Is hypnobirthing worth doing?

Yes, the truth is that the only difference between a woman who does a hypnobirthing course and says she found it really helpful and enabled her to have a really positive, intervention free birth experience, and a woman who does a hypnobirthing course and feels like a shitty failure because she did all the things the video said not to do and ended up with a an emergency C-section, is luck.

Luck.

Entirely this.

I think it’s a bit of a crock, personally. I’m all for being prepared and positive, but my experience is that it is unrealistic and inflexible as an approach.

It really helped me with my second. I had a home birth, she was 10lb 7oz and I didn't need any interventions. Massively helped me stay calm and I still use the techniques today when I need to calm myself. You need to practice daily though and ideally you would have started earlier but still worth trying

It is important to be realistic.

Can hypnobirthing help me cope with pain and stress during birth? Yes.
Can hypnobirthing ensure I won't need other pain relief or a caesarian? No.

Yes, the truth is that the only difference between a woman who does a hypnobirthing course and says she found it really helpful and enabled her to have a really positive, intervention free birth experience, and a woman who does a hypnobirthing course and feels like a shitty failure because she did all the things the video said not to do and ended up with a an emergency C-section, is luck.

I think I would have really benefited from a birth preparation course which covered all eventualities, including hypnobirthing techniques to get you through early labour and use for as long as things are going well and you don't need any intervention or pain relief, but also more medicalised aspects of childbirth, discussed in a neutral and dispassionate way.

I think the advice I really needed was:

• If you go into labour spontaneously or are induced, you will start to have contractions.

• Contractions feel like period pain that comes in waves, getting stronger, reaching a peak, then getting weaker again and eventually disappearing.

• Here is a breathing technique to help you stay calm during the contractions. In through your nose for four seconds, out through your mouth for eight seconds. Repeat until the contraction passes.

• The contractions will get closer together and more painful as your labour progresses. Early labour can last a very long time. Don't be surprised if you have three contractions in ten minutes for hours and then are told you are only 2cm dilated. This is completely normal.

• You may be able to manage with just the breathing technique and minimal pain relief such as gas and air. If that's the case for you, great!

• If the contractions get very painful, it's OK to ask for stronger pain relief. Epidurals are safe and effective and the evidence that they lead to further interventions is sketchy at best.

• You might need forceps, ventouse or a C-section. Here is an explanation of what each of those things is and when and why they might be necessary.

• All ways of giving birth are valid.

Helped me hugely.
I didn’t for first birth and was terrified for second. Listened to hypnobirthing cd regularly, & was so chilled out I didn’t want to go into the birth centre at all. Was dragged in by DH about 30 mins before I gave birth, I was content ironing duvet covers and breathing at home 😆

But hypnobirthing is often inextricably wrapped up with a very woo-ey approach that stigmatises medical care/intervention, encourages people to push back against doctors, and leads people into thinking that anyone can have a 'natural' birth if they try hard enough and if you don't you're a failure. That's the primary issue with it.

Nail on head. The guilt and bullying of women about avoiding "interventions" makes me absolutely rage.

In no other sphere of medicine are you made to feel like a failure because you take advantage of medical science and, surprise surprise, it's the only area which only impacts women.

In theory, as you say, hypnobirthing should be fine, it's another way of relaxing, helping women to feel more in control etc. But invariably it's wrapped up with this nonsense that says if you just breathe enough you can avoid the dreaded "cascade of interventions" and "medicalisation of birth" and all this other guff.

It's mind blowing that women in a country which has free at the point of use expert level maternity care would actively choose to eschew that. It's insanity honestly.

The irony is that the reason some women feel emboldened to take this risk with their and their children's lives is precisely because our healthcare makes birth so safe. We have a reasonable expectation that we will make it through childbirth. Although stillbirths are sadly not uncommon, women dying in childbirth while accessing maternal healthcare is fairly uncommon today compared to historical data. So not many people have experience of their friends, sisters, mothers, daughters, dying due to unassisted childbirth. Therefore it seems safe.

In the Middle Ages in Florence one in five deaths of married women was due to childbirth. People who have lived through seeing the horrors and risks of childbirth don't have the luxury of thinking deep breathing will breathe the baby out.

It's like breastfeeding. It might be natural, but so is failing to produce adequate milk and babies dying of failure to thrive/starvation. Something can be natural and deadly. Cancer for example. Insufficient milk supply. Childbirth.

But hypnobirthing is often inextricably wrapped up with a very woo-ey approach that stigmatises medical care/intervention, encourages people to push back against doctors, and leads people into thinking that anyone can have a 'natural' birth if they try hard enough and if you don't you're a failure. That's the primary issue with it.

Yes.

And funnily enough, in developing countries, women don't feel this way about childbirth. They will often walk miles and miles while heavily pregnant so that they can be near a hospital when it happens.

Childbirth is a very dangerous process and the fact that it's "natural" doesn't change that. A hungry lion is "natural" too.

That's the problem.

If hynobirthing was solely: here, learn these mantras, practice calm diaphragmatic breathing, hopefully on the day you'll feel a little calmer

then it'd be fine. Just another tool.

But hypnobirthing is often inextricably wrapped up with a very woo-ey approach that stigmatises medical care/intervention, encourages people to push back against doctors, and leads people into thinking that anyone can have a 'natural' birth if they try hard enough and if you don't you're a failure. That's the primary issue with it.

And I am a bit evangelical about this, but my advice is that if you end up on the hormone drip, just get an epidural. (In which case you won't need the breathing exercises.)

Yes, this is where I think hypnobirthing can be actively harmful.

