Dominique Antiglio - A Revolutionary Approach to Pregnancy, Childbirth and Beyond

Dominique Antiglio is best known for bringing Sophrology — a mind-body relaxation and mental preparation method popular in parts of Europe — to English-speaking audiences. Her work around pregnancy and childbirth focuses on helping women feel calmer, more confident, and emotionally prepared through breathing, visualization, relaxation, and body-awareness techniques. 

Her approach is often described as a “revolutionary” alternative to purely medicalized birth preparation because it combines:

• structured breathing techniques
• guided visualization
• gentle movement
• stress and anxiety management
• emotional resilience training
• preparation for labour and early parenthood

Rather than focusing only on the mechanics of childbirth, Antiglio emphasizes the connection between mental state, nervous-system regulation, and physical experience during pregnancy and labour.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Bayer Gaia, a probiotic brand trusted by families like yours from newborn drops to daily support for all ages. Bayer Gaia is one of the world's most research probiotics available at larger bootstores. Welcome back to the Project Baby Podcast, where today we're joined by Dominique talking all things sociology. Welcome to the Project Baby Podcast. It's so lovely to have you here. So let's start with what is it you actually do? What is sophrology?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

So sophrology belongs to the family of meditation. It's been quoted the young cousin, the young dynamic cousin of mindfulness. So sophrology is a combination of relaxation, breathing, visualization, and movement exercises that you do within five, ten minutes or more if you want, to help you tune inside yourself, tune into your mind-body connection and be able to unlock your full potential. That can be in relation to birth preparation, to performance, to stress management, anxiety, sleep. So it's really about going back to yourself and unlocking the resource you need to deal with what's presented to you in your life. And how did you get into this and how long have you been doing it for? Oh, I don't count the years anymore. I started as a teenager, so um I'm originally from Switzerland where the practice is very well known there. It's reimbursed by health insurance. So basically, it's my doctor at 15 who referred me to a sophrologist because at the time I had issues with stress and my body was kind of giving up on me in a way. I had episodes where I was fainting on the way to school. I was training a lot with basketball at the time, and basically I wasn't able to train because I experienced so much tiredness and fainting episodes. And they did all sorts of tests through the traditional approach of the medical approach and couldn't really find anything relevant in the tests. And after months of trying different things, I ended up in this sophologist's practice. And in five over five weeks, seeing her weekly and practicing those very simple modalities of breathing, relaxation, visualization, and body awareness. Not only I recovered, but I it really opened a new avenue in my life, a new mindset, a new way to look at myself and the world around me. And I understood, okay, if I close my eyes 10 minutes a day with this, I can be in the driving seat of my life. And I realized how much stress I was carrying at the time, and I think I I was in an emotional burnout in many ways without having felt it coming because I was so disconnected to how I feel and my body and what was happening for me as a teenager, and it really transformed my life. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

So then you start there, and then you're a parent. How old is your child? Uh my son is 10. Your son is 10. And through those 10 years of being a parent, has this really helped you?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, I mean, sophrology has been with me for so long, it's almost built inside me now. So I think it's the way I approach my life and I organize myself, and it's it's also to do with uh your value system, sophrology a lot. So initially it's a stress management practice, but it's called 12 degrees of practice. So you can journey through the practice for a good two years and a half before you get to the end, which you never get because it's all about self-development, and I think you you have never finished the work. You know, if you're a human being, you're always gonna be faced with your next challenge. But um, yeah, so I I still use it not only as a mum but as a um an entrepreneur, as with my business and with the projects I have, and yeah, I think uh it's such a useful tool. A useful tool.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

A lot of our listeners are not going to have even heard of this before, and a lot of them are new parents and they've got this newborn baby at home and they are burnt out, they are tired. Um, what would their first steps to be to do? What would they how would they get going?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

