BOSTON HYPNOBIRTHING
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Childbirth Classes

Hypnobirthing Classes
Virtual, live & collaborative
For many expectant parents, birth seems like an insurmountable feat.  Negative imagery in popular culture or gloom-ridden stories told by those within our inner social circles have distorted the reality of birth for the lot of us.

Imagine what it would feel like to put your fears aside and instead
be excited about birth; to know that birth doesn't have to be scary, agonizing, or mysterious; to feel prepared and to have a birth toolkit of sorts to delve into in your time of need.

Boston Hypnobirthing supports mothers, partners, and caregivers in Boston and beyond in creating positive birth experiences.  Our class provides evidence-based knowledge and techniques that we have found to be effective for gentler, calmer, less stressful births.
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What you'll get

  • A complete childbirth preparation program taught by a hypnobirthing-trained and certified lactation expert
  • Birth Toolkit -a colorful course pack (we're told it's a lifeline for some mamas), complementary book, and set of beautiful affirmation cards all mailed to your home
  • Access to weekly office hours which you can schedule at your convenience 
  • Ongoing phone, text, and email support throughout your pregnancy
  • Free for your birth partner
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In our program, you will learn about...

  • The science behind why birth doesn't have to be scary, overwhelming, or agonizing
  • Hypnobirthing & the mind-body connection
  • Birth partner's role
  • Natural labor and birth techniques including:
  1. Breathing 
  2. Visualization
  3. Meditation, hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis
  4. Water
  5. Positioning ​
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  • Questions to ask your healthcare provider
  • Creating a birth plan
  • Special circumstances: what to do if things veer off course
    (*hint* it doesn't involve freaking out)
  • ​Common medical interventions
  • How to minimize non-medically necessary interventions
  • Labor support team: who to have at your birth 
  • Postpartum: what to expect with feeding, sleeping, and infant care ​
  • Helpful breastfeeding tips ​
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Curriculum outline:

​Unit 1 – Fostering a Positive Mindset
- Introduction to principles of active birth, hypnobirthing, and family-centered maternity care
- How women have birthed throughout history
- Beliefs about birth in today's culture
- What the uterus does during labor
- The mind-body connection (psychophysical association)
- How fear can interfere with the labor and birth process
- Breathing and relaxation (diaphragmatic breathing)
- Creating positive mental imagery of birth; viewing spontaneous childbirth videos

Unit 2 – Creating a Comfortable Birthing Environment
- Bonding with your baby before birth
- Fetal development and changes in your body
- Finding a birth environment that feels safe and a supportive birth team that is in sync with your birth preferences and philosophies
- Provider styles and attitudes
- Cultural belief systems regarding pain and reconceptualizing labor sensations
- Assisting your body's natural process
- Breathing techniques 
- Self-hypnosis (hypnotherapy) and meditation techniques
​- Meditation
- Visualization techniques
​- Hydrotherapy
- Nutrition, exercise and body positioning
- How birth companions can support you and play an active role
​- Doulas

Unit 3 – Promoting Relaxation & Preparing for Birth
- Identifying and releasing subconscious fears or thoughts about birth to promote positive birth
- Ways the body prepares for birth
- Physiology of birth and role of hormones
- Breech-presentation and posterior babies
- Understanding your estimated due date
​- Common diagnostic and labor interventions
- Risk-benefit assessment and alternatives
- Initiating labor naturally
- Creating birth preferences (your birth plan)
- Feeling prepared if special circumstances arise


Unit 4 – Conscious Birthing & Postpartum
- The phases of labor and birth
​- Identifying false labor and knowing when labor has begun
- Birth partner's checklist and advocating for mother/baby
- The labor process 
- What happens if labor slows or rests and common misconceptions
- Working with your labor surges
- Hallmarks of advancing labor
- Birth visualizations
- Upright positions for birthing, options, and water birth
- Birthing with special circumstances: positive births do not have to be natural births

-The "Golden Hour"
-Skin-to-skin and bonding with baby
-Early breastfeeding
-Postpartum care of mother and baby

A compassionate approach to reducing fear

Childbirth is a major physical, psychological and social event in which mothers deserve to be treated with respect and kindness by their companions and healthcare providers.  Research shows that mothers who receive positive social support during labor and childbirth often have shorter labors and less need for medical interventions (World Health Organization. 2013. Counselling for Maternal and Newborn Health Care. WHO Press). 

 When a mother doesn't feel supported, safe, heard, or respected, her body can manifest physiological responses to stress, leading to tension, pain, potentially negative repercussions during the labor and birth process, post-trauamatic stress and delayed lactogenesis.  

​Our work is centered on self-empowerment: helping women and birth companions realize that they always have choices throughout their experience.  Those choices extend to who you might choose to accompany you during your birth, what healthcare team you want supporting you, how to create a birth environment that reflects your needs, and what to include in your birth plan.  Boston Births can help you have the confident birth experience that you desire, and will always be here for you well after you've completed our course.

Where our Boston-area families have birthed

-Brigham and Women's Hospital
-Beth Israel Deaconess Boston 
-Massachusetts General Hospital
-Tufts Medical Center 
-Mount Auburn Hospital
-The Cambridge Birth Center

-South Shore Hospital
-Newton-Wellselsy Hospital
-St. Elizabeth's Medical Center
-Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Plymouth
-Sturdy Memorial Hospital
-Emerson Hospital
​-Home birth!

Class schedules and enrollment

meet our founder

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Zina Aghdasi, chief childbirth educator & certified lactation counselor

Zina is a perinatal educator and practitioner specializing in non-pharmacological approaches to labor management and healthy and sustainable practices that support breastfeeding and lactation beyond infancy.  She is a trained hypnobirthing practitioner and holds certifications in lactation counseling.  In 2015, Zina founded Boston Hypnobirthing with the aim of providing high quality perinatal education and support to families and healthcare providers locally and internationally.  

Birth Experiences:  With her first pregnancy in 2011, Zina found that her award-winning obstetrician practiced a heavily interventionist style of medicine and had a startling cesarean rate. Worried that her healthy pregnancy would culminate in unnecessary interference or end in a cesarean with no medical justification, she switched to a freestanding birth center run by midwifes at 35 weeks pregnant, giving birth naturally to a healthy baby boy a few weeks after.  Two and a half years later in 2014, she gave birth to her daughter en route to the birth center on the side of a road, an unexpected but equally empowering birth experience.  In late August 2016, Zina gave birth to her third child at home while her other little ones were sleeping. ​
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