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- OB Dr. Gowri Motha, founder of the Gentle Birth Method, supported Meghan Markle's birth via phone.
- The "childbirth pioneer" helps women prepare for birth physically, mentally, and emotionally.
- Recordings of her soothing voice are available for parents-to-be before, during, and after birth.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
When Meghan Markle delivered her baby girl Lilibet Diana last month in California, Dr. Gowri Motha supported her via phone from London.
The long-time obstetrician, who's worked with other high-profile clients including Elle McPherson and Gwyneth Paltrow, is the creator of "The Gentle Birth Method."
The program helps parents-to-be experience "joyous" and "buoyant" pregnancies and births, and deliver calm babies, Motha told Insider.
The human voice, she said, is a key part of her process – and Motha's is available for anyone to listen to before and during labor.
Motha's method focuses on being physically, mentally, and emotionally fit for birth
When Motha witnessed her first birth in medical school in India, she was struck by how robotic the process was – mom covered in towels and clinicians relegated to her pelvis.
"When I saw it I felt, 'Oh, that's not the way I want to see it," Motha said. "I want to see it a little bit more organic, I want to see the whole woman, not just her perineum."
Witnessing her first water birth was the opposite: "It was the most joyous moment of my life because the whole woman was enjoying it, experiencing the baby being born." Motha went on to pioneer water births in the UK's national health system in the 1980s.
Dr. Gowri Motha
Now, Motha and her team of practitioners meld Eastern and Western medical practices to help people prepare for delivery through classes (which can be attended virtually) and recommendations focused on physical, mental, and emotional fitness.
For instance, she suggests cutting out gluten and sugar to help with water retention, practicing visualizing a healthy birth to reduce fear, and thinking about and talking to the baby as if it's already here to help blunt the shock of being childless one day and a parent the next.
Modern moms, she said, often white-knuckle their way through the discomforts and pain of pregnancy and childbirth without realizing it doesn't have to be that way. "They forget they have to dedicate some time to preparation," she said.
Her recordings help put laboring people in a hypnotic 'zone'
Gowri has authored the books, "The Gentle Birth Method" and "The Gentle First Year," and recorded MP3s for pregnant people before, during, and delivery. Each costs about $14 to download and are less than an hour long.
Some clients, she said, have preferred the recordings to her live voice. "I keep going on and on in a very soft voice, and it actually puts me to sleep," she said.
In one recording, intended during the second and third stages of labor, for example, she says, "you already quite euphoric, with very high levels of circulating endorphins in your body, which make you feel powerful and strong." The idea, she said, is to put moms in a sort of hypnotic zone.
The voices of birthing people's partners can also have a powerfully soothing effect, Gowri said. "The partner's voice is the best calming element," she said, recommending mantras like, "you're doing so well," "I'm so proud of you," and "our baby's safe."
"Whispering ...all of these lovely, positive statements - that does it," she said. "The partner's voice becomes the hypnotic tool."