IN the words of one dad-to-be: “I would have been petrified for Clare if we had not got the other viewpoint.”

The “other viewpoint” was hypnobirthing, and Adam Edwardson’s terror was a result of ante-natal classes he and wife Clare attended as they prepared for the birth of their first child.

“I felt the ante-natal classes reinforced the message childbirth is all about pain,” says Adam, 30.

“When women have babies, people expect them to go to hospital. We expect there to be pain because everyone says so. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“At hypnobirthing classes, we learned mother nature designed women perfectly to have babies without it being a terrible, painful, stressful experience for mother or baby.”

The couple, of Rainsborowe Road, Colchester, are expecting their baby any day now and have been practicing breathing and relaxation techniques learned during a hypnobirthing course in Colchester.

Far from Paul McKenna popping in to put people in a trance and make them believe or do something they would not usually do, Alison Bird says hypnobirthing aims to strip away our preconceptions about childbirth.

The clinical hypnotherapist said during the course, participants learn how the body works during labour, what causes the pain and how to relax to prevent it.

Alison is keen to stress that it is far from the “hippy, alternative therapy” some people may think it is.

“It is a complementary therapy designed to work with your body and your mind, alongside drugs if they are necessary and cesarian sections,” says Alison, who runs her practice from George Williams Way, Colchester.

She helps about 40 couples a year learn about hypnobirthing, which forms just one part of her business. She also helps people to conquer fear, with weight control and to quit smoking.

“Pain is there to tell you something is wrong and in recent years what has been wrong with labour is the fear of it. It is not weird, new age stuff, it’s old age wisdom,” explains Alison.

Growing in popularity, hypnobirthing is based on the philosophy of a British obstetrician, Grantly Dick-Reed, founder of the National (then Natural) Childbirth Trust, who discovered women around the world were not receiving pain relief during labour because there was no pain, and he wanted to know why.

Practicing in the Twenties, his views were controversial, but he slowly learned foreign women were also not aware labour was supposed to be painful, as it was widely believed in England.

Instead, they allowed their body to do what it was naturally supposed to do and he believed that without the fear, there was no tension of the muscles, and therefore no pain, making childbirth a more enjoyable, stress-free experience.

His book, Childbirth Without Fear, and his methods, did not become popular until near his death in the Fifties and went on to be the inspiration behind hypnobirthing, a practice which began in America and filtered to the UK 20 years later.

Alison came across the idea while she was working in a merchant bank in London. She fell pregnant ten years ago and echoed Adam’s thoughts that ante-natal classes she attended “scared the life out of me”.

She told her husband she did not want any pain relief, “not because I was being new age or anything, but because I didn’t want to give my baby any drugs,” she says.

He suggested hypnosis. “I thought he was mad,” she says.

“He had used it to quit smoking, so I went to see a woman for three sessions and it seemed to work.

“I had gas and air because it was on offer and I wasn’t in any pain. It also reduced my stress at work because it is all about relaxation and learning to cope with stress.”

Soon afterwards she decided to train as a hypnotherapist in Southend, then came across hypnobirthing.

Since qualifying, she has given talks to midwives and said that while hypnobirthing is all about natural childbirth and working with the body, rather than against it, it does not preach against women who choose, or need, to take pain relief.

One of her more recent success stories was Colchester Heart FM presenter Natasha Vernon, who gave birth to Jessica in March this year.

The former breakfast show DJ admitted she is a “wimp” when it came to pain and had always struggled with needles.

But she claims the hypnobirthing classes helped her regain control of potentially painful situations, including childbirth.

Natasha, 30, says: “I went into labour in the morning, went and had Sunday lunch and had contractions, all the way through dinner.

“I went to Colchester Hospital at 7.30pm and didn’t even take any gas and air until 3am. Every time I had a surge, I would not panic and just think it was perfectly normal, and it would relax me.”

In the end Natasha, of Leavenheath, did need an epidural, but only as a result of complications when the umbilical cord became wrapped around Jessica’s neck twice, sending Natasha’s blood pressure through the roof.

Her husband, James, 32, a firefighter in Nayland, says: “The hospital respected our decision to do the hypnobirthing. We only had one midwife in the room with us and she let us get on with it.

“Dads are usually on the sidelines during labour, and worrying about their partner in pain, but I was really involved all the way through this.”