Iona Miller's video: Womb Breathing: Childbirth Meditation - c 2014 Medigrace Inc

http://calmbirth.org Womb Breathing This deep breathing visualization method is based on the practice of Vase Breathing in Tibetan Buddhism. Womb Breathing is similar in many ways to Buddhist mindfulness meditation used extensively in medical application because of its proven effectiveness in pain management and immune system enhancement. Womb Breathing has additional effectiveness through energy breathing and visualization. Refined through twelve years of application in childbirth, Womb Breathing has the following characteristics: It's a sitting meditation based on breathing vital energy. The woman absorbs full oxygenation plus vital energy from the air. The breathing of vital energy from the air is an element of Buddhist, Tai Chi, Qi Kung, and Hindu meditation science. In traditional medical arts, the body is alive with energy centers and channels, used as a basis for acupuncture and other therapeutic systems. In Womb Breathing, visualized features of the human energy body include a vertical central energy channel along which are formed various radiant energy power centers or "chakras", and a luminous vase, the life vase, located at the bottom of the central channel in the navel center, in both men and women. The central psychic channel rises from the life vase to the crown. The vase is very near the uterus in the woman's physical body. Vital energy present in the air is breathed down into the vase to be absorbed up into the central channel for greater function. When a pregnant woman breathes life-enhancing vital energy, breathing it down into the life vase so near the womb child, for child development and evolution. The vital energy in the air, traditionally called prana or chi, is life-giving energy of the universal field. The energy is present everywhere and may be directly sensed and breathed. We are made to breathe it. People have been intentionally breathing it for centuries in various traditions. Applied to childbirth, breathing vital energy from the air into the life vase helps women shift from mind to awareness, bringing two remarkable assets to childbirth: a method to see and release any anxiety and fear may arise, and for increased ability to keep calm throughout labor pain. Womb Breathing strengthens the woman's immune system, and importantly strengthens her ability to distinguish between pain and suffering, to prevent herself from suffering. The practice brings a fourfold energy gain for increased function and increased choice of birthing options. For the many women who chose medical birth, Womb Breathing is perfect complementary medicine. It strengthens immune function to manage the side effects of medication, and it helps women heal faster from the wounds of birth-related surgery. Womb Breathing offers pregnant women a new and empowering sense of childbirth anatomy and its potential. Its guided meditation encourages women to realize life in giving birth, and to help the child access full potential. Both Practice of Opening and Womb Breathing may be used as methods for conscious conception.