in the, it was so fun. It was really

Keri Tuschhoff 28:23

fun and it can be fun. There could be, there's joyous parts throughout it. Like when somebody says the words, you're 10 centimeters, let's push this baby out. Oh, I mean, that can be a huge moment for people. People can talk about that. People can talk about the joy, of course, with the first moment baby was laid on their chest and they felt the baby's heartbeat against their heartbeat. Let's talk about that. Yeah. Let's not talk about the horror stories, because then... And this is how the brain works in neurology. When you are saying positive words, not only are you being affected positively with neural connections, but the people you're talking to and are hearing your words, their neural connections are being positively formed. So let's make it a group thing. Let's be positive all the way around for everybody.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 29:23

and Carrie, the other part of that is just the frequency that we show up. literally, we're atoms bouncing around. It's energy, right? At the most essential part of humanity, that's what we are. So when this child comes from being inside mom out into this beautiful world and planet and is breathing air and the first vibe they feel is love and positivity, not anguish and pain and awfulness, right? If mom and birthing partner, are embracing baby with that frequency, what a beautiful vibe to be entering this planet with, right?

Keri Tuschhoff 30:00

Exactly. And, we teach our students, hold your babies, keep them with you. This is not a take the baby across the room thing if there's nothing wrong. In the majority of cases, there's nothing wrong with that child. So, have those moments where dad is here, mom is here, baby is here, and we have a... It's called the golden hour. I don't know if you're aware of that, but it's called the golden hour where there's just this. So

Colleen Stone, LMFT 30:29

that moment is so magical that moment. is there, is there anything better than that?

Keri Tuschhoff 30:38

I don't think so. we just want people to understand that they get to do that. They get to keep their baby. They even get to decide how long the cord is going to pulsate. Now why is that important? It's important because when the baby comes out for about five minutes, the blood is coming from the placenta, which is up in the uterus still down pulsating. All the baby's blood out that was in the placenta. So a third of the baby's blood is still in the placenta. It's pulsating out and into the baby, into the baby, and we need to leave it alone. As long as we leave it alone, the baby will get all of the blood that it needs. And People, once you teach them that and they see because there's, there's videos, there's all kinds of things demonstrating what happens, when the baby doesn't get all that blood, then they make the doctor wait for that five minutes. Now, does the doctor want to wait? Why no, because the doctor has somewhere to be. And so tell them jokes. Ask the doctor to talk about themselves. They're more than happy to tell you all about themselves. Okay. for five minutes. And then when all that blood is, is out of the placenta and into the baby. Then the cord goes flat and then we can cut the cord the normal procedure to manage this time in the birthing After the baby's come is to have the baby come out and cut the cord and clamp it right away. No so so Wow, that's fascinating, we teach them a lot of things about, the health of their baby and how they can do things differently. They can put off the assessments for a while if there's nothing wrong with the baby. If the baby seems fine and they're able to listen to its heart while it's on your chest and it's breathing and stuff, then we don't need to take it across the room and weigh it right away. Have the golden hour. Have the golden hour, the three of you. And we teach them a lot in HypnoBabies and those things are important. Carrie,

Colleen Stone, LMFT 32:58

this is such beautiful empowerment. not only is it education, it's empowerment to say, I choose this because I believe in the best interest of

Keri Tuschhoff 33:09

my child. Yes. and in the best, if when they're still pregnant, it's the, if it's the best in the best interest of the mother, it's in the best interest of the child as well. I have nothing against people who have epidurals. I have a very healthy respect for that now, having had one and needed one and all of that. And people need to understand that physiology changes once you have the epidural, then what it is. and so are other drugs. Once they get in there, they can change the fact that the contractions are coming at a certain rate. It could make it slow down. It could make you have what's called epidural fever. If you have a fever, then from it, not only are you having a medical workup, a blood workup after the baby is born, so is the baby. So there's a lot to know because if the birthing waves, which is what we call contraction, slow down, then they have to give you what's called Pitocin to speed them back up. And that can cause fetal distress. And this is why Many times we have way too many cesarean sections, because the birthing has been altered. It has been managed it we have changed the normal physiological birthing that was happening into something that now needs. Other things upon other things and it's called the domino effect. So there's, there is a lot to know when you're talking.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 34:42

So once mom has had the, or let me back up when you were talking about your own experience. And a flood of emotions that you managed because your desire was one thing, right? And the reality became this other. It's so fascinating to me as I talk with parents that have birthed babies and end up having to have C sections or, other procedures that they didn't prefer. And that how, as women, we take that on as a failure. Right. And it's so sad to me when I get moms in my practice that are beating themselves up. And as if birthing and mothering and all that isn't hard enough now, somehow I'm not good because I X, Y, or Z, And even as you explain your own story, There's this disappointment. Like I really wanted. This and this is what I ended up having. What would be some words of advice that you have for moms when the vision of what they want their birthing process to be in the reality are different?

Keri Tuschhoff 35:56

I don't want this to sound Um, I'm going to use my own birthing as an example of how I think that births happen the way that they should happen. We, everybody chooses the right thing. So if they chose, for instance, to have an epidural and it changed their birthing and they ended up with a C section or whatever, the baby's heart rate was going down. It's that's what needed to happen. And. In my birth, for instance, my first birth, I learned a lot from it, okay? I learned for my own self and my students that you should never bring a horde of people, with you. I had five people in addition. to my husband with me the first birthing and they were so worried about me and I was so worried about them and there was just a huge amount of stress and that did contribute to the pain that I was in and the fact that I did not dilate faster on my own and the fact that I went backwards in dilation I was I'm so worried. You can think about, my brother in law's here. I bet he has to get back to work. It's been 26 hours. my mom and my sisters haven't eaten in a day. I mean, there's, there's all kinds of things that can constrict you and therefore your body. And so I learned that. And I also learned that what, what all I went through caused me. And so the line to create a program that would help so many people and I so I can look at that it happened the way that it happened for me to learn certain things. So the crowd birthing which they is what they call it. I didn't do that in the second birth and it went much smoother and faster. It was painful. But. I learned a lot from it. So I think we can learn a lot from our births and childbirth is huge, absolutely huge in our lives. You can ask somebody who's 80 years old and has had 10 kids about each of her births and she will tell you from start to finish how they all went, and how it affected her each birth because It's like your heart comes out and runs around outside your body. And so there's a connection that is far beyond the physical act of giving birth. there is, it's, the baby cells actually stay in the mother's body. I don't know if you were aware of that. so after the birthing, it was not what you wanted, assess the birthing. assess what happened, maybe write it all down and then, forgive everybody. So forgive the people who might have managed her birth in a way that you didn't want, and you were afraid to speak up, forgive yourself for not speaking up, whatever needs to be forgiven, just let it go. And you can help build a bridge. To the next birthing or the rest of your life by I love that, forgiving, a lot of people will hold themselves responsible and it's not like that. It happened because it needed to happen that way. As much as people don't want to hear that. if it wasn't supposed to happen that way, it wouldn't have. And so we need to release it. And. I'm creating a, two track series called Birth Healing that are two hypnosis tracks. one is more of a talking track to just, get people into the place where they can listen to the hypnosis track and help themselves forgive and help themselves build that bridge. And move on. And it's going to be free to everybody and anyone all across the world who has had a disappointing birth all the way to a traumatic birth. And my goal in Hypnobabies, one of my great goals, is to avoid, help people avoid traumatic birth. So, for me, my first birth was traumatic. What if... We could reach many, many, many first time moms and help them believe in themselves and help them learn about the body and help them learn about the process and help them learn about creating their own birth and help them learn about the power of their own minds to create the sensations that they want and the confidence that they want as well. And then they avoided that first traumatic birth. What if they could go on to tell a bunch of people how amazing it is, and hopefully get Good feedback, because some people don't want to hear that. That's a whole nother story. Then there's the people who've already had the traumatic birth, and this time, they want to heal from it. So what if we could teach them all that stuff that we were just talking about, and they could heal? From the last birth by having a birth that was just beautiful and joyful, much easier and much more, I'm in my power, that those are my goals because those are the people that come to him no babies. Those are the people that are out there that need this information as well. Your work is so beautiful.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 41:45

I can say as a human, two of the most profound moments of my life. Was birthing my children. it's just a miracle. It really is.

Keri Tuschhoff 41:55

And to be out there

Colleen Stone, LMFT 41:58

and helping empower women as they go through this experience and with compassion, with love, with permission to use their voice with choices. It's just fascinating. I am so grateful that you're out in the trenches

Keri Tuschhoff 42:18

doing this. Thank you. And it is my life because, along the way, I found that people needed other things as well as childbirth education and birth hypnosis. So I created hypnosis tracks to help eliminate nausea, to help eliminate pregnancy, insomnia, and the fear of needles, which is quite big out there in the general population right now. and help with breastfeeding. and help with self confidence and stress and anxiety and a lot of other things including a fertility program to help people way beyond the just relax and you'll get pregnant thing. This is light years beyond that because there are hypnosis tracks for each week of your cycle to help you resonate with those weeks and participate in what is happening in your mind and your body together. To sync them up on those weeks as you journey towards getting pregnant and then visualize that you are pregnant. And it's an amazing thing. We've gotten a lot of people pregnant with it. And speaking of visualization, anybody out there, whether they use hypnobabies or not, would do well to visualize their birth every couple of days. When they're pregnant in the last month visualize the birth that you want now We know that athletes and speakers they practice mentally ahead of time Whatever it is there. They want whatever their goal is. Whatever the event is that they're practicing for like basketball They'll practice that shot and practice that shot and practice it and practice it in their mind until when they get on the court, they've done it a thousand times and it's just mind body connection Boom, right in the basket. And the same thing with speakers and other people where they imagine themselves over and over and over again in front of a crowd of people. Everybody loves them. They're all having a good time. They're telling jokes. They're remembering everything they need to remember and they practice it and practice it until at the event, it's already been done. It's already been done a hundred times in their mind. And so Boom. Easy peasy. Well, as a pregnant person, practice your birth. We teach our students. We don't tell you what it's supposed to be like. That's your thing. So, start at the beginning. Who's going to be around you? What time of day is it? What kind of support do you have? what are you doing for comfort? What are you doing for relaxation? What are you doing for yourself? How are you making sure that you get taken care of? Because there's plenty of love for you. It's not just all about the baby. So, use your voice and all the way through the different phases of birthing, all the way to pushing the baby out and feeling the baby in your arms and crying. Or, just feel the joy. And when you do that, you're creating a mental blueprint. in order to have that baby in more of the way that you would like it to be and then your mind and your body follow suit. You're basically telling your conscious mind and your subconscious mind that this is what you want. And so focusing on it is what you want to do. Don't focus on things you don't want. Avoid that in your subconscious. Now we're retraining it with this blueprint that this is what you want and it will do its best to provide it for you because that's what the subconscious does. It's in charge of everything. So that is another thing for everyone to do. Hey,

Colleen Stone, LMFT 46:14

that's beautiful. That's a beautiful tool for every woman, right? Going through this process because of course, mother universe source, the divine wants to conspire for everyone's health and wellbeing, right? So as you dance that dance over and over and over and over prior to being in the experience, it's like, we've already, we've already done this. Here's, here's how it goes, right?

Keri Tuschhoff 46:39

Yes. And we have so many students who write us and say, and not everybody, but not everybody shares this, that their baby was born at the time they imagined, of day, and that things did go very much according to the blueprint they created in their mind by visualization. So it's, the mind is super, super powerful. and when I say focus on what you want, I want to add that in here as an extra special thing that everybody should do, no matter what it is they're wanting. Focus on what you want instead of sitting around and thinking about what you don't have. and how bad it is that you don't have it. So for instance, if you wanted to buy a VW Volkswagen bug, how much time would you spend researching and going to dealerships to buy a Cadillac. You would spend this much time zero zero zero because it would not get you there. It would do absolutely nothing to help your journey towards getting that VW Bug that is so cute and you have it in your mind and it's pink and you love it and it's gonna, what you need to do is focus on getting The VW bug and how do I get it? How do I save for it? What kind of deal can I get? Research it online, go to the dealerships, look up, use cars, whatever you need to do and visualize in your mind that you already have it. So now you're focusing from the outside in and from the inside out. Giving your mind, your subconscious mind, something to work towards to help you, because it's going to drive your thoughts. It's going to drive your decisions. It's going to drive your behavior. And that's what you want to do. So focus on whatever it is you want. And that plays right into childbirth. That's what we teach our students. Focus on the birthing that you want and not the one that you don't want. Yeah. Carrie,

Colleen Stone, LMFT 48:53

the other part of that, and often as I'm speaking with people. Of course, all of that and Imagine the beautiful feelings that follow. So not only are we inviting our subconscious mind and our thoughts, but also our feelings to have this dance of here's what I want. And here's the feelings that I want to follow, right? Like I want to feel that feeling of my wind in the hair is my convertible bug has the hood down. And imagine the smells as I drive through lavender or by the ocean, right? It's like you want. All of you, all of your senses and your hearts, right? To follow because that just makes the whole, in terms of quantum theory, it's like the whole universe now is going, wow, that's yummy, right? Yeah,

Keri Tuschhoff 49:40

let's do that. Exactly. And the more emotions that you do put into visualization and say affirmations, the more they're going to affect you in a positive way and affirmations, people are very, I think affirmations are misunderstood. People have a different kind of thought about affirmations. They think it's just something that you say and it could never affect you. But these one liners that you would tell yourself over and over again about whatever, anything that you want in your life, they actually help. Retrain your brain and create neural connections that are super positive and then you're focused on that goal instead of the one that the thing that you don't want and it makes a huge difference and our students do that. They have an affirmations track that they just put on while they're. dusting or whatever, and listen to, I love my pregnant body, I eat well for my baby, I can't wait for my birthing, it's going to be beautiful, my hypnosis is going to work wonderfully, and if you write out the affirmations in I statements, I this, I that, I the other thing and put them up all over your house. You can't help but see it even in your car and then you start to really believe it on a conscious level and a subconscious level. So that's super important for anybody out there as well.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 51:10

Harry, you're amazing. Your work is amazing. I'm so grateful for the footprint you're leaving on the planet because I think that birthing is one of the most miraculous, it's just a miracle. And to have the skills and tools and feelings and thoughts that you're helping women develop to go into that job, right? It's a job done well, already done with all the tools you give them, right?

Keri Tuschhoff 51:36

Hypnobabies is a very well rounded, comprehensive course that teaches a whole lot more than childbirth and birth hypnosis. yes. can I just add one more thing? I want to tell people about hypnosis itself. Okay? I'd love that. the majority of people out there have a great misunderstanding about hypnosis itself. They think that because... They saw on TV or in person, a stage hypnosis show that it's all like that somebody is, doing hypnosis to you and making you quack like a duck or sing like Elvis or whatever. I'm here to tell you that stuff is entertainment and it's a lot of fun, but real therapeutic hypnosis is nothing like that. So first of all, we are all in states of hypnosis. Many times a day, all day long, all of us, every single day. So when you're waking up, when you're going to sleep, when you are driving a car and you can't figure out where the last five minutes went to, you were in hypnosis. When you are reading and you're engrossed in a book and somebody's calling your name, but woo, it takes a while to get back to reality. You're in hypnosis. When you're daydreaming about your trip to Hawaii and nothing else matters because it's like you're in hypnosis. When you are looking at a screen of any kind, anyone look at screens at all? Ever? Phones? Tablets? Laptops? Movie screens? TV? You're in hypnosis after a very short period of time of the stimulation of everything going by it. try to, disturb a gamer. They are so focused. so what is hypnosis? It is a very Very focused form of concentration and the deeper, the more focused you get, the deeper you go in hypnosis. And for instance, in hypno babies, we get down to a theta state. It is somnambulistic. And in that somnambulistic state, we can create hypno anesthesia. and other effects in the body much deeper. So when they're practicing, they go to that state. They listen to hypnosis tracks, which take them very, very deep and then provide suggestions. These are hypnotic directives to the mind, the subconscious mind. And it, if we listen to it every day, cause it's kind of lazy, we retrain and retrain and compound and compound and compound until it's all in there. And then. When you need the hypnosis, it's activated by a few post hypnotic cues. In hypnobabies, it's a hand on the shoulder or forehead by the birth partner. There are certain cue words that can be thought or said or heard, and not only do they take you in hypnosis, but much, much deeper, and they activate the hypnoanesthesia. wherever you want it so you can direct it to your back if your back is hurting down your thighs sometimes contractions radiate down the thighs the cervix the perineum the uterus anywhere everywhere you want it to be and That's real therapeutic hypnosis, which, by the way, can be used for anything. Pick something and you can use therapeutic hypnosis to help that. And so, on that note, I just want to tell people out there who are watching, if you have a particular issue, that You would like to use hypnosis for feel free to email me at director at hypnobabies. com and I will help you find resources for that particular issue because anything can be helped with hypnosis. So that's what hypnosis is.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 55:37

Thanks for that. And I love, what you're saying is this is a transferable skill to a lot of other ways that we as human experience dis ease, right? Yes. And how else might listeners get a hold of you or find your information?

Keri Tuschhoff 55:54

We have. A very comprehensive website with lots of information@hypnobabies.com, and that's H-Y-P-N-O-B-A-B-I-E s.com. We also have a store where all of our courses live. We have a, not only do we have hypno babies live classes with an instructor, but we have. Three self study courses that you can do HypnoBabies yourself at home. And one is a hard copy course and two are online courses that are being used all over the world. And, so that's at hypnobabies store. com. And of course, on social media, we are everywhere, as HypnoBabies official. please come join us for more information. Especially on Facebook. We have a Facebook support group on which there are 11, 000 women at any given time and you can learn more about hypnobabies there. So feel free to go to our, Hypnobabies Facebook official page and we will direct you to the support group. Awesome.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 57:02

Carrie, thank you for your time. Thank you for your work. You're beautiful and amazing inside and out.

Keri Tuschhoff 57:08

thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it and your whole energy is just so wonderful and loving and accepting and giving and I really appreciate that.

Colleen Stone, LMFT 57:20

back at you girl. Thank you for your time.