Gentle Birthing: Creating Gentle Beginnings Naturally

By Ann Bridges

Do you want to let go of fear and give birth naturally? Are you ready to take control of your birthing experience? Do you want to learn the secrets that will enable you to have a gentle, drug- free birth? In Gentle Birthing, author Ann Bridges offers a guide to help you experience the ideal birth, one that leaves you feeling empowered, ecstatic, and euphoric.

Bridges, a nurse, author, clinical hypnotherapist, reiki master, doula, angel intuitive, and mother of two who specializes in birth education, provides a structured, practical approach to birth and places birthing parents back in charge. She has taught birthing classes and couples for more than nine years and shares her own program. This guide is based on her experiences and also draws upon modern, traditional, and ancient wisdom, offering a holistic, mind/body, and spiritual understanding integrated with a solution-focused, practical approach to birthing,

Gentle Birthing helps expectant parents plan, prepare, and implement for success and begin their parenting journey on the right foot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Dec 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781504314657

Ann Bridges

Ann Bridges is a nurse, author, clinical hypnotherapist, reiki master, doula, and mother of two. Having found solutions to birthing for herself, she now teaches the secrets she learned. Bridges uses the best of modern, traditional, and ancient wisdom to create an easy, practical framework to birthing naturally. Visit her online at www.gentlebirting.com.au.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 Ann Bridges.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Interior Graphics/Art Credit: Ashleen Pearce

Balboa Press

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this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any

technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the

advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer

information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-

being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your

constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1464-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1465-7 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date:  12/02/2020

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1:   My story

Chapter 2:   The power of mindset and understanding

Creating your own story

A thought is a substance

Who is in charge?

Chapter 3:   How to get your subconscious to work for you

Chakra balancing methods for birth

Chapter 4:   Nutrition — supporting your body and baby during pregnancy

Essential minerals

Essential vitamins

Other dietary essentials

Foods and drinks to avoid

Chapter 5:   The birth process

Origins of the medical approach to birth

Going into labour

How stress affects the birthing body

How to work with your body during labour

Birth positions

Lotus Birth

The partner’s role

Chapter 6:   Plan for the worst and expect the best

Choosing your birth provider

Inductions

Your birth plan

Chapter 7:   Harnessing the power of hypnosis and affirmations

Hypnosis

My experience with hypnosis

Creative visualisation

Working with affirmations and afformations

Chapter 8:   Disappearing fear and its effects

Conclusion: A little reminder

Foreword

Birth.

One word, and yet it encompasses so much.

A myriad of feelings, emotions and experiences unearthed and projected all at once.

On one hand, pre-scheduled birthdays, no pain, ‘in and out’ procedures and the ability to control the process through high levels of intervention seemed like the perfect solution for medical staff and the busy, modern woman — in reality the physical, emotional and spiritual connection inherent in the birthing process suffered, until now.

To ignore the unparalleled power of the mind and the human ability to create Heaven or Hell in one’s own personal universe is at the very least naïve.

Yet this ability has been, for the most part, ignored for so long in the context of birth and birthing.

The power to create your wonderfully anticipated birthing experience is within you right now. The ability to dream, desire, visualise and intercede on your own behalf is yours and yours alone.

The fact you are reading this book is a beautiful sign you are ready and willing to begin utilising its brilliant teachings — and that is a wonderful beginning.

It’s important to be reminded that what and how you focus between now and the birth of your child is indeed the practice that will get you ready for your main event.

Open your mind, learn, implement and repeat. Dutifully practicing what you learn here, right up to and during your big day.

That and your best are the only prerequisites to creating your most blessed experience. Your best will vary from day to day and as long as you focus on doing your best, that will be enough and it will be perfect in exactly how it manifests for the highest good of all concerned.

On this journey, you have embarked on and that begins in its full glory on your birthing day, all you can control is your mindset and willingness to relax and do your best.

Once more, that is all that is required.

Ann Bridges in this wonderful book puts women back in charge of their experience to create their very own empowering birthing experiences.

Use it with the full knowledge that what you learn here and practice brings you safely closer to your most wonderful creation yet — and that in that moment, where you both get to stare into each other’s eyes for the very first time, no matter what, everything is perfect in the universe.

Gabriela Rosa

Naturopath, Fertility Expert and Author

Acknowledgments

Thank you to everyone who helped to birth this book! To all the wonderful parents and their babies, it has been wonderful to share your journey with you. Special thanks to my wonderful husband Chris, who has supported me to attend countless courses, helped me with his fabulous technical skills and set up for my birthing classes. Thank you to my patient editor Nicole, my graphic designer extraordinaire and friend Jess, for the stunning book cover. For the graphics inside the book thank you to the big hearted Ashleen. Thank you to the award-winning photographer Rainee for the mesmerising artwork on the cover and the underwater goddess in said photo, Kahlia.

I am eternally grateful to my sister, Gill, who was the first to inspire me with a positive birthing experience; Denise Love, who was my birthing class teacher and later doula trainer, as she empowered me, gave me courage and confidence; my doula Gwen Teasdale who helped by holding the space and believing in me; and also to the positive stranger who briefly spoke to me in the hospital corridor. All these people supported me in realising a different story for myself. And through this book I am going to pass on that life-affirming story to you so that you may have the opportunity to tell yourself a different story and create the best birthing journey for yourself.

Thank you angels for your constant love support and guidance.

Chapter 1:

My story

You are given the gifts of the Gods

You create your reality according to your beliefs

Yours is the creative energy that makes your world

There are no limitations to the self

Except those you believe in.

— Jane Roberts

How does that quote make you think and feel? Maybe you are wondering what it has to do with birthing. I choose that particular quote to assist you to realise, or to remind you, that you are creating your reality and that you can choose to create an amazing birth.

I am assuming that is why you are in possession of this book. You, my friend, are more powerful than most dare to allow themselves to imagine. I am grateful that you are looking at the birth of your baby differently and are willing to recognise how your current thinking is creating your current feelings. Once you see through society’s limiting beliefs, fears and anxieties, you come to your innate state of peace and happiness which means you can access your wisdom for birth.

My birthing stories are of empowerment, joy and personal growth through tackling the challenge that is one of life’s great rites of passage – childbirth. Through the birth of both of my children and the subsequent work I am now doing, I have had direct experience with the law of attraction in action. I will show you how you can make it work for you too. As one of my ladies said to me when I asked her what she learnt from the birth of her second child: ‘I got to see that anything is possible!’ What a great piece of experiential education; I can only begin to imagine how that has impacted her life moving forward. This was intensely gratifying to hear as I was fortunate to be present at her second child’s birth because she sought my services after having had a difficult first birth. Whether you are a first-time mum or, looking to improve upon your last birthing experience, you can choose your personal recipe.

This is one of my main reasons for sharing my story with you. Through the birth of both of my children I got to see that my thoughts and feelings really do impact and create my reality, that anything is possible, and that the Laws of the Universe are very real and waiting for us to tap into them to create our preferred experience. In this chapter I will give you a brief overview of my birthing journey so you can learn from my mistakes and successes.

During my nurse training (more years back than I care to remember!), I vividly recall my obstetrics rotation. I helped women going through the birthing process in many different ways — epidurals, gas and air, forceps deliveries, caesareans — and this got me thinking that when it comes to my time to birth I want to be well prepared so that I can make the best of it, not leaving it to chance.

As my final essay