For every woman who says it massively helped her and she had the most amazing birthing experience, there's another who feels like a failure because she did all the hypnobirthing stuff and then things ended up going the opposite way to how she'd planned. And a lot of the time it is because that bloody video says "avoid interventions, interventions bad!" and then the doctor says, "I want to induce you because I'm worried about the risk of X" and suddenly she feels she's lost control of the whole situation.

For what it's worth, with my son I had a balloon catheter overnight, my waters artificially broken in the morning, continuous foetal monitoring, the syntocinon drip and an epidural before the doctor eventually made the call for an emergency C-section due to my baby's heart rate dropping, 30 hours after it all began. Afterwards I felt sad and disappointed, despite finally having my much longed for healthy baby in my arms. Although I forced myself to move on after a few weeks, I realised I still wasn't over it when in was time to think about giving birth to my second baby. With my daughter I had a sweep, then spontaneous contractions, spent most of early labour in a lavender oil infused bath breathing through my contractions and listening to music, then had an epidural and a quick nap, before being told I'd gone from 3 to 9cm in the last hour and then pushing my baby out in about five minutes. She was in my arms 18 hours after the first contraction.

Two very different birth experiences. Two fairly straightforward physical recoveries. (C-section incision with the first, a few perineal stitches and a nasty bout of postpartum piles with the second, no lasting damage with either.) Absolutely no difference in terms of breastfeeding or how I have bonded with my babies.

Apart of the breathing exercises, I found no benefit whatsoever.

I left it too late to do hypno birthing or so I was told. In my opinion it is mainly about having a positive approach, mind over matter. I read the books a few weeks before and did have a very positive birth experience in spite of divience from plan, and a rush to the delivery suite. I also had an induction as water broke early.

I had an induction also. I actually was gifted a hypnobirthing book and read it when I went into hospital for my induction - so basically only spent 2-3 days looking at it. I downloaded a load of meditations and put my headphones in during the induction, sweep, and then the drip and I feel it really helped me. However I had no expectations of it, as hadn't invested too much.

I ended up with a back to back birth on the induction drip, so a pretty tough one. It was painful, but I think the meditations helped me to cope.

You'll probably have some time on the induction ward, so might be worth looking into and picking bits you might identify with

It's too variable. There are really positive parts of hypnobirthing, such as learning to go into a relaxed state and feeling positive about your body and learning what physiological processes there are in birth and how to support these, but it might be too late to fit in all the practice to a point you can instantly go to a relaxing place despite other stimulus, and some courses have a really unhelpful undertone of belief that only "natural", unmedicated childbirth is "best" and that it's totally in your control to get that by doing hypnobirthing properly, which I think is harmful and unhelpful as it also has the unfortunate implication of failure if something outside of your control happens. Which is really unhelpful because honestly the calming techniques would be really useful in all kinds of situations including where intervention is necessary!

I think it's helpful to learn about the physical process of birth and how things like your environment can help you stay calm and produce the right hormones (or the opposite, how the environment can hinder). Learn about what interventions might be offered or used and what situations they help in and what to expect. How to discuss decisions (BRAIN benefits risks alternatives instinct nothing) when you have time to do that. And lots of techniques to help come back to calm during any stressful moments.

I really liked the book birth skills by JuJu Sundin, I used a lot in there, and I'd recommend googling biomechanics of birth to see if you can get any videos.

There was a hypnobirthing CD someone had left at hospital when I was there and it did help to listen to it even though I hadn't done the practice meditations. It couldn't hurt to do the practice meditations if you want to, and bring the same audio with you to hospital.

I'd recommend the Gentle Birth app to get you in the right headspace. I listened to some of the content on it every night and it helped me feel more positive about the birth when I was worried/nervous about labour. I didn't use it at all during labour but I do think it meant I was less stressed going into it.

I had basically a perfect birth and then horrendous PND for about 10 months. There are just no guarantees sadly.

Absolutely this. I enjoyed the hypnobirthing classes and found they did help during the pregnancy itself but I ended up with a back to back baby, and needed interventions leading to an emergency c section, and then really felt as though I'd failed, my body had failed, etc. It definitely took the shine off my first few months as a new mum.

In preparation I did a mix of hypnobirthing (no hypnosis techniques in the course I did - they should call it meditation birthing) and read a lot about the way labour works, what your body is doing at each stage and so on. I also read masses and masses of studies about outcomes. It definitely helped me stay calm and also allowed me to be quite assertive about my care. I wasn't prepared to be induced for example, my choice was to go straight to ELC if I didn't go into labour naturally.

I think it depends on how you like to approach things - I found it useful to know as much as I could.

I did it for my second and it was a much more enjoyable experience

What I would add to my previous post is that I glossed over any part of the videos that I didn't really resonate with.
The main parts that helped me were
-learning what my body was doing
-breathing techniques
-learning to have a positive outlook on birth, remaining as calm as possible.

My first birth I found quite traumatic and I was nervous to do it again. Second birth was great, and I honestly believe that's down to me staying as calm as I possibly could and understanding what was happening to my body during contractions. It's not for everyone, but it helped me :)

I did the Positive Birth Company online course and found the information about what would happen to my body during labour really helpful. The breathing techniques really helped, I managed about 15 hours of contractions with no pain relief just doing the breathing. I didn't pay attention to all the affirmations etc. but I know some find it useful!

https://positiveinduction.com/ This £27 course is great... talks about induction and teaches some hypnobirthing techniques including affirmations, breathing and relaxations.

I also like the Freya app which I think is about £3.
https://thepositivebirthcompany.co.uk/freya-hypnobirthing-app