Is there such a thing as no nonsense hypnobirthing?!

[Loapal]

Experiencing severe anxiety around my upcoming c section and it has been recommended I try some hypnobirthing/yoga/meditation type exercises. Which I'm willing to do but it all seems so annoyingly twee. I just did a pregnancy yoga video which involved "breathing in the golden light" down to where my baby lies, alongside other stuff, and it was all so annoying that I'm sure it made my heart rate go up rather than the opposite. I've tried a few hypnobirthing tracks on Spotify but it all seems in much the same vein and also completely geared to vaginal birth, not c section.

Does anyone have any good resources for straightforward, non wishy washy, non lentil weavery exercises I could use to help me not panic during my section?

Headspace app? Not specific but clear mediation and you can change the voice of the person speaking

Possibly the Positive Birth Company online course? The content is divvied up into short videos that are clearly named and you can pick and choose to focus on the relevant bits e.g. breathing techniques. It does have a few bits I found a bit controversial so I cannot say it would be fully suitable for your purposes but at least you could consider it? not too expensive if I remember correctly

I've had a look at their social media and a lot of the stuff they do seems incredibly twee tbh.

Does it help to know that most breathing exercises do two things :
First, they are a distraction. They force you to focus your mind on something other than what’s making you panic.
Secondly, when you panic, you breathe faster and flood your body with oxygen. This is part of the fight/flight response. Extra oxygen is great if you need to run or fight. But not when you need to lie down quietly. Breathing exercises control and reduce the amount of oxygen you’re taking in at once, which literally makes your body feel less panicky by rebalancing CO2 and O2 levels in your body.
Basic the woo is just window dressing and it doesn’t matter what flavor it is. Golden lines or opening flowers or whatever.
Doctors and midwives know all about this stuff and are good at distracting and focusing their patients. In my experience the anesthetists are the best at this. They’ll get you to talk about whatever they think will get your brain focused and out of panic mode.

Thank you that is helpful. I often find that focusing on my breathing makes me more panicky, not less 🤣

I was in triage for 4 hours the other night. Went in for reduced movement and they wouldn't let me leave because my heart rate was 130 and took ages to get down to under 100. Then they had me flat on my back on the monitor and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I did the Positive Birth Company course and apart from saying that the birth plan should include a plan B in case of C-section (which I didn't do and then of course ended up having a C-section) it was very focused on vaginal birth.

Personally I would find out as much as possible about what happens during a C-section so you know what to expect, how long it takes etc, and then have a think about the things which might be in your control. Do you want the screen lowered, delayed cord clamping, skin to skin, baby cleaned up or not, etc.

Then maybe pick out some music to listen to and practise some meditation style breathing exercises to do during.

With the breathing exercises, you usually count longer in the exhalations than on the inhalations, or you breathe in counting, hold you breath for a few seconds and then exhale counting. You can play around with the timing until you get something that works for you. Have you ever seen old sitcoms or cartoons where they give the panicked person a paper bag to breathe through? It’s the same principle. You just want to reduce the rate that oxygen is coming into your system.
Panic attacks feel horrible and scary, but they don’t kill you. It’s not easy to learn to control them, but it is possible. Once you’ve found some techniques that work for you, it’s easy to calm yourself down before you get to the full on panicked stage.
Forget the unfurling roses and golden lines and pick your own distraction. You can count tiles on the ceiling of imagine your favourite place in minute detail. It doesn’t matter as long as it works for you.

'Lentil weavery' 🤣

I did positive birth company, it was a bit twee but actually they’ve some useful bits on induction, pain relief, and a c section section. All in all I had a not great birth including EMCS and I’m defo glad I did the course.

I did a 1:1 session with a hypnobirthing lady (consultant??). I basically ignored anything I didn't want and asked as many questions as I could. I wanted to learn a lot about the science of child birth and what the body is supposed to do so I felt very informed with that would happen to my body. It really helped and I had two natural home births - I recognise I'm very lucky

Yeah I do agree with you unfortunately.
Actually, I'd second the recommendation for guided meditation like Headspace - it's not specifically birthing related so less twee content.

