Ditch the Gown - What to Wear for Your Hypnobirth
What you wear in labor can change your mood, the way you think and even how energized or tired you feel during labor. Psychologists call it ‘enclothed cognition’. What we wear influences how we see ourselves, how we behave, our emotions and how others see us and behave towards us. In labor, dress for how you want to feel.
A hospital gown influences us to feel more like a 'patient' …someone who is sick - not a healthy well mom about to go through a powerful physiological experience. The usual behavior of someone wearing a gown is to get on the bed. Some people put on a nightdress for labor - that cues an association of (yes you guessed it) of getting into bed and if you want to stack the odds in your favor of the healthiest birth possible - the bed is the last place to be in active labor.
(In the US you’re likely to be handed a gown and in Europe you’re likely to be asked to change into your nightdress - YOU get to decide what you’ll wear - and at some point during labor you might find yourself taking off your clothes and that works too!).
An experiment with college students measured their confidence levels when wearing a particular piece of clothing - wearing a Superman T-Shirt made them feel more confident but they also felt physically stronger! Imagine how simply choosing a different outfit you could hack your brain into thinking you had more energy in labor (the brain tries to alert us to tiredness before the body is about to run out of reserves anyway).
In another test, women were ask to do a maths test in a swimsuit or wearing a sweater, with the latter group performing better....(Not surprising - so think about how vulnerable a hospital gown can make you feel).
Professional athletes have taken advantage of this strategy for years. It’s reported that Serena Williams has a favorite pair of socks that she plays in. Tiger Woods always wears a red shirt on the last day of a tournament.
In a survey of 400 women, they were asked for their top reasons for choosing a special outfit.
Here’s the top 3.
73% said they wanted to feel confident
52% chose an outfit for comfort
40% to express themselves.
For labor our intention is to combine confidence and comfort - athletic gear, yoga pants, colors that make you feel powerful (maybe avoid white for obvious reasons). A lot of our GentleBirth moms intentionally wear superhero or warrior tshirts or a piece of clothing that has special memories for them.
Warrior or patient which will you be?
Learn more about head hacking for birth in the GentleBirth App.
