‘Hypnosis Helps Conception’
This headline appeared in The Irish Times Health Plus on 14.08.12.
Sheila Weyman asked me about my work as a fertility coach using Mindfulness hypnotherapy to help couples boost fertility – both naturally and with IVF. It’S a two-pronged approach to reduce stress and to dispel roadblocks to pregnancy. These may subconsciously prevent a woman conceiving,” explains fertility coach Helena Tubridy, former nurse and midwife. She works with clients preparing for IVF and Napro. “It increases the chances of IVF working and psychologically it helps to deal with the whole process and when a cycle fails and after miscarriage.”
Swinging watches and stage entertainers putting people under a spell may be popular images of hypnosis, but they do “a great disservice” to what is a talking therapy, says Tubridy. A former midwife, she attributes her interest in hypnosis to the late Dr Jack Gibson, mentor and county surgeon in Naas, Co Kildare.
Likening hypnosis to being on “auto pilot” when driving a familiar route, Hypnotherapy is the actual treatment she explains. “It allows us to focus the attention.”
She sees clients for about 6 sessions.
A lot of people think you must be weak-minded to be hypnotised, in fact it is the opposite, she says. “Highly intelligent people do it very easily.”
Hypnosis is also a very useful tool for altering habits swiftly. Clients attend to shed a stone quickly or get sleep back on track. Do people need to go away and work on it? “They will practise a little self-hypnosis.” There are no mantras, but rather it is focused awareness – “because you are focusing your thought process, your body becomes very relaxed. It’s different from relaxing Homer Simpson style on the sofa – it is highly specific.”
For women dealing with infertility and having IVF, she says: “It’s a way to calm yourself, to allay anxieties and fears while developing a pregnancy mindset.”
Research-based treatment
A 2004 Israeli study of 185 women found that 28 per cent of women in the group who were hypnotised during their IVF treatment became pregnant, compared with 14 per cent of those who were not.
Tubridy sees mostly women but, in what she notes is an interesting shift, men attend too. Typically men would come because they feel a sense of failure at having to resort to assisted reproduction, she says. Or they may have suffered in silence after a partner’s miscarriage. She works with clients individually rather than as couples. “I find they are more comfortable on their own.”
Contact helenatubridy.com or tel 087 9962466 .
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