Andi Stracener is Arkansas’s first Certified Hypnobabies Childbirth Hypnosis Instructor.

This mouthful translates into the fact that she can now conduct classes that will help you have your baby naturally, with little or no pain, and almost more importantly, no fear.

"It’s not just guided imagery. We help our Moms add a ‘switch’ that cuts off almost all feeling to their nervous system. They get lots of practice with this electrical system ‘cut off’." Andi said in a recent interview. Hypnobabies format uses what it calls medical anesthesia techniques from hypnotist Gerald Kein’s Painless Childbirth program.

Stracener started her work with helping women birth children in 2001, when she got training with Birthworks and Arkansas Childbirth Institute. She learned the art of becoming a doula (An ancient Greek work for "a woman experienced in childbirth who serves another woman during her childbirth time")

By 2003, she had started her apprenticeship in midwifery. Throughout all of these experiences, she was hearing and learning more and more about hypnosis as it is used with childbirth. She had seen many of the positive benefits it could provide a pregnant mother as well as the newborn child. So, she started studying this process on her own, and even took a home study course before embarking on the formal courses that would afford her national level certification as a hypnotherapist in 2006.

Now, she has the Hypnobabies certification. "Hypnobabies is very popular in Europe - it is a form of medical anesthesia, it’s that effective." she said. Hypnobabies founder Kerry Tuschoff founded her form of hypnosis for childbirth in 2001 after working with a related type of this therapy. Several differences are found in the HB program, including regular homework for parents, consisting of listening to CDs, and practicing with their partner.

Much attention is also given to fear release, Andi said. These tapes are mailed to potential clients before they start her five-week course. "The less fear they have, the less likely that they will have anything negative happen during the childbirth experience," she added.

Beyond reduced levels of anxiety, the benefits are several beyond reduced levels of anxiety, and include a non-medicated birth experience, being able to remember the entire process with severe pain. Stracener said that the patient tends to recognize the labor as a pain level similar to menstrual cramps, or as "pressure" but as nothing else.

Several groups of doctors in the Central Arkansas work with Stracener and others who are involved with doula and midwifery work. "There are some here are open-minded. They want their patients to make choices and to be educated," she said. "unfortunately, there are others who want total control, and feel that pregnant women should only do as they are told."

Anyone who goes through a hypnosis experience is undergoing self-hypnosis. If you can cure yourself from cancer, and you can prevent surgery, surely you can have a healthy baby.

(If you live in the appropriate areas, look for a more in-depth version of this article in the River Valley Ozarks edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, to be published Thursday, July,19, or Sunday, July 22).