Anaesthetists are wizards. The one I had during a second emcs saw long before anybody else how panicky I was and asked the most curious questions. It was a Saturday lunchtime and he asked, for example, about whether brunch was better than breakfast then lunch, including a terrible sausage joke. Somehow, he broke the panic within a minute.

DD woke up during a GA once and the anaesthetist was obviously working bloody hard to try and work out wtf had happened (turns out she has eds and doesn't respond to anaesthetic properly) but was also managing a 10yr old's hysteria with aplomb. She had repeat surgery last year (16yrs old) and the anaesthetist was aware she'd been through something terrible last time and he was so brilliant with her. Honest, kind, age appropriate, funny.

So, fuck hypnobirthing and its golden light and heart spaces, find an anaesthetist who can talk to you until you're smiling.

In all seriousness, I am quite the hippy and tried hypnobirthing. The company I used were, it turns out, quite anti cs and pedaled a load of crap about intervention being due to bad mental energy and similar. When I needed lifesaving intervention, it just framed it as a failure. I found yoga, honesty and a decent and realistic midwife much better second time round.

If you’ll have your partner or someone with you as a birth partner then you could look into acupressure points on your hands or wrists. It might be wrapped in woo again but it works as a distraction too - not just a mental distraction but a nervous system one too. There’s also something about breathing and pain - minorly painful things like having a needle inserted for a blood test, IV line or spinal anesthetic hurt less when you breathe out, as opposed to breathing in.

I second finding out what happens during the procedure.
Make a playlist of music that relaxes you.
Will you have someone with you in theatre? Birth partner? Tell them what you would like them to do to help you relax, (or not do) and tell the theatre staff too - the anaesthetist for mine was great.tell them if you want them to talk you through what is happening or distract you.

I got their book and just did the breathing stuff without all the extra twee bits and it was successful (I think)! The golden light stuff just made me 🤢

Have a think about whether you'd like someone to take photos or a video of the moment your baby is born. I don't have any photos of that moment and I regret it now. Sometimes anaesthetists will do this if you ask nicely.

I can't see how this would be relevant to me as I'll be having a planned c section which is medically necessary.

And I've had a c section before (an emergency) so I'm familiar with how it works.

No bull birth club.co.uk

Get a hr monitor and practise being able to lower your hr with breathing. I think there are games you can play in your phone too that do this. It’s a really useful skill to be able to slow down your heart rate consciously.

See I have a HR monitor and even talking about this has whacked it right up to 130.

I'm so freaked out about having an undiagnosed heart condition and having them put it down to anxiety. I had an ECG in triage the other night which was normal but my heart rate had gone down by the time they did it.

I think you need normal meditation, the hypnobirthing is more based around vaginal birth and you not keen on the twee side of it. I did hypnobirthing and ended with EMCS and then planned CS. I ended up using normal meditation through the pregnancy more than the hypnobirthing. It focuses too much on there being one way to give birth and gives an idealised view, this can lead to disappointment afterwards when there's chance that there's been an induction/invention/CS. The planned CS was a world away from the EMCS, much less stressful.

I did a hypnobirthing course when I was pregnant 16 years ago.

the consultant showed us a spoon that she had bent using her mind.

On a more helpful note, is there anything in particular that you are worried about?

when you are feeling really anxious, a breathing exercise isn’t going to get rid of the anxiety completely. So, you need to focus on things that are going to make it feel 5% better. This comes from Janina Fisher who is an expert on trauma.

I was feeling super anxious the other day and I focused on breathing to try and reduce it a little bit and I found that by doing that it eased overall.

i often find that just simply focusing on your breath for a
minute can be helpful. Not trying to change it- just listening to it (by doing this I find that it naturally slows and deepens but it’s very gentle)

Specifically, dying of an undiagnosed heart condition during my section. I've had a high heart rate throughout this pregnancy and apart from this ECG it's never been investigated.