Hypno-birthing Baby

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from the San Jose Mercury News, December 9, 2003, with the headline “Hypno-birthing—The woman in the videotape is relaxing in a warm bath, eyes closed, almost trancelike. Soft music plays in the background as her partner pours a steady stream of warm water over her swollen belly. She shifts and moves in the water, letting out a few uncomfortable groans. Moments later, after just a few pushes, her baby boy is born. The perfect hypno-birth.

“It’s not the stuff of television maternity ward shows, where women are often screaming and begging for drugs. Hypno-birthing, catching on among mainstream moms-to-be, is a wholly different way of approaching the later stages of pregnancy and birthing. Using hypnosis, deep breathing, and communication with the fetus in the womb, those who have experience hypno-birthing say they give birth with less pain and often no drugs.

“’Most of the time, women don’t know what to expect during childbirth, and we’ve been conditioned to be afraid of the pain,’ said Yvonne Schwab, founder of the San Jose Hypno-birthing Center. Hypno-birthing teaches women to give birth in a peaceful way, allowing their body and their baby to do the work for them. The philosophy behind hypno-birthing is that when a woman is properly prepared for childbirth, physically, mentally, and spiritually, labor and delivery can be easier and more comfortable. Pregnant women learn not only how to hypnotize themselves, but their partners also learn how to coax them into a relaxed state while using verbal and taped messages and music.”

Tom: Well, Dave, I know I’m going to hear from Gary. He’s probably going to say, “Tom, you’ve done it again. Where did you come up with this one?” But you say that as well.

Dave: The San Jose Mercury News!

Tom: There it is! I mean, a major newspaper in San Jose, California. But why did I bring this into…

Dave: That’s what I’d like to know, Tom.

Tom: Okay.

Dave: You usually don’t tell me.

Tom: (Laughing) I don’t. And for good reason, Dave. Hypnosis—there’s a problem here. Although this may seem like it’s just dealing with physiology, with the birth of a child, this is a medical situation, and so on, it really has to do with the occult. It has to do with introducing a technique that is not just problematic because it’s a little strange but problematic because of what it might open those who participate in it to—demonic influence.

Dave: Mm-hmmm.

Tom: Now, Dave, we have five children. All of our children were natural childbirth. It must have been the thing that was going on…. But we were interested in, you know, getting away from drugs, getting away from all of these things that seem to us to be invasive, that seemed to us to be unnatural, as it were, involving chemicals, and so on.

Dave: And you recommend it because you didn’t feel a twinge of pain, right?

Tom: (Both laughing) Well, I didn’t, okay? But my wife, Peggy, certainly did. Even though we were trying this method in—you know, I was a young Christian—and actually, for our first child, I didn’t understand any of this. And some of the techniques that were involved—on the one hand, they didn’t involve drugs, but they did involve something worse than drugs, and that is altered states of consciousness, meditation, all of these things that, yeah—the Lord, spared us from having any ill effects, but still, it’s a problem

Dave: Well, Tom, we’ve done a lot of writing about it in our newsletter, the Bobgans have—they have a book on hypnosis…

Tom: I have it right here in my hand, Dave: Hypnosis: Medical, Scientific, or Occultic? If you’ve been involved with hypnosis, or are thinking about it, that it would solve any of your problems, Gary will tell you how to get this book a little later.

Dave: Yes, I would—Tom, I would highly recommend that book. Hypnosis—it sounds okay, but, hypnosis—you can do so many things. Amazing things. You can regress a person into the past, and they come out with memories of a little village they lived in in India, let’s say. They can tell you where the women went down that path to gather water at that stream; they can give you the names of some of the people at a certain date, and you can check it out—what do you know! It’s true!

So, even the Russians were involved in this in the Iron Curtain days. They called it “Reincarnation therapy,” because you can experience prior lives. You can come out with factual memories. Well, how in the world does this happen? You can even simulate UFO abductions, and they have done experiments with that in some of our major universities.

Tom: So doesn’t that prove it to be true, then, Dave?

Dave: Well, there is no such thing as reincarnation. So now we’ve got a delusion. And we don’t have time to go into that, but we can prove that reincarnation does not work. It certainly is not biblical. The Bible says, Hebrews:9:27And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
See All...: “It’s appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment.”

But they have discovered that under hypnosis strange things can happen. You can get in touch with spirit entities. It is not a factual experience, but it is a delusion that is brought about by Satan, because you put yourself into an altered state of consciousness.

You remember Sir John Eccles—describes the brain as…

Tom: Nobel prizewinner.

Dave: Right. Nobel prizewinner, and he described the brain as “a machine that a ghost can operate.” In a normal state of consciousness, your spirit operates your brain. In an altered state, reached under drugs or hypnosis…

Tom: Meditation…

Dave: Well, now, we have to define that, Tom. Eastern meditation. Meditation in the West has always been contemplation—thinking deeply. In Eastern meditation, you tune it out. You don’t think about anything. You can focus on a flickering flame of a candle, or a mantra, and that separates your spirit from your—or it breaks the normal connection between your brain and your spirit, allowing another spirit to interpose itself, tick off the neurons in your brain, and create a universe of illusion. This is the problem with hypnosis. And sadly, many of the child abuse cases—you have a whole group of people now, fathers defending themselves. They never sexually abused their daughter, or their daughters, but they have gone back and been regressed by psychologists—many of them Christian psychologists—and they have created these memories of the past that did not exist.

And some men have even gone to jail, and we’ve had lawsuits about this. So, it is not the sort of thing you want to get involved in. It can open you to the occult.

Tom: Mm-hmm. And, Dave, just one last thing about this. Having to do with birth—the Bible says there’s going to be pain in childbirth. Now, we’re not against any ways of easing a woman’s—you know, of the birth of her children, on the one hand. On the other hand, you can push that into an extreme, and, again, open yourself up to occultic influences.