Hypnobirthing thoughts

[Happyfeet45]

Sorry if this isn't in the right place.

I wondered if anyone has any experience with hypnobirthing? I am due in the next few weeks and have been reading up on this throughout my pregnancy. The breathing techniques and scientific parts make a lot of sense to me. The positive mantras and visualisations....not so much.

Has anyone tried it and did it genuinely help you in labour?

The idea of creating a safe, spa-like environment to give birth does sound nice but is it really going to help?

Would love to hear other peoples experiences of what worked and what was clap trap!

It helped me. The breathing helped and also some of the other bits. It's all just about keeping calm and keeping the environment right to get all the good birth hormones flowing and stop the other ones.

It helped me. I was skeptical of it, and there were bits I found annoying (like how not to think of it as pain but instead as a muscle working or something, I mean what’s wrong with admitting it’s painful?!) but the breathing exercises helped loads. Also something she said about going with the contractions instead of fighting them really helped. I did the online one from the Positive Birthing Company, it was about £40 a few years ago, and definitely worth it for me.

I did Lazy Daisy birthing classes for both my pregnancies. I started both at about 20 weeks and did 2x 6 week courses. I found it really helpful to have exercises I could do to make myself more comfortable (yoga-type stretches) and practising the different breathing techniques for different stages of labour.

Obviously there is no way of knowing if they actually made a difference to the births or if they would have gone exactly the same had I not done the classes.

For what it’s worth I laboured in a birthing pool for the majority of both labours (both were less than 9 hours from first contraction to birth) with only gas and air. I didn’t birth in the pool as #1 had meconium when my waters went and #2 got stuck at the shoulders resulting in the big red button being pushed and me unceremoniously hauled out of the pool onto the bed to deliver him!

I definitely zoned out during the labours - I remember very little of them up until the pushing started - which may have been the hypno training kicking in or, like I said before, just the way my body and mind took control of its own accord.

In summary yes I think it’s worth looking at but don’t expect it all to automatically be sunshine and roses!

I was massively sceptical, like you. I am a scientist and had dismissed it as woo nonsense. But after an awful first birth and better, but still unenjoyable second birth, I bought a book and read it, and became a convert! I have 4 kids, and my 3rd birth was great! The 4th one was tricky at the end due to an unexpected complication, but v smooth up till that point due to how calm I was.

It actually makes a lot of sense. I recommend this book, and the accompanying MP3s (you must do the practice though). I didn't bother with classes:

www.amazon.co.uk/Mindful-Hypnobirthing-Mindfulness-Techniques-Confident/dp/0091954592?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

I was all aboard the hypnobirth train. Left me with an enduring sense of failure after I had a breech baby that needed an EMCS. Did nothing to prepare me for the onslaught that was labour - there was very little buildup and frankly breathing exercises were completely pointless with relentless contractions (sorry, waves).

Thankfully I had a fabulous medical team who got me an epidural, which turned my Labour into something that I could actually enjoy.

It was a complete headfuck, not helped by the group not inviting mums who’d had interventions to the post birth meet-ups.

I did this accidentally, I think.

Nothing is going to guarantee smooth, trouble free labour. Having a back pocket full of relaxation techniques and a 'can do' attitude is likely to help when the going gets tough, though.

I haven't done any classes. I have just done a lot of reading. I've been practicing the breathing techniques and plan to use dim lighting and a nice room scent in labour to try and keep calm. But it's hard to know if when the time comes it will actually help or if it will all just go out of the window when I'm in pain.

It definitely makes sense to me to keep calm. Panicking completely tenses up the body and it's obvious that this would negatively impact things.

But I don't know, I suppose I'm just skeptical about how effective some deep breathing and a bit of relaxing music can actually be during such a painful day experience 😬

I had reasonable luck with it for my third. Not so much the birth itself which was a total cock-up from the get go due to an overbearing head of obstetrics, but I did find it helped the insomnia I'd had with all my other pregnancies quite a lot.

