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rx
imagery
birth complication - fibroids
psychospiritual approaches

definition

Visualization for prevention of complications can be effective for a variety of presenting problems, as well as for recurrent complications in past obstetrical history (repeated inductions, prematurity, etc.). The following cases are presented here in shortened form to stimulate the reader towards possibilities of application in the clinical setting.

Visualization for Uterine Fibroids

Celia, a thirty-five year old woman with a daughter from her previous marriage, was pregnant with her second child when she came for visualization. She was five months pregnant and diagnosed with uterine fibroids.
She had been referred by a friend in Minneapolis (Celia's home town) who had been urging her to see us for some time. Celia had not done so in deference to what she called her skeptical part. The crisis that led to her decision to see us related to her obstetrician telling her she would have to stay in bed for the next ten weeks to reach thirty-six weeks of pregnancy and not deliver prematurely. She said she realized that the threat of a miscarriage gave her a sense of choice about becoming a mother. She now realized that she really wanted motherhood, and wanted to do all she could to lessen the chance of miscarriage or prematurity.
Celia's daughter, Pauline, was born ten years ago. Celia had been following a strict macrobiotic diet. Pauline was very small, but otherwise normal. Celia didn't have enough milk and had begun to supplementing with goat's milk by four weeks postpartum, since Pauline did not gain weight. Celia had believed she had the first natural birth at her hospital in St. Paul. She had a five hour labor, and felt she had had to chase away the nurses who were trying to force shots and potential injections on her.
Celia became pregnant with Pauline on the eve of the break-up of her first major relationship with a man who helped her manage a graphic design shop which she owned with her brother. They split up at four months of pregnancy. She moved out. She continued to see him every day at the shop. That pregnancy was miserable from an emotional standpoint. She was depressed, irritable, etc. From a physical standpoint, she was very healthy, without even a trace of nausea. She had been diagnosed as having a small fibroid by her doctor prior to that pregnancy and had been using natural methods to rid herself of it. She returned to the doctor to learn if it was gone, when he told her she was pregnant with Pauline.
Her current pregnancy had been emotionally "fine" but physically very stressful. Unlike her first pregnancy, Celia experienced much nausea for the first four months. Her ulcerative colitis had also been acting up. Two weeks prior to her initial session, after a long car trip, she began to feel something "different" and her doctor noticed another fibroid above her bladder, causing her discomfort. The old fibroid was six centimeters when she came to us for her first consultation for holistic treatment. Her new fibroid was bigger. Her obstetrician told her that he didn't want the fibroid to compete with the baby for the blood supply, because the baby would win. He feared the fibroid would die and become necrotic, stating premature labor. Celia was afraid to work on her fibroid going away, since she was afraid that would start premature labor. We told her that there were other natural ways for a fibroid to disappear than to become necrotic and die. We suggested that if visualization had the power to make it go away, it could certainly have the power to do so safely.

Celia's Visualization

Issues addressed during the visualization included that threat of premature labor and the possibility of caesarean for this birth. The larger fibroid was currently blocking the uterine opening with its mass between the cervix and the baby's head.
When Celia talked in the visualization, it became apparent that she had previously made a clear and emotionally charged decision never to have another child after the trauma she felt she went through adjusting to a family in her first marriage. She felt as though her first husband had "pushed" her to have the first baby, and then resented his lack of sharing in the parenting, which had been far more work than she had bargained for. Since the second marriage, she had become pregnant and wanted to have the child, even though she felt conflict concerning her past feelings and decision not to have another child.