I think for for me it's it's really usually to to take a moment of self-connection and it doesn't need to be a complicated thing. It could be during breastfeeding, it could be uh last uh uh when you're about to fall asleep, it could be when your baby finally has a nap and you you have uh 25 minutes to yourself, it could be uh in your bathroom in the morning, but just having that moment where you can practice something that is going to allow you to check in, uh not only on a mental level, but just how do I feel in my body today? What's my energy like? What do I need? How do I feel? Um rather than just staying on automatic pilot and and and staying in that fight or flight response that makes you actually take the wrong decision or um or you know or even accepting things or that you don't want to do, or I think it's it's an ability it's a way to really check in with you and to build up that resilience. And also it's a way to regulate your nervous system. And I think when you've given birth, just the birth experience itself takes a lot on your body, um on your nervous system, and it's totally normal to feel dysregulated, to feel um vulnerable both in body and mind, and I think by installing a little moment where you are in alpha brainwave state, which is a very restorative physiological state for the brain, you will find your way through these states and be able to make them more conscious rather than trying to surf only with the power of the mind and saying, I'm fine, I'm fine, you know, which has its limits when your body has been in such a state of fluctuation and vulnerability.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Okay, and you talk about the 12 stages. What does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

So sophrology takes you on a journey to explore the different aspects of consciousness. So the definition of sophrology comes from the three uh Greek roots SOS, friend, and logos. Um and it's the the study of consciousness in harmony. So it's based on both Eastern practices and also modern science to understand how you can influence your state of consciousness, which means your mind, your body, uh, your emotion, but also the relationship you have with the world. And how can you show up in the most balanced state and in the most positive state and step by step influence those states to transform yourself? So when you start a sophrology journey, the first step is really returning to the body. I think we we spend a lot of time in our mind trying to get it right, worrying, um thinking we can manage it all just with the mind, and often we forget to connect to how we feel because there is so much tension often that it's easier not to go there. So sophrology has this gentle way of helping you close your eyes, connect to the presence of your body through breathing, through body scans, through movement, through standing work for those who perhaps don't have the patience to sit and do a meditative practice. And we often call it meditation for people who can't meditate because it allows you a weighing for yourself for self-connection through the body in a very simple way. And once you've created more of this connection with your body, learn to shift tension, you might be aware of, and kind of train your nervous system to also observe the positive sensation you have in your body because we are full of resources, full of amazing and pleasant sensations that we don't pay attention to. Then you can start to explore the mind. So level two or degree two, and there's no pressure about levels, or it's just a journey, and you can take as little of the journey or as much as you want, is really about the mind. So how do I it's not about meditation yet because before medit being able to meditate, you need to know where your body is, your mind, how how do you function as a human being and get very very and get very, how do you say, like comfortable with yourself, knowing where to start before you can be the non-judgmental observer of your thoughts and perceptions, which is meditation. The second degree of sophrology is really about uh learning to focus your mind, learning to use your imagination. We do a lot of visualization, for example, learning how to really look have a positive relationship with your future. So the level one is all about being present in the body, level two is all about how I can move forward with positivity, prepare myself for my birth and the resilience I need for it, preparing myself for when my baby will be here, how does that look like? So, like really training your mind to be comfortable with the uncertainty and learning to have a positive relationship with that unknown. And then level three is about the past: is how can I extract all the beautiful resources and experience I've lived in my past because often when we look at the past we