My understanding is that not all programs are created equal so I'd do research before purchasing. FWIW I don't think it's woo, the principles are pretty sound though they don't work equally well for all.

It's not really just deep breathing - the idea is to learn to self-induce a hypnotic state. I'm not sure it would be effective without the language element, or as effective.

Some people are much more amenable to hypnosis than others and I suspect it works better for those who are.

Had an awful first birth, got a hypno birthing cd from a friend and listened to it every day for that last month ( dh pissed himself with the visualisations so he got sent out). Best thing I did dd2 was my easiest birth by far and minimal pain relief.

It's all about the breathing. I still use the techniques for pain management now.

I agree with you about the bits I found useful eg breathing techniques and the bits I ignored (visualisations).
I think hypnobirthing has value, as long as you’re aware of it’s limitations. It’s not going to prevent complications, and I didn’t read any of the stuff that sometimes comes with it that is very negative around needing any interventions.
But for me, I am quite an anxious person and do suffer from panic attacks, so my goal was to use the breathing techniques to try to stay calm and stay focused, and I definitely think it helped with that.
I didn’t do classes though.

I truly believe it helps. But you need to believe in it. If you are tense your body cannot birth as effectively and so breathing techniques and positive visualisations help the body to relax. It is (I believe) difficult to be relaxed during a contraction but even if you manage to relax in between it should help things along.

When I was pregnant I used to practise whenever I did a big shit
It really does help!

My friend did it, she went on a course; had a lovely calm birth, they didn't think she was as dilated as she was because it was all very chilled out. I didn't do a course in the interests of full disclosure, but read the book and listened to the cds regularly. Come the time, I had to be induced and breathing only got me so far. Once my waters had gone I was sucking on gas and air like a woman possessed and swearing my head off until I got an epidural, and was only 3cm. I just couldn't get myself into that calm mindset.

I would say go into it with an open mind, and remember that birth is unpredictable. If it all goes out the window it doesn't mean you've failed or did something wrong. I ended up with a episiotomy and forceps, basically everything I didn't want. But I had bloody good pain relief, the midwives listened to me, and informed me of everything they were doing and why so I honestly feel ok with it.

If nothing else, the guided meditations on the cds were lovely to listen to, to have some regular time to just chill and have that headspace to focus on myself and DD in the run up to her birth.

I had the dvd but you had to play it daily from near the start of the pregnancy. I did find the mantra (repeated them under my breath) and breathing techniques useful during labour to stop me spiralling into panic.

Had a 16 hour textbook labour. It helped me for the first 14 hours but for the last 2 there was nothing on earth that could've helped me!

Due again next month and not bothering with hypnobirth this time and just going in with way more of an open mind / less prep but I don't regret it for my first labour as it was useful. I went down the positive birth company route.

This time just deep breathing, positive thoughts and see what happens!

I found it really useful during pregnancy in terms of keeping calm and positive.
I had a disastrous birth with every intervention short of C-section but that would have happened whatever (back to back labour after drip induction due to pre-eclampsia at 38 weeks).
I felt “bad” afterwards that the birth hadn’t happened the way I wanted but in hindsight it doesn’t bother me at all any more. When I was at my most scared and vulnerable it did help to focus and remain calm, focus on my breathing and do lots of visualisation.
There were 6 people in our group - 2 had complete pain free labours, 3 had all manners of interventions and 1 had a “straightforward” but not pain free birth.
I’m not particularly suggestible so I don’t know if I ever would have got the pain free birthing experience but I definitely wouldn’t rule it out.

Brilliant love it. I'm 41+1 with my second and actually excited about giving birth again.

It isn't just about deep breathing and positive mantras it is antenatal education, learning what your options are. Making a birth plan (including your thoughts on interventions and emergency care)

Do it, many many women are underprepared for childbirth due to a lack of antenatal education, and there has been a huge spike in birth trauma as a result.

