To think that Hypnobirthing is a load of crap

[Poppy1774]

Just that really. I did all the affirmations, breathing exercises, meditation, etc. In the end needed lots of intervention for the safety of me and my baby (and we were both healthy afterwards, thank goodness).
However I felt disappointed with my 'birth experience'. I wish I had never heard of hypnobirthing. If I hadn't, I'd have accepted what happened much more quickly. I wasn't naive about childbirth - I knew that things could go wrong. Yet somehow hypnobirthing got into my head and made me feel that intervention = bad = failure. I wasn't positive enough/calm enough etc. Difficult to be positive and calm when in absolute agony and baby in distress.
Two of my friends have also had the same reaction after births that did not involve breathing a baby out in a birthing pool.
I feel hypnobirthing is not just nonsense, it is also actually damaging to women's self-esteem after birth.
And before you tell me it helped with your second birth after a difficult first birth...second labours are often easier!
Rant over. Thoughts?

I disagree. I was terrified of giving birth and was already aware that I would need to be induced due to a medical issue and everyone had dire warnings that induced labour was even more painful. So I did hypnobirthing at home even though I knew I would never have a "natural" birth. I went from terrified to calm and even looking forward to it. Honestly both of my births were a bit of a drama but i kept calm through both (including an emergency c section). Like all things in life but especially giving birth have a plan but be prepared to deviate.

Sorry you felt so bad about your birth OP (and others)

A course I saw advertised explained you weren't a real woman if you didn't give birth without painkillers. Not enough eye roll in the world.

@Wonkydonk87 That's terrifying. What certification is there for these instructors? What training do they undertake? What makes them experts? Appalling.

At my debrief my midwife told me that more and more women are refusing to have examinations during labour, and she explained that it was very stressful when you can tell that the baby is getting distressed etc...

@Poppy1774 Absolutely none. And I'm sure we signed something at the start of the class which would excuse her of all legal responsibility should anything happen.
I wasn't examined during my labour (was only seen once and we didn't realise how quick it would be so midwife left and I gave birth with only my husband present) but with hindsight we agreed it wasn't indicated at that point anyway.
I can understand why women want to refuse them if there's no reason for it other than to know (it has no bearing on the length of labour anyway so is only useful if you are fully dilated) but if there are signs that the baby is distressed then you need to know what's going on and make a decision to keep you both safe.

I felt very close to punching the midwife in the face when she said to me mid contraction 'why do you think the hypno breathing isn't working for you?'. She said this more than once. I was induced and it all completely sucked.

YABU I'm afraid. The problem is that hypnotherapy is unregulated. Anyone of you posting here could set up tomorrow as a hypnotherapist. There are many, many hypnotherapists that have undertaken a lot of study and courses but equally there are a lot of unscrupulous ones out there. It sounds like some of you have been unfortunate with your therapist.

Hypnotherapy was very positive for me. There was no mention of not having an induction. However our therapist gave us lots of tips on how to ask the right questions to get the best information from doctors on the best course of treatment. I did have an induced labour but managed fine with my TENS machine and hypnobirthing techniques. Unfortunately I ended up with an EMCS so naturally was very disappointed with my birth as the induction and EMCS was far from the calm, tranquil water birth I had planned! However the hypnobirthing was not to blame for making me feel this way. I would have felt like that whether I had done it or not! It did however allow me to stay calm and cope with labour better.

@WonkyDonk87 If sounds like your hypnotherapist was giving out dated advice. It used to be that you could go 96 hours after your waters broke before they would start to induce you. They then gave you IV antibiotics whilst you were in labour.

I watched a lot of the videos when pregnant, and to be fair, I found the info about what contractions actually are and why they feel like they do etc interesting; but then I could have googled that for free! When I was in labour I forgot all about it to be honest, which is probably good as I had to have emergency surgery in the end, and the pain relief following the injection was the best thing ever! I don't like how it tries to make out that all intervention is bad, I do worry that that could be dangerous and lead people to refuse medically recommended interventions in favour of believing the hypnobirthers are correct. It can also make you feel like a bit of a failure if you don't have a natural birth which is silly- great if you want to, but why suffer.

I think you have been missold hypnobirthing, which is a massive shame, but not especially surprising, as I totally agree the books, courses, and so on do have this whole ridiculous spiel about intervention being terrible or something you definitely don't want.

