Soon after Andy Mauery learned she was pregnant with her first child, she started worrying about what labor would feel like, particularly about how much it would hurt.

Her mind filled with television and movie images of women in the throes of childbirth, screaming at each contraction while doctors and nurses shouted at them to push. Her thoughts went to stories of suffering told by other mothers who experienced agonizing deliveries.

“I knew it didn’t have to be like that,” Mauery said. “Realizing you actually have the power to make that decision is huge.”

Several months later, the Veazie woman delivered baby Dominik without drugs, without fear and anxiety, and, perhaps most remarkably, without pain.

“There was no screaming or yelling,” she said. “It was beautiful.”

What made the difference for Mauery – and for a growing number of women around the globe – was hypnobirthing, a natural childbirth method, which uses self-hypnosis and relaxation to alleviate or avoid stress during labor. Those who successfully use the techniques report shorter deliveries with little or no pain and often no medications.

The principle behind hypnobirthing, created by New Hampshire hypnotherapist Marie Mongan, is that a woman’s body naturally knows how to birth a child and the process itself need not be painful.

When a mother is afraid during labor, her body tenses up. That tension leads to pain, and HypnoBirthing aims to eliminate the pain by eliminating the fear.

Mongan delivered two of her four children in the 1950s and 1960s through natural childbirth before the practice was routinely accepted. But it wasn’t until 1989, when her daughter Maura became pregnant, that she turned her experience and knowledge into a formal approach in order to help Maura prepare.

That year, she wrote her first book, “HypnoBirthing: A Celebration of Life.” Her second book was published in 2005. Today, she is founder and director of the HypnoBirthing Institute in Epsom, N.H.

“I just knew that if a women is comfortable and if she is prepared correctly, then she is going to know how to do this,” Mongan said. “If she is totally relaxed, then the body does what it knows how to do. There is no pathological reason it should be painful.”

The hypnosis trend is gaining popularity at a time when cesarean sections are at an all-time high. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that 29 percent of all births in 2004 were cesarean. Also, a 2006 Swedish study indicates a connection between the surgical procedure and childbirth fears. Researchers reported that women, who received counseling for their worries about labor, were more likely to have C-sections.

Evelyn Conrad, a childbirth educator since 1988, started teaching hypnobirthing classes 31/2 years ago in Brewer. Couples meet weekly in the living room of her home on Washington Street to learn self-hypnosis and to mentally prepare themselves for labor. Students learn how to focus on themselves and the baby, practice deep relaxation and breathing techniques, and discover how they can move beyond the notion that labor will be painful by replacing their anxieties with positive images.

“What one thinks, one gets,” Conrad said. “The mind controls what the body does. The premise of hypnobirthing is that your body knows how to have a baby. You have to trust your body. It’s definitely not the most popular way to deliver but I think it is the best way.”

Hypnobirthing has its roots in the work of Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, an English obstetrician who discovered a connection between fear, tension and pain in the 1920s.

Dick-Read, who was also one of the first physicians to involve fathers in the labor process, found that if women could let go of their fears, they could eliminate tension and therefore avoid the pain so often associated with birth.

In his book, “Childbirth Without Fear,” he described how the body’s own fight-or-flight response filters blood away from the uterus, preventing it from functioning as it should.

“It’s when our bodies relax that they aren’t fighting themselves,” Mongan explained. “Women are really just terrified and so we teach them the anatomy of the uterus and how it works.”

Hypnobirthing is a philosophy as much as it is a practice. In classes, students talk about “surges” or “waves” instead of “contractions.” Babies are “birthed” rather than “delivered.” The language changes are part of seeing childbirth as a natural experience rather than a medical procedure.

“We really teach them to not only look at their births differently but also look at their lives differently,” Mongan said. “We’re not saying it will be pain free. We are saying [it will be] easier, safer and more comfortable. But many women say they were totally comfortable.”

Mauery, 36, first heard about hypnobirthing from another woman at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Along with several other couples, she and her husband, Greg Ondo, attended classes with Conrad for five weeks.

During that time, they talked about fear, practiced relaxed concentration and replaced anxieties with images of a calm and comfortable delivery.

Mauery even did her homework, which involved listening to daily affirmations on a compact disc.

“It was really a nice way to spend time, at least a half hour a day, thinking positive thoughts about the baby,” she said.

Their son, Dominik Paul, was born at 1:55 a.m. on March 6. Mauery spent most of her labor at home and delivered within 90 minutes of arriving at the hospital – without receiving any drugs.

“I just didn’t need them,” she said. “It all just went really easily.”

She described her contractions as pressure, not pain. She felt aware and in control during the birth. Instead of worrying about what could go wrong, Mauery said she felt relaxed and confident.

“Women who are calm make better decisions than those who are fearful,” said Nancy Graves, a doula who recently started teaching hypnobirthing on Mount Desert Island.

The practice goes against the grain of what many women learned about what it means to have a baby.

“We hear the birth stories, and we hear about torturous 72-hour labors that end up in C-sections,” she said. “Some women did not have the birth they wanted and they birthed from a place of fear. Hypnobirthing is positive. It is about getting your head out of the way so your body can do it.”

Graves says some people shy away from the method because of misconceptions about how hypnosis works. She compares it to reading an engaging book, gazing at a crackling fire or pulling your car into your driveway without remembering how you arrived there.

“We do self-hypnosis every day,” she said. “Meditation is a form of self-hypnosis. You are always in control.”

Today, hypnobirthing as a childbirth technique is gaining ground across the United States. It is particularly popular in California, New York and New England. It is also widely accepted in the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands and is about to be introduced in Ireland.

Worldwide, there are 2,400 practitioners, including about 20 in Maine.

“It’s catching on beautifully,” said Mongan, who nearly every day reads written reports from women who used her method. “When you hear people say, ‘This has changed my life,’ it is really just wonderful.”

About HypnoBirthing

For more information about HypnoBirthing, contact the HypnoBirthing Institute in New Hampshire by calling 603-798-3286 or visiting the center’s Web site at www.hypnobirthing.com.

Evelyn Conrad can be reached at her home business, Your Birth Connection, by calling 945-9804 or logging onto her Web site at www.yourbirthconnection.com. The site includes a schedule of HypnoBirthing classes, as well as other services and products for pregnant women.

Nancy Graves can be reached at her business, Island Baby in Bar Harbor, by calling 288-1122 or by e-mailing her at nancydoula@hotmail.com.