For the first time in the country, Iranian doctors have used hypnosis as the sole anesthetic to deliver a baby via cesarean section.
On Saturday at noon, 24-year-old Aida Hassanlou gave birth to her 3.950 kilogram baby girl, Saqi, by C-section while she was awake but under the effects of hypnosis. rnDr. Roya Khodaei Ob/Gyn, who performed the C-section at Eivaz-Zadeh Hospital, Tehran, told reporters that her patient did not take any anesthetic drugs and only hypnoanalgesia techniques were employed during the operation.
However, anesthetists were present in case of an emergency and her vital signs were carefully monitored the whole time.
According to Dr. Khodaei, hypnosis blocks the perception of pain, just like a pain-killing drug, but without the sedation or side-effects.

Similar methods can be used in natural childbirth as well, she noted.
Following the easy and successful 45-minute caesarian section, Dr. Hossein Almasian, the clinical hypnotherapist who used hypnosis on Hassanlou, said Even at the point when the patient was feeling slight pain, everything was under control during the operation.
Pain management is one of the most effective of all hypnosis applications, he added.
Volunteering to be the first women to undergo a C-section without conventional methods of chemical anesthesia, Hassanlou had attended pain management sessions with Dr. Almasian for four months, before her due date.

I trust my hypnotherapist, the pioneering mother-to-be had said before the operation. Less