If you're writing a hospital maternity policy, then yes, unnecessary intervention is something you want to keep down, you definitely don't want a policy of routine intervention when childbirth tends to work very well without it. However if you're a mother or baby involved in a labour where things aren't quite going 100%, then intervention is something you absolutely want, and there's nothing to be ashamed of or feel has failed. A certain percentage of labours simply will go that way and we ought to be thankful really that we have the tools, the expertise, and the chance to stand in the way of fate (if you like) and undo that in the vast majority of cases. Honestly modern childbirth is a miracle, when you look at maternal and infant mortality rates from years ago, or today in places where childbirth intervention simply isn't available.

Hypnobirthing really ought to be a tool to help you cope with that (and also the general intensity/insanity of a totally textbook straightforward labour too). Not some kind of guarantee that it won't be needed. If you use it in that way, I have heard that it is extremely good. In terms of "avoiding interventions", it probably doesn't have an especially good success rate.

What doesn't help is it's an American movement and US hospitals do seem to have a lot more unnecessary intervention than is routinely done in the UK and Germany (the two places I've given birth). So you can get all caught up in this stuff which probably isn't going to apply here anyway.

But TBH it annoyed the crap out of me all the insistence on calling it "birthing" and even "a birthing" there's already a noun BIRTH you don't need to make one up from the verb. and "Birthing waves" Fuck off.

But I have a bit of a love hate relationship really because I know I need bloody SOMETHING to get me through if I ever give birth again because generally being off your head on panic and fear and pain isn't conducive to a positive birth experience either.

I think it depends what type of hypnobirthing you are taught. Our teacher had had a caesarean herself and said that hypnobirthing wasn't necessarily about trying to get a natural birth, more about trying to stay calm, understand what was happening and manage the situation. My labour was pretty traumatic (104 hours in labour from start to finish and a haemorrhage at the end) but I'm still very glad I did hypnobirthing.

I don’t like all this lardy-dah bullshit.

Well, it’s not that, if it helps you great it’s the preaching and smugness that usually surrounds these things that annoys me!

Just get on the gas and air the minute they let you, fly on the back of a golden eagle to Mordor and listen to your body and do what feels right.

If you need intervention or a caesarean so be it.

Am expecting DC2 any day now. DC 1 - no amount of hypnobirthing would have helped me, birth review confirmed it. Drugs worked wonders tho. Plan on asking for drugs drugs drugs in labour 2. Nobody gets a medal, but all being well I hope to have a healthy daughter. That's all that matters to me.

Hypnobirthing really ought to be a tool to help you cope with that (and also the general intensity/insanity of a totally textbook straightforward labour too). Not some kind of guarantee that it won't be needed. If you use it in that way, I have heard that it is extremely good. In terms of "avoiding interventions", it probably doesn't have an especially good success rate.

This ☝🏼

Ugh. Bold fail, but @BertieBotts sums
up my thoughts well.

Agreed. I. Mean. Honestly. If I could just go back and talk to myself. I would shout. Take the bloody drugs. You can visualise your way out of this one.

Yanbu, but try not to be bitter about it.

You would have been better off reading Mumsnet for many realistic accounts of childbirth, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

If people believe that hypnobirthing has helped them have a positive birth experience - just let them maybe? Let it go and be happy for them. Don't bear a grudge.

I'm a fan of hypnobirthing despite two difficult births.

I used the Natal Hypnotherapy birth preparation CD in the final weeks of pregnancy, and if nothing else, 20 minutes of nap time was bliss at a time when I was approaching being housebound from the constant burning pain of SPD, plus having numb/ tingling hands from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It was bliss to get a newborn baby and be able to sleep for two hours at a time at night. So that calm rest time in the day was bliss.

First labour was long resulting in an EMCS. I'd had over 24 hours of regular contractions before being admitted to labour ward just in time for an all nighter. Emergency surgery and ending up separated in HDU/ neonatal was pretty traumatic and a shock after a low risk pregnancy and family history of straightforward births. Hypnobirthing did give me many hours of calmly dealing with the contractions. It was the pethadine after my waters were broken that caused things to spiral. The reality was a large baby with a big head being back to back was never going to get on well with my small pelvis. Being barely able to bear my own weight due to SPD did not help either.

Second time, I wanted a VBAC as I believed I could finish the job off properly having worked so bloody hard at it first time. I know that sounds stupid years down the line, but on paper my chances were good and there is a pro-VBAC culture.
I went back to my natal hypnotherapy CD. I was scared of spiraling interventions after my previous experience. This time a birth companion CD was also avaliable and despite having a lot of fear in the build up to the birth, the labour was a very calm experience. I did end up in theatre with a rather rough forceps delivery, but until that point it was a positive birth. The MW asked after what it was I'd had on and said it had kept her calm too!

