RN Alicia Stark Offers Hypno-Birthing Workshop in Ridgway

20 Jun RN Alicia Stark Offers Hypno-Birthing Workshop in Ridgway

[click “Play” to listen to Jesse’s interview with Alicia Stark]

By J James McTigue

Alicia Stark, RN-BSN, began her career as a labor and delivery nurse in a high-risk hospital in Virginia.  
She gained incredible medical experience, but realized she hadn’t learned anything about birth. This education came when she worked literally worlds away — on the Navajo Reservation in Tuba City, Arizona.

Inspired by her experiences on the Reservation, she added certified Hypno-Birthing practitioner to her list of credentials.  She is excited to share the methods of hypno-birthing and what she refers to as birthing “tools” to pregnant women in and around Telluride. She will be teaching a two-day, Hypno-Birthing class, from noon to 6 p.m. on June 25th and 26th at Shantihi Yoga Studio in Ridgway. 

On the Reservation, Stark worked in a hospital with midwives who had doctors to back them up if needed. She noticed that the doctors were rarely needed and that few women asked for epidurals. As Stark spent more time on the Reservation, she associated both of these occurrences with the nature of birth in Navajo culture. Birth was seen as a natural part of life and family members were included in births from a young age. When it was their time, it was familiar. Stark commented that there was no fear associated with birth.

As a nurse, Stark contemplated the power fear can have physiologically on a body. It can paralyze — not so good when trying to give birth. She found hypno-birthing and saw it as the answer to take the fear out of the birth process. She believes the techniques can enable a woman to have a natural birth, but can also help a woman through a C-section or in getting an epidural. Stark used the techniques to maintain her energy and deal with fatigue during her 12-hour nursing shifts when she was pregnant.

“Hypno-birthing sets the tone through the whole pregnancy to be more calm and less stressed,” she explains. “Women need something to access, they need some tool as a resource, and hypno-birthing is perfect for that.”

Stark expresses a genuine passion when talking about nursing, her experiences and the power of hypno-birthing. Her stories of nursing on the Reservation are captivating and compelling and she takes a concept that could conceivably be discredited by strict adherents to western medicine and makes it sensible.

In her workshop she will teach relaxation techniques, affirmations for healthy pregnancy and healthy birth, basic childbirth education, nutrition, exercise, things to watch, involvement of the birth partner and creating a birth plan to have the birth you want.

To learn more about the workshop this weekend and hear more of Jesse and Alicia’s conversation, hit play.