Going in informed and aware is more likely to make your birth a positive experience regardless of your eventual mode of delivery.

I found it really useful. I highly recommend Milli Hill’s books.

I had my 3rd baby last year and it was super straightforward. Was in hospital for less than an hour before I had her. Gas and air for the last few contractions. Would do it again tomorrow.

Very mixed feelings.

I was really anxious during pregnancy (lost my own mother in childbirth, being pregnant brought up a lot of feelings around that) - hypnobirthing techniques massively helped me to go into it feeling calm and more prepared.

As it happened I had a back to back baby who got stuck, 3 days of labour and needed an EMCS. This was in the middle of Covid and on an unusually busy night at the hospital so they were massively understaffed and had no beds in the labour ward. For various reasons it was all a bit of a shitshow and there wasn’t a chance to get out fairy lights or what have you.

So on the one hand I felt like, as my husband put it, ‘we were sold a dream’ and I was really upset not to get the experience we’d kind of been led to expect, was touch and go whether I’d get a bed/ midwife to attend me, let alone a candlelit birth pool with relaxing playlist and essential oils scattered around. Also had a huge sense of failure for ages like maybe if I’d just believed a bit harder and thought a bit more positively I could have had the ‘perfect’ birth other people seemed to manage.

But on the other, I do actually think that I only stayed as calm as I did manage to throughout because of the techniques and preparation I’d done - so in that sense it was really useful. And I ended up repeating a few of the affirmations to myself which did help despite me being very far from an affirmation kind of person usually.

Like @DazzlePaintedBattlePants I was fully in the hypnobirthing camp...until my blood pressure went up pre due date and a complete shit show ensued. The time I spent watching videos, practising and buying plastic tea lights would have been better spent giving myself a reality check about what birth really can be like (e.g. I was completely ignorant about c sections and needed an emergency one in the end). I appreciate hypnobirthing helps many but was compelled to comment as I feel really strongly that it gave me rose tinted glasses as regards to what lay ahead & I then found it really hard to swallow that my drug free water birth would not be happening.

The birthing pool was free and I was asked if I would like to try it. I somehow recalled so yoga breathing from many years ago as my contractions progressed. It all worked out fine and labour was a lot easier than I had envisaged.

I feel honestly quite scared by the prep I did.

I did online classes which emphasises breathing, visualisations ect. I know that being tense inhibits things.

But things went wrong in my DDs birth, and I feel terribly guilty that I didn’t get things right (she’s fine, the birth wasn’t).

I know logically that it wasn’t totally my fault, and I’m sure some classes are more realistic about what can happen. But I’m left with a horrible sense that I just didn’t do my hymn fucking birthing homework properly.

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants

I was all aboard the hypnobirth train. Left me with an enduring sense of failure after I had a breech baby that needed an EMCS. Did nothing to prepare me for the onslaught that was labour - there was very little buildup and frankly breathing exercises were completely pointless with relentless contractions (sorry, waves).

Thankfully I had a fabulous medical team who got me an epidural, which turned my Labour into something that I could actually enjoy.

It was a complete headfuck, not helped by the group not inviting mums who’d had interventions to the post birth meet-ups.

This too for me. I had various interventions, a precipitate labour and emergency forceps after a cord prolapse, and the hypnobirthing exercises were about as effective as waving a daisy in front of a high speed bullet train

I also was disappointed that I just got dumped and never contacted again by the facilitator and group because I’d had a “medicalised” labour. It was quite hurtful and I was left feeling I’d been rather swindled. It was by no means cheap and bear in mind that you may get on with it but equally may not.

I read the books and did the course, but needed to be induced so ended up immobile / lying down, and to be honest the amount that I'd read about how awful that was made me feel worse than the reality of it.

One of the mantras I did find really helpful though - this contraction is taking me a step closer to meeting my baby. That was a good thought to focus on in the moment!