After there was postnatal recovery CD which was great to play for a rest during nap time.

Hypnobirthing couldn't spare me from the ravages of two large back to back babies, but it did a lot to bring a sense of calm to a long labour and a labour with a lot of baggage.

YABVU your experience doesn’t mean it’s a load of dangerous nonsense.

For what it’s worth, I used it in both of my deliveries and had a truly amazing experience - pain relief free / delivery into a birth pool.

But then I followed the mindful mamma approach which was as much about being fully informed of all possibilities and how to approach the possibility/ requirement of interventions from sweeps / assessment right through to caesareans as it was about breathing the baby out.

I don’t mind people liking it/saying it helped them (ok, you’re a goddess etc.) only joking, I genuinely am glad. However, whenever
I mention my fucking HORRIFIC birth and get the answer of ‘ohh yes but you should try hypnobirthing it will change your mind’ errr it won’t change the haemorrhage, placenta, my babies massive head or the fact he doesn’t want to move, fuck off!

There’s a very cynical part of me that believes that hypo-birthing has been invented as part of the woman-hating society we live in, where if men were the ones having babies, they certainly wouldn’t be expected to “breathe” the potentially 10 pound mass out of the ends of their dicks.

Like it’s been invented in place of administering/continuing to research less painful ways of having a baby. We all know that women’s health is very low on the list of healthcare priorities.

“In sorrow thou shalt bring forth” and all that.

It's a load of crap.

No, they're not 'surges', they're contractions.
No, they're not 'sensations', it's fucking PAIN.

No, you won't flow across galaxies, connected with the spirits of your ancestral mothers in the divine and mystical power of motherhood.

I can't stand this fetishisation of female pain and suffering. We wouldn't tell someone who's having renal colic, or a broken leg, to breathe through the pain and visualise some nonsense, would we? Then why do we do it to women in labour?

@CoffeeMilkNoSugar It's not a load of crap. Many people have found it useful.

"We wouldn't tell someone who's having renal colic, or a broken leg, to breathe through the pain and visualise some nonsense, would we? Then why do we do it to women in labour?" That's because you don't generally have advanced notice of when a broken leg or renal colic is going to happen. The key to successfully using the techniques used in hypnobirthing is lots of practice which you're able to do when you have a due date to aim for. I have had a couple of extremely painful (far more so than childbirth) medical emergencies since giving birth. I was able to use hypnobirthing breathing techniques to manage the pain better and reduce the amount of morphine I was having.

I've often taught this since giving birth but really there is actually no way to explain what you will experience! Hypnobirthing certainly didnt help me other than I managed to refuse pain relief as I had convinced myself that would be "failing" (but actually thought I would die from pain at one stage!) Women need to be less judgy with each other really...some births are just easier than others therefore sometimes this will work maybe??

So many women I know feel like failures because they needed forceps, epidurals, c-sections etc. I know that people say 'ah yes but hypnobirthing is to prepare you for all eventualities' but look at the instagram feeds of these companies - all water births and home births. Look at the websites - all pictures of mothers without wires and drips attached to them holding their newly born baby.
It must be wonderful to have a straightforward birth, but please don't tell me it was because you hypnobirthed really really well.

The problem with these threads OP, is that you're going to get a load of people who swear it worked for them, which only serves to potentially make you feel even more like you failed. There is no way really of objectively knowing whether the birth would have gone the same way for them, even if they hadn't employed it as a technique. You don't get "do over" identical births to find out.

Same as people who say a sweep / sex worked to start labour, or fucking walking worked to deliver the baby in 20mins or whatever. They might have gone into labour / had the same delivery without any of those things. There's literally no way to tell.

If people feel it worked for them, then great. It didn't work for you, and that sucks. The wider issue isn't actually whether or not hypnobirthing works as a science, it's about how you go about finding peace with your birth.

I've had both a birth debrief and counselling to deal with mine. I would be lying if I said I'm super cool with it all now, as I found a number of these posts sparked my anger and anxiety - not necessarily because of how the posters wrote them, but because of how I perceived them based on my experience and feelings. But, I'm not still questioning myself daily.

If you haven't had a birth debrief or some counselling yet, it might be worth looking into