..... even coming to TERMS with, the eighth or ninth vertebra, coming right DOWN the back... and you might even remember, Celia, with Pauline (her daughter) or maybe even yourself, going down a slide for the very first time in your life... a child (voice lowers and gradually rises) steps... up the ladder... rung by rung (very deliberate) and step by step.... up.... and a child might have sat down at the top, looked around, and been kind of frightened because how was she going to figure out how to get down the slide from so high up (slight laugh) it might have been kind of scary, and they might have let go too soon or too early or maybe somebody coaxed them down, but that came at an angle, maybe they had a spill, and maybe they picked themselves up, picked themselves up, and.... maybe they didn't even want to go again, on the slide for a long, long time, but... I don't know if you've ever seen this happen to a child, but sometimes they have to be given TIME.... given time TO ADJUST in order to ... to try it again, and they might even try it... get half way up there, way up there and then come back down, but SOMEtime, SOMEtime..... children WILL do it again, they will do it again, as they See other people doing it and they See them enjoying it, they WILL do it again... it's kind of the beauty of childhood and of the body in that sense, when they see that kind of freedom in somebody else, that king of enjoyment, they will FINALLY come to the top, but usually it's when they get there themselves... finally they step, one by one, up the ladder to the top the very top and there might be even... might be even kind of ... scary at the top, but if they can SIT DOWN and can MAINTAIN and SUSTAIN themselves down the slide... can sustain and can REALize, that they can... LET THEIR BODY GO to gravity and without pushing them, without anybody pushing them they can DO it. They can DO IT and it's safe, and then finally they can SUSTAIN and MAINTAIN until right DOWN they come at just the right time, right down to the bottom of the slide, finally... and it might have been so much fun, that then they might go around again and climb rung by rung, step by step up the ladder to the very top, until ... again they feel free, and more confident in that sense.... children LEARN that kind of confidence in the playground, actually.... children LEARN that kind of confidence. I don't know if you ever remember Pauline, if she had any experiences like that, but....just now with your next breath you might even imagine sliding right down, to the tailbone... (relaxation continues and Celia explores the baby on the inside of her womb, and the visualization continues in addressing the fibroids and the ambivalency to motherhood) .... why don't we go ahead and continue.... to look around... as babies actually CAN MOVE AROUND (refers to an earlier conversation of fibroids moving out of the way of the baby) .... until perhaps they can see.... can see them (fibroids) even like gentle mushrooms, gentle, small mushrooms... soft, flexible ... where do you see them, in your house, since actually your womb is like a house to the little balls (fibroids), too ..... and you can SEE THEM MOVE... Celia have you ever seen those little pearls of oil, that you can put in water for an oil bath, or a bubble bath? (she nods) you know how they can come together and move around and float... how they can kind of stick together and move? (nods) You might even SEE THAT happening.... with.... with the little balls .... of them moving... out of the way.... out of the way of the baby, there can be plenty of room, there can be plenty of room,... in a sense you know you're like a garden (gentle laugh). You like to make things on the inside of the womb (laughingly) even when you have babies or not .....and so there's no need to think that you can't make a baby (in answer to her fears she expresses while describing the womb earlier). You can. But it's like a garden. It doesn't mean that you can't grow other things to. And in gardens, if you have ever done a lot of gardening you'll notice, that you can PLANT THINGS so that certain things MAINTAIN and SUSTAIN and CONTROL... other things in the garden. You can plant corn, just the right height to NURTURE other plants BENEATH it. It works in harmony that way.... or you can, uh, grow tomatoes, in more sun or less sun depending on how much, you want the tomatoes ... hoe prolific you want the tomatoes to be. And so gardens, you know, there's that way of PLANTing gardens, and MAINTAINing them, but also in nature there comes a certain balance where trees, shrubs, in the wild .... will work things out, in order to SUSTAIN certain balances of things in the forest. Large trees won't let too .... too many little trees grow, but they'll let a certain amount of little trees grow. Or a small tree growing up may shoot up, and TAKE THE SPACE of other smaller shrubs. And yet the shrub may remain, but they only maintain at that level. They don't brow beyond that, because one of them, namely the tree, just shoots up faster. And so, there's a certain balance .... in nature. and it seems to me that for you that might ..... BE TRUE about the womb in your case, it's a very prolific (slight laugh) and, we can be happy about that, or maybe even proud about that in a sense, I don't know what that would mean to you personally, but (very conversational tone throughout unless otherwise indicated), you might not like that in SOME ways. And yet it is very prolific, it tends to make things, and it's the part of the body, it's the only part of the body, Celia that can .......really do that in reality... really make other person, and well, you can also make other things on the inside of the womb... and there CAN BE ROOM, as the baby's on the INside. (visualization continues with Celia talking about how she feels about the balls, fibroids, on the inside of her garden) ... Your womb can be a very special womb, a very softly cushioned womb (reframing fibroids as cooperative with the pregnancy) softly cushioned, just the right amount of cushion, just the right amount of cushion, on the inside.... and can you see the placenta? (description of placenta takes place) .... the placenta READIES the womb for mothering, in a way, READIES the womb, as it's the only time you make a baby, is when you're a mother, already on the inside, mothering a baby in the womb now.....It's like the internal mother on the inside.... If you were to fall backwards in time.... you'd come to a time when you'd had a baby in there before and decided not to have one in there again, just falling backwards in time.... you might come to the time you had in the past, when you promised yourself to not ever do this again (have a baby) and ..... just described that time to me, now (Celia does so, and the visualization continues after she has described feeling trapped in motherhood, and that all that brought her through was her love for her daughter) ... you might even now MOVE FORWARD in time Celia, when you decided to re decide..... to redecide that decision. When was just the first seedling of that redecision? (She describes it as when she was falling in love with her new husband, and wanting a child with him) .... And Vick is very, very different, isn't he, very different person? Because he didn't even push you to do this, did he? (Vick is her second husband.) So there must have become a time when your own little seedling began to grow.... when you decided for yourself to have a child .... and we can move forward in time now .... to a point when you not only were willing to, but you WANTED to .... have a baby (voice lowers) ..... And can you see that younger Celia, the one who made the those vows, to not ever have a child, can you see her face, now (Celia describes her) and if you could REACH OUT to her now, reach out to her, and soothe her, because you know, she really needed someone then, really needed someone to help her.... all she had was this vow to herself that she'd never do it again, but she really needed was something more, didn't she (Celia nods) she really needed somebody (Celia begins to cry) .... and just cradle her .... cradle her..... comfort her..... to MAKE FRIENDS with the past .... (the visualization continues, and the resources of Celia's love for her daughter is brought to the forefront as a resource in her redecision to have another child and to find peace with this decision in the present)

At the next session, Celia engaged in art therapy, drawing a good-bye card to her fibroids. Her doctor had informed her that he could no longer feel the fibroid he was worried about, and had taken her off of bedrest. Celia was exuberant about being able to go swimming again.
Celia gave birth to a full term healthy baby boy after a normal labor of approximately four hours.
Many decisions, or promises to ourselves, are made in life in order to get through a difficult time. As with Celia, these past devout resolutions can come up to haunt us and impede our happiness in the present. The power to re-decide at any point in time is always with us, but sometimes needs to be brought to light in the present. Accepting the part of ourselves in the past that was hurt or grieving can free us to re-direct the intent and energy of our lives. This is the spirit of how we can best use multi-modality visualization.
(Peterson and Mehl, p. 257-261)

see also:
imagery: Taueret journey
hypnotherapy: techniques of trance
imagery: birth: introductory visualization
imagery: birth: exploratory visualization
imagery: birth: birth visualization
imagery: birth: exploring phobias
imagery: birth: complication - breech
imagery: birth: complication - past complications


footnotes