Hypnobirthing Hub Breathing Technique: Surge Breathing

Reducing sensations during childbirth can make your birth easier, quicker, and calmer, but is this actually possible? It is! You can reduce sensations during your labours with the right breathing techniques.

With the knowledge and tools that will help you tap into your natural capabilities and mental exercises, you can go through your surges calmly and easily. Luckily, the Hypnobirthing Hub breathing techniques can help you through your surges or contractions, giving you more comfort, calm, and power during your labour.

How long can you breathe underwater? Thirty seconds? A full minute? For many of us, holding our breath underwater is a difficult chore. Many athletes and good swimmers or divers, though, can hold their breath for seven minutes or longer underwater.

How do they even do that? That’s because they increase their lung capacity and breathe deeply into their abdomen. Don’t you wish you could do that?

Fortunately, with enough practice and tutelage, you can. Why? It’s because you’d definitely need to breathe deeply to relax your muscles and leave your uterus free of tension. This will help you handle and manage pain and stress during your birth.

Through the Hypnobirthing Hub, you will learn the right breathing techniques to handle your surges and to alleviate your pain during birth. This kind of breathing will also increase cervix dilation, which will reduce your birthing time.

Abdominal Breathing

When you experience your surges or contractions, you don’t have to memorize complicated techniques. You only have to remember breathing patterns that are already natural to your body.

Surge breathing is abdominal breathing. Throughout each surge, you need to breathe evenly and deeply, breathing down into your abdomen, feeling it rise and expand.

In relaxation breathing, you learn to calm yourself, and it doesn’t matter where you breathe into. In surge breathing, it’s very important to breathe into your stomach or abdomen. There are some people who normally breathe into their abdomens. There are others who breathe into their chests. So, it’s important to observe your breathing patterns.

Do this quick exercise: Place one hand on your chest, and another on your stomach. Relax as much as you can, and put force or effort into your breathing. Just observe where your breathing goes.

If you regularly deep into your chest, your rib cage contracts and it takes you more energy and effort to move those ribs upward. So, during a surge, when you breathe into your belly, your breath gets slower and deeper. You use less energy and get more oxygen. The more oxygen you breathe into your belly through the surge, the better for you, your muscles, and your baby.

Reduction of Stress

When you do surge breathing, you expand your abdomen and lungs, which gives the vertical muscles of your uterus more room to reach down and pull up the circular muscles. This extra room for your uterus muscles reduces the intensity of the surge and makes it easier to manage.

The more you breathe into your abdomen, the easier the pressure sensations of the surge will be for you. Don’t be intimidated by abdominal breathing if you’re used to breathing into your chest. Have you seen sleeping babies lately? They breathe with their bellies. Abdominal breathing will come to you naturally. You just need some practice.

Here’s How (Surge Breathing Technique):

1. Place your fingers just touching on your belly button (just the middle fingers will touch).
2. Take a long, slow and deep breath in through your nose into your abdomen, breathing up as far you can.
3. As you breathe in your fingers will come apart (the deeper the breath, the farther away your fingers will become).
4. Then slowly breathe out through your mouth as your fingers return to the just touching again.
5. Slowly breathe in for as long as you can to reach a comfortable number, perhaps 10? (Do not hold your breath!! You and your baby need oxygen.)
6. Slowly breathe out to the same count.
7. Slowly breathe in 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 (or what feels right for you).
8. Slowly breathe out 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 (or what feels right for you).
9. Continue to breathe in this way for five in and out breaths.

Learn free hypnobirthing techniques video demonstrations or join our classes at Manly to practice surge breathing. Preparation can help go a long way to make your birth easier. You can check out our hypnobirthing free resources and best hypnobirthing audio guide to start your journey to a calmer and wonderful birth.