only look at the drama and the difficulties which shapes us. But we also have a reservoir of amazing sensations and perceptions and joy that if you you really start to look into it, you will find. And then we bring it all together into level four where we um we we kind of learn to meditate, but also to ask ourselves what do we value in our life. So now I have a stronger center, I'm more in my body, I'm more comfortable with the mind, I'm able to meditate. What do I want to use all these beautiful qualities in relation to the world? How do I want to show up in the world? And we don't say how as sophrologists we we help the with this tool, we help the client to unlock its own version of that, and and that can evolve over time. And then we go a step further, really uh in more of an intuitive way, using the tools of meditation and body awareness to explore deeper layers of which are a bit more subtle around sound, for example, what is energy and how can I feel energy in my body, how can I use the sound of my voice to be even more in tune with the more subtle aspect of my body and you deepen and deepen the experience. But really for parents, this probably sounds very overwhelming and not needed when you just had a baby. And I think you know, sophrology can be this stress management tool, this regulation tool for your nervous system, this this tool that helps you come back to you and deal with what you have to deal on a daily basis. And it doesn't need to be a new philosophy you apply in your life or anything. You know, if you're not ready for that, then that's fine, you know, just take what you need from it.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Because I think um lots of parents will kind of listen and go, Oh, I don't I didn't I still don't even know where to start. Do you know what I mean? And and that is the really the hardest part is I have no idea how to meditate. My seven-year-old he sits and he he looks like he's meditating. I have no idea if he's doing it properly or not. Um and I think that's the thing is it's like how do you know if you're actually doing it properly and effectively?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah. I start every practice by saying there's nothing to succeed at. Okay, yeah, and I see the relief on the face of people. I I say, let's close the eyes, let's do a short body scan, then stand and activate our body consciously and listen to the breath, and then perhaps end up with a visualization of what you want your day to feel like tomorrow, for example. Uh and in that, that in that moment, people will have all sorts of sensations, some they are pleasant, some they are not. They will visualize, they will manage or not manage to visualize. In sophrology, it doesn't matter. It's about showing up because every time you show up, even for three minutes a day, you're rewiring your brain. And it doesn't need to be pleasant initially, it's the act of doing it that actually transforms you. And and and you almost go to to learn to to get to know yourself in such a much more intuitive way, where you give less power to the mind. And because you anchor yourself in your body more and more, you know your mind is always gonna try to kind of trick you or tell you the things you don't want to know or to worry you. Yeah, so you learn to kind of say, Okay, yeah, it's fine, yeah. I know I'm going back to this now, but how do I feel in my body? Can I concentrate on this movement? Can I so the the whole practice is made to help you regulate, and when you regulate, you you have less of all these thoughts and this tension inside yourself. So it just comes with practice, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah, I love that the expectation is like you're in control. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah, so and there's nothing to succeed at. I mean, when you're a young ch a young parent, there's so much pressure on you already. So sophrology is not here to add pressure on you. If if all you want to do today is lie down and and and fall asleep during a sophrology practice because it helps you let go and fully relax your body whilst you're breastfeeding, massive win. Because you will have been resting, which every young parent needs to do because it's the it's incredibly tiring to be in that new phase of your life. And I think just learning to rest is you it's a huge thing. If all I can teach people to do when they are young parents is deciding between taking the hoover out or lying in front of the TV for 20 minutes when they can, I advise the TV, to be honest, because I think you you need that buffer, you need that that that time, you know, to just chill out and know you're gonna be fine, but but you need to restore because it's a big it's a big experience to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

