Motz Luisa, Brückner Rosa Marie, Schmidt Barbara
Institute for Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Jena, Germany.
Department of Geriatrics, Halle University Hospital, Halle, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2025 Jan 20;16:1508790. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1508790. eCollection 2025.
Stress, anxiety, and birth-related expectations affect the way women experience birth. In this study, we evaluate the German online hypnosis program "The Peaceful Birth" ("Die Friedliche Geburt") to find out if it reduces stress, anxiety, and pain during pregnancy. We randomized pregnant women into a hypnosis and a control group and surveyed them via online questionnaires during their pregnancy and after their birth using standardized questionnaires.
We included 221 pregnant women and assigned 110 women to a hypnosis and 111 women to a control group. At four measurement points before and after birth, we surveyed all study participants. We used the Perceived Stress Scale to measure stress experiences and the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire to assess childbirth expectations and experiences.
We show that stress was significantly reduced in the hypnosis group before and after birth compared to the control group ( = 0.019) and childbirth expectations were significantly more positive compared to the control group after starting the hypnosis online course ( = 0.002). Subjective health ratings in the hypnosis group improved significantly compared to the control group before childbirth ( = 0.002). Furthermore, women in the hypnosis group described childbirth experience as significantly more positive concerning fear ( = 0.007), loneliness ( = 0.025), and self-efficacy ( = 0.047) compared to the control group. We show that the improvement of childbirth experience is causally related to more positive childbirth expectations. However, we found no significant group differences in the experience of pain ( = 0.08).
Pregnant women preparing for birth with the hypnosis online course "The Peaceful Birth" showed significantly improved birth preparation showing lower stress, more positive birth expectation and experience compared to a control group. The hypnosis online course is therefore an efficient low-threshold method to enhance healthcare for expectant mothers.
压力、焦虑和与分娩相关的期望会影响女性的分娩体验。在本研究中，我们评估德国在线催眠项目“平静分娩”，以确定其是否能减轻孕期的压力、焦虑和疼痛。我们将孕妇随机分为催眠组和对照组，并在她们孕期及产后通过在线问卷使用标准化问卷进行调查。
我们纳入了221名孕妇，将110名女性分配到催眠组，111名女性分配到对照组。在分娩前后的四个测量点，我们对所有研究参与者进行了调查。我们使用感知压力量表来测量压力体验，使用维伊玛分娩期望/体验问卷来评估分娩期望和体验。
我们发现，与对照组相比，催眠组在分娩前后压力显著降低（P = 0.019），并且在开始在线催眠课程后，与对照组相比，分娩期望显著更积极（P = 0.002）。与对照组相比，催眠组在分娩前主观健康评分显著改善（P = 0.002）。此外，与对照组相比，催眠组的女性在恐惧（P = 0.007）、孤独感（P = 0.025）和自我效能感（P = 0.047）方面对分娩体验的描述显著更积极。我们表明，分娩体验的改善与更积极的分娩期望存在因果关系。然而，我们发现两组在疼痛体验方面没有显著差异（P = 0.08）。
与对照组相比，通过在线催眠课程“平静分娩”为分娩做准备的孕妇在分娩准备方面有显著改善，表现为压力更低、分娩期望和体验更积极。因此，在线催眠课程是一种高效的低门槛方法，可加强对准妈妈的医疗保健。
