What is Fearless Birthing?
Fearless Birthing is a birth preparation approach that is entirely focused on helping the mother (and the father) to clear their fears so that they can approach birth fear free. A fearless mama will be much better able to stay present and connected to her body and her baby during labour. By developing her emotional resilience before birth, she is also much better placed to respond flexibly to the demands of labour, and so improve the chances of her having a positive birth experience. The technique at the heart of Fearless Birthing offers a direct and focused fear-clearance action that works deeply and quickly to clear fears from the mind and body. In removing the mental distractions and helping the mama develop trust in her body’s ability to birth her baby, the power of the birthing body can be allowed to take over.
It's quick
It's flexible
It works via audio
No hypnosis involved
Benefits of using Fearless Birthing
- The mother can use it herself, or have someone “do it” for her.
- It can be used during labour by the mother to help her overcome fears as they arise, and a speedy version is available that can be used in between contractions during transition.
- The mother can use it to help her to communicate directly with her body (to help her to relax certain muscles for example) during labour or post birth.
- The mother can receive fear-clearance support by her birthing companion or birthing professional even if she doesn’t know the technique. No previous knowledge is required on the part of the mother to receive help and support in this way.
- Fearless Birthing can be used on the baby in utero to help clear their negative emotions that might impact on the birth experience. A fearful baby might prefer to stay in their mother rather than come out!
- Fearless Birthing can also be used to address limiting beliefs which can help the mother to build trust in her body’s ability to birth her baby.
- Fear clearance can be delivered via audio or MP3, thus enabling you to create additional revenue streams for your business and support your mamas even when you’re not there.
- Fearless Birthing does not involve hypnosis, therefore its use doesn’t help mamas fall asleep or trance out during birth. They’re better able to remain present and connected to their baby and their body which means they’re more likely to detect things that don’t feel right.
The story behind Fearless Birthing
In 2009, Alexia was fortunate to find herself on the first-ever training course for a new technique from the field of Energy Psychology; Reflective Repatterning (RR). As a business coach, she was already trained in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) and Thought Field Therapy (TFT). Amazed by the results that she was getting with herself and with her coaching clients, she became an advanced practitioner. Soon after, the founder of Reflective Repatterning, Chris Milbank, invited her to join forces with him in training other people in RR and they trained therapists, coaches and counsellors for a number of years together. As such, after its founder, Alexia is currently the most advanced practitioner and trainer of Reflective Repatterning worldwide.
All this coincided with Alexia’s own journey as a mother. Her first pregnancy in 2009 ended in a miscarriage, but in 2010 she gave birth to her daughter. In RR circles, she is the first RR baby because it was during her pregnancy that Alexia used RR to address and clear all her own pregnancy and childbirth fears. Having tried hypnobirthing, she found that it simply was not touching her own deep fears and traumas around birth, which led her to try using RR to clear her fears instead.
Alexia used her first pregnancy to understand how best to apply RR to pregnancy and birth and to see what worked. At the beginning of her pregnancy journey, Alexia was deeply terrified of birth and was happy to consider all forms of pain relief. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that; her daughter was born naturally at home and one of the midwives present later told her “…you were like an Amazonian woman giving birth…” It was a complement apparently!
Since her first birth, Alexia further developed her work around birth preparation and shared it with pregnant friends and family to great results. With a background in marketing and branding, she also found ways of simplifying Reflective Repatterning, so that more people could use it and benefit from it, especially those who never considered that they could benefit from therapy. Having observed her trainee delegates learn and use RR, as well as her clients, Alexia noticed which elements of RR that were having a huge impact, as well as the elements that trainees and clients were finding easy to understand. This work culminated in her creating the Head Trash Clearance Method; an easy-to-understand, simple-to-use version of RR for anyone to use. She went on to launch the Head Trash Show Podcast to help people to clear their head trash using the method.
The real test came with her second pregnancy and birth. Her second pregnancy was very different and being an older, high-risk mother, Alexia was subjected to many fear-based messages during her pregnancy. Questions about her due date also meant a lot of pressure for being induced. Alexia calmly stood her ground and birthed her second daughter naturally at home in late 2014 at 40+15. Her second pregnancy journey forced her to educate herself a lot around birth and this enabled her to refine her birth preparation approach. She has also integrated elements of other techniques that she had been using with her coaching clients over the years and that she found helpful in preparing for her birth the second time around.
