After learning and then using a program that teaches relaxation techniques and mental tools to manage labor pains, Xylina Weaver, a childbirth educator, makes a bold statement about the delivery of her second child.

"I would say my second birth was pain free," says Weaver, who had a natural delivery at home without an epidural or pain medicine.

Generally called hypnobirthing, the method encourages deep relaxation exercises, self-hypnosis, visualization, and breathing techniques, and teaches how to prepare mentally for the body's natural process. Weaver is now certified by the national HypnoBirthing Institute to teach the course with a series of classes, a book, relaxation CDs, and handouts.

While Weaver and other area instructors don't guarantee pain-free labor for mothers who take the course, they do espouse that, at the very least, women and their partners will gain several calming techniques to manage the throes of labor.

Shelley Northern, a certified nurse-midwife for Northwest Midwives that is part of Northwest OB-GYN, in the Sacred Heart Doctors Building, says the method is growing in popularity here. Northern assists women who have low-risk pregnancies with deliveries at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital.

"A lot of our patients are choosing hypnobirthing," Northern says. "I'd say over 60 percent are."

She says people are either taking the official course, or they go through a self-taught book called "Hypnobabies" that comes with a CD.

While she often recommends the option to patients, she says she doesn't always bring it up in cases where the women are convinced they'll have an epidural. She also suggests they take a basic childbirth-education class, such as one offered through a hospital, along with hypnobirthing.

Northern says the method's techniques along with practiced scripts of calming messages and imagery provide a physical benefit that supports the birth process.

"The women who go through the hypnobirthing training are the ones who come to the labor room the most prepared for the birth experience and a sense of calmness and courage and faith in themselves and their bodies well beyond any other birth preparation I've seen," Northern says.

"It's really focused on the mind and body connection and the importance of allowing your body to do the work it needs to do and giving yourself messages that your body can do this work," she adds. "The mind is reframed, so they're not looking at birth as fear and pain, but redefining it as a normal event."

Tonia Baker, a certified nurse-midwife with Deaconess Women's Clinic at the West Central Community Center, 1603 N. Belt, assists with births at Deaconess Medical Center. She also is willing to recommend hypnobirthing.

"A lot of our patients go through that course who are interested in a natural birth, and we've seen very good results," Baker says. "It helps them have kind of an easier birth. It doesn't take the pain away, but it helps them accept it and labor more effectively. They don't fight it."

Instructors and professional midwife nurses here also say that stories indicate the approach overall is healthier for both moms and babies.

"We teach moms self-hypnosis, and they're able to stay calmer," says Mary Long, a certified instructor who has taught the course in the Spokane area since 2005. "It releases endorphins," she adds. "When we're more comfortable, then our muscles are more relaxed; we're not fighting against our body."

Weaver explains that fear is offset by women having more confidence in themselves and the birth process. She adds, "The techniques that are taught are not only about a positive birth experience and having a healthy mom and baby, but that you have an empowering experience where you can begin your motherhood with confidence and feeling built up, rather than having to recover."

When the birth is more positive, it supports bonding with the baby, Weaver says, and the moms also tend to have less post-partum depression.

The HypnoBirthing Institute, which uses The Mongan Method, named after founder Marie Mongan, says mothers who use the techniques tend to have fewer interventions such as episiotomies, epidural anesthesia, and Cesareans.

A 2010 HypnoBirthing Institute report compared its users' birth reports to data of women studied in other national reports, including "Listening to Mothers II Report of the Second National U.S. Survey of Women's Childbearing Experiences." It found about 20 percent of HypnoBirthing mothers had an epidural, compared with 70 percent of the comparison group.

C-sections also were at a lower rate, at 17 percent for HypnoBirthing mothers, compared with 32 percent in the Listening to Mothers data, and 31.8 percent from the U.S. Division of Vital Statistics. The data doesn't differentiate between primary and repeat Cesareans.

"What I love about hypnobirthing is it's wonderful for women's health," Long says. "We don't promise it will always be pain free. Sometimes there are special circumstances, and there may have to be intervention. I've even had women who've taken my class who had to have Cesareans, but they've learned to be calmer. The moms are more alert, more comfortable. The babies are more alert."

When people face an acutely stressful situation and become fearful, they respond with fight-or-flight response, Long says. Stress hormones are released, and muscles tense.

"That's the last thing that a woman wants to do with birthing," Long adds. "Birth is a natural function of the female body."

Another certified Spokane-area instructor, Rizen Shay Kruger, says the method also helps women gain the perspective that the uterus is a muscle that needs to do the work of birthing.

"If you go into the primal fight-or-flight response and the adrenalin is running, like when you see the tiger, your blood goes away from your organs into your limbs so you can run," Kruger says. "Women giving birth, if they go into the fight-or-flight syndrome, the same thing happens. Then there's less blood where the muscle needs to do the work. If you teach this to them, they learn to relax."

Kruger says she teaches the mother and father to practice relaxing techniques for 30 minutes each night. "If the parents can do this, when she goes into labor, she can rely on these tools."

Long adds, "We have that media version of birth being dramatic and traumatic because that's what shows drama. Animals don't bring that fear of birth. We've been hypnotized by what we've seen in the media and even what our friends tell us, so we're almost de-hypnotizing, telling them they really have a natural instinct."

The $250 course totals about 12 hours, usually broken up over a five-week session. Long teaches between three to five women and their partners for a group class held in a room at the TierPoint building in Liberty Lake. She also offers a private class in a home setting for $350.

Weaver typically works with four couples at a time and plans soon to offer night and weekend classes at the South Hill Pediatric Dentistry, 2020 E. 29th. Kruger teaches at the New Moon Family Wellness Center, at 906 S. Cowley, on Sundays.

They often receive clients through referrals from past patients but also from Bloom Spokane, a nonprofit that works to increase the number of positive births in the area. Long says she gets referrals as well through some OB-GYN offices and area midwives.