And the cleaning is always gonna be there. There'll be more cleaning. Can wait.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

When you have to make priority, you have a young child, uh, you need to be there throughout the whole night. If you really want your house to be clean, call your mum. I don't know, call your best friend or try try to get the help because you know the main thing is that you've done something really incredible and life-changing, and now you just need to be have the time to integrate. Yeah, definitely. And it's hard for the mind to accept that. And I think learning it through the body is a way of accepting. Because just saying, Oh, you need to rest to someone who just wanna go out, just want to do it's hard, but taking 10 minutes to lie down and do your breathing will act as a rest, and it's maybe more acceptable to start with 10 minutes than think you have to do it for five hours. Yeah.

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SPEAKER_02 17:30

So let's talk a little bit about yourself and your own pregnancy and your own parenthood journey and how sophrology has actually helped that.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah, so when I was pregnant, I did ask a colleague, a colleague sophrologist to help me with that preparation because I think even if you have all the tools, this experience is new, and I think you know we all need the help of someone at some point. So I did prepare a lot of the visualization work, the body awareness, maintaining you know, trying to protect myself from stress generally during pregnancy. Um, I had some issues during pregnancy with bleeding, so it was quite a stressful journey for me. But you know, learning to be hopeful, to um to stay positive and to process the worries that I've had throughout has really helped. And then you do prepare your birth with visualization and body awareness with sophrology, but you prepare for the birth you're gonna have. So you we don't have a specific philosophy around birth. We what we're interested in is is really about the resilience. Can someone have practice enough to have the resilience available? And I ended up having a very complicated birth and uh after, and and I think sophrology did help me after some processing time to look at my birth in a positive way because I think with that type of traumatic birth, I could have really suffered much more and actually doubt my confidence as a young mother. And I think sophology, and after a while, of course, I had these moments where, like any mother, where you ask yourself, Did you do something wrong? or why this has this happened, or I think it's totally normal, you know, you have to be able to process. But I think because I had done so much sophrology, I could actually give myself the time to to process and ask for help and and then and then eventually come to a you know the conclusion that you know I had done everything I could, and then sometimes life happens, and and at the end I have a beautiful baby and I was healthy, and that's all what mattered, yeah. And I think it gave me the resilience to to not get stuck on this and and not making it of a big deal because actually when you when you know the challenge that are then coming as a mother, you realize birth is is is very important, but it's also a small part of the whole experience that you will uh you will have, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

And um what what kind of uh things do you see coming through and your clinic?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

I think um I think we we support a lot of women that have careers and for um who have quite a lot of anxiety around having a gap in their career and and how to to manage that and the the the the change of rhythm, that's what I see most, you know, very driven and intelligent women that are ready to go on this journey, they're excited, but at the same time they live a very full life. And and I think the through the body awareness and that work, you learn to synchronize with your own rhythm more during the pregnancy. And I feel that this is very useful because I think having a newborn is very slow for a lot of people, and having that shift between so many activities and feeling in control of your life, and then suddenly having to feel less in control and give the space to follow your baby's rhythm, I feel is is is a big thing in our society, especially. So I think by returning to your body rhythm and learning to listen to your breath and to access those state of relaxation and visualization, in a way it prepares you to to be more in that space, yeah, not only for birth but also for because I think we do.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

I think we put a baby at the forefront of everything we do. So it's really good to find something just to carve out five, ten minutes a day just for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