The culmination of all this work is Fearless Birthing. When the word got out about her second birth, Alexia was soon inundated with requests for help by mums wanting help to clear their birth fears. What started as free email series, became a book and now the podcast, Fear Free Childbirth Podcast, which has now been downloaded over 260,000 times worldwide.
What next?
Alexia is now building her tribe of birthing professionals who are trained in Fearless Birthing so that more women can benefit from fear-free births. A select group of birthing professionals will be chosen to be the founding mothers of Fearless Birthing. This group will be chosen carefully to ensure that all can grow and benefit from our collective involvement; our work is bigger than each of us. Alexia plans to expand Fearless Birthing overseas and will need her tribe to help spread the word and reach more mamas.
What is Alexia is looking for?
Alexia wants to make a real difference to future mothers and babies and for this she needs a strong tribe. You will be an ideal addition to the tribe if you are…
- An experienced doula, midwife, birth preparation practitioner or birth educator who consider themselves to be best in class.
- Already using a collection of holistic techniques and approaches to help the people you serve.
- Passionate about wanting to change how birthing is perceived for the better and you want to help carve out a new, more positive, narrative around birth.
- Interested in learning new ways that you can help and support parents-to-be.
If you’re interested in joining the tribe of Fearless Birthing Professionals who can help to improve birth for families then signal your interest to apply below.
Join the tribe of Fearless Birthing Professionals
If you think you’d make a great addition to the tribe of Fearless Birthing Professionals and would like to find out more about the Fearless Birthing Training, then get in touch below.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Fearless Birthing differ to Hypnobirthing?
At its simplest, hypnobirthing is the use of hypnosis to help mothers prepare for positive birth. However since its inception, it has evolved and is now widely understood as being a holistic approach to birth preparation. This broadened scope now includes things like birth education for both mother and father, the use of positive affirmations, breathing techniques and visualisation to help parents prepare for birth. Fearless Birthing does not use hypnotherapy but instead primarily uses the Head Trash Clearance Method, which is derived from a powerful therapeutic technique from the field of Energy Psychology. The Head Trash Clearance Method is an ideal technique to use within birth because it works with the energy system (which acts as the interface between mind and body). Negative emotions often become trapped within the body and so if we are to clear these emotions from the mind, we must clear them from the body too. This is especially important when it comes to birth because of the role of the body.
At what point should Fearless Birthing begin during a pregnancy?
For best results, Fearless Birthing should start as early on in a pregnancy as possible.
- In addition to fears, the clearance technique can also be used on emotional triggers, which makes it helpful in reducing the overall stress level of mama. Helping her to de-stress is good for both her and baby so the earliest this can start the better.
- In working to clear her fears mama will familiarise herself with the fear-clearance technique and will be much better able to integrate this into her day-to-day life, but also, crucially, in labour.
- Some women choose to use Fearless Birthing BEFORE they’re pregnant to help them to clear their fears of pregnancy and birth. It is an ideal approach for women suffering from tokophobia (extreme fear of pregnancy and birth).
What does Fearless Birthing look like in action?
Step 1: Identify the fears to be cleared
Identify any fears and stresses that are present. These fears and stresses include the mother’s, the father’s and the baby’s. This work can also be done on baby, while they are still in utero.
Step 2: Time to clear
Neutralise them one-by-one using the Head Trash Clearance Method. Neutralise means that we remove the excessive emotional charge and create neutrality. Once we achieve neutrality, we are no longer triggered emotionally in the way that was once automatic. If there are any traumas affecting mama, say from a miscarriage or a previous birth, then these are addressed too.
Step 3: Identify the desired positive birth experience
This is for both parents to build up a strong mental and emotional idea of their desired positive birth. This is solidified with visualisation work and using the Head Trash Clearance Method to remove any potential sources of self-sabotage.
Step 4: Emotional Birth Preparation
This stage is in two parts 1. Emotionally letting go of the desired birth experience 2. Emotionally making peace with the least preferred birth experience This helps both parents can respond flexibly and calmly to the path that birth takes on the day.
What are the ways that I can use Fearless Birthing to help someone?
The technique at the heart of Fearless Birthing can be used in a number of ways;
- Face-to-face individually
- Face-to-face in groups through workshops and classes
- Via Skype or phone
- Via pre-recorded audio mp3s
Join the tribe of Fearless Birthing Professionals
If you think you’d make a great addition to the tribe of Fearless Birthing Professionals and would like to find out more about the Fearless Birthing Training, then get in touch below.
You might have seen Alexia in one of these places…