And I think you know, if you bring breastfeed for example that you don't need to choose between you and your baby I think you are a unit a beautiful unit for many months or years you know and and that's normal too that your baby is the front of all your you know worries and your your energy I think that's totally normal but within that within those moments you can even practice with your baby you know I used to do that lie on the on the floor next to my young baby and do five minutes of sophology and breathe and the baby usually calms down and it's amazing how both brains and nervous system respond to each other so you know you can practice with your baby on yourself you can practice at the park when you when you go on a on a walk with your baby with you or in the pram and you can take uh five minutes to close your eyes and listen to an audio or so does the impact from yourself when you're practicing with your baby does that impact the baby? Yeah I think the nervous system of a mother is completely in sync with the baby and especially in the early months so the state of the mother is what the baby will pick up you know so if you're if you are calm the baby has more chance to be calm yeah and I think it's um it's the best way to regulate your baby in a way is to regulate yourself and uh and you know but no guilt there you know we can't be always regulated and we can't be always in a calm state but I I I think it does help the baby to feel a sense of safety and that the mother feels safe and the way to bring safety into your nervous system is to regulate it. And that just happens when you breathe one or two three breaths and you're you're already regulating so it's not like you have to change completely your life if you if you do 10 minutes of regulation per day over time you'll be more regulated and your your your baby will feel it yeah. And let's try and put some of it into practice so is there an exercise that we could teach our listeners so that they could just have five minutes at home and they can watch this and then they could actually put it into practice do you think we can be for a young parent or exactly for a young parent definitely yeah so it could be we could start with an exercise that's called the Tratak that helps you focus your attention within so every practice in sophrology we start with it so I I'll demonstrate and and then you can decide if you want to our journey yeah yeah so uh you focus your gaze on a point on your thumb you inhale you hold your breath and then you bring this point in between your eyebrows and you cross eye which looks a little funny but doesn't matter and then you close your eyes and you exhale so that's a way to focus your attention in and we all always start with that you can teach this to kids as well and repeat it three three times it helps your brain regulate before you and helps you concentrate and be present. And then it's about taking a really comfy position deep in the chair or so far even lying down initially closing the eyes and doing a short body scan to just notice how you feel in your body and then there's there's a very simple exercise we can do which is called the tension relax so let's say you've you you you are connecting to yourself and all you can feel is tension or frustration or tiredness and you want to process that so you could simply inhale hold your breath clench your fist clench every muscle in your body acknowledge the stress the frustration the tension and then exhale it and then you slowly release your arms down and you pause. So sophrology is always a mix of activation and rest and during that moment of rest you are you're observing what's going on for you. So you could do that three times for example and then just notice where it takes you and then if you if you are you know if you are highly stressed for example and your environment is stressed or you have too much on your mind you could do a visualization of a bubble around you that filters all the stress from the outside like all the stress you experience is outside of that bubble and you you imagine and with practice you'll be able to get to that really calm state of relaxation and and feel that physiological impact of being calm within a stress environment which can be really useful as a parent because there's always gonna be a lot of activity around you when you have children and you you can be relaxed within that that that tension or that chaos sometimes. And then if you you have more energy and you would like to do something a bit more grounding you could stand and we have various exercises that you can find on my platform which has from head rotations through little pumping exercise with the shoulders through movement with the leg that all help you learn to ground yourself in the body in the present moment as well as shifting your nervous system from an agitated state to a calmer state. And then you sit back and once you've been moving standing you can sit back and then you notice the real relaxation in your body and you can finish off by a visualization for example of a nice landscape or you could just take in isolation one of those practices and keep it to a two minute practice of belly breathing or of visualization and every time you practice it adds up to your to your library of sensation and perception and over time you will be able to access those practices on the go. So for example me these days I I do take sometimes a longer sophrology practice but I tend to like I was in the in the underground to come here you know I did a bit of sophrology because it's a transition between a certain type of being in my work at home and doing different stuff and then coming to you and knowing it's a conversation it's a different it requires a different energy yeah so how can I regulate myself to actually show up in the right way for the right need or you know the right moment. Yeah nice.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

And you mentioned your platform so if our listeners are as fascinated as I am and as invested as I am and what can whereabouts they can they find you and what can they find?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah so we we have a platform called bisopro.com and on this platform we have a web app where people can practice sophrology in the context of different difficulties. It could be a we have short course on sleep that gives you like 10 minutes a day a little practice that's really helping you to reconnect with your ability to sleep and get more confident about your sleep and how to let go in terms of your nervous system to be able to drift off. We have a special course for parenting like prepare from all the way to your pregnancy to the early days of you know the fourth trimester and really a small amount of like 10 minutes a day where we touch on different topics how to ground yourself how to calm your emotion how to prepare for your birth experience how to build up your confidence as a mother how to learn to rest as we've been talking about and there are like little practice very simple that you can just follow and just see how it feels and if it helps you along the way yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

It has been so lovely to have you on the podcast. So we have got your publication here whereabouts can we buy your publication from? On all the platforms that sell books yeah perfect and and on Amazon as well. And where can our listeners um get in contact with yourself or take on one of your courses?

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Yes so bsofro.com uh and uh you have all sorts of practices there you can also come to at bsofro london on Instagram and we do a lot of free practices for people to try there and uh yeah feel free to to ask me any question I'm always happy to to answer. Lovely um and one question we close every podcast with is what is your love language my love language um maybe silence silence in a way you know like um not talking and observing and giving space and also food yeah you know I think uh brownies they they're it's uh you know it's I I enjoy sitting down with friends and having a time to just share some food together I feel that it's always very healing and very yeah very lovely.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. And if you have enjoyed today's episode make sure that you hit the subscribe button and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode too