does hypnobirthing work?

[Alpinechildcare]

I have a friend who has advised us to do a course (the baby is due in Jan) because it's amazing and she didn't suffer any pain at all.

Every single other mother I've told about this say what rubbish, and of course labour is agony and told me all sorts of horror stories.

I just wondered if there are any others out there who found it as useful as my friend?

I haven't had my baby yet - due in a month, but finished my course of 5 hypnobirthing classes last night. The were absolutely fantastic. I don't believe that the labour will be pain free, but my DH and I feel way more confident about coping with labour having done the classes. I do know people who (claim that!) they have had painless births with hypnobirthing. Everyone I know who has done hynobirthing said it was really helpful as they stayed relaxed and felt much more able to cope with everything. I highly recommend it. I am just hoping it won't all go out the window as soon as I go into labour!!

Best available evidence would indicate that hypnosis is beneficial and safe for use in pregnancy.

It's worse bearing in mind that success was less use of other pain management techniques and retrospective happiness with labour pain.

Don't expect it to be all you need.

It helps you stay calm and confident, definitely. Not many actually experience no pain though. I had a lot of pain (back to back) but managed to have DD in the birthing pool. not sure i would have done without playing that stupid CD over and over again...
(I didn't do the course)

Depends how you mean by 'work'. Did I find it useful and calming in late pregnancy and the early stages of labour? Yes. Did I have a pain-free birth? No, I had entonox and pethidine. The important thing is that you keep an open mind- I didn't, and blamed myself for 'failing' (as did one of my friends that it did 'work' for).

did your friend who 'didn't suffer any pain at all' also have an epidural alongside her hypnobirthing??! it's rubbish to say childbirth is not painful.

what you can say is by doing x, y, z you had a good birth experience and you managed the pain well. now, i didn't do hypnobirthing but i did pregnancy yoga and the breathing i learnt is apparently similar to hypnobirthing. would i recommend it to make a good birth experience? yes. was my birth pain free? no.

so, do it, do it, do it, but don't believe nonsense about pain free births, unless as i say, they had an epidural- an epidural that works might i add (some , like mine, didn't, which is when my breathing became a life saver)

I used Natal Hypnotherapy (had a workshop and used the CDs) thoughout my pregnancy. With regards to my birth, the contractions were painful, I paniced and, at times,felt scared. However I stayed very relaxed on the lead up to the birth which I think was really helpful. I also think the relaxation worked a little during the birth. I think it helped my partner stay more relaxed as well.

On the whole I think it was worthwhile and I would recommend it as I know I could have spent 9 months worrying about the birth. However if you are pretty relaxed about birth it may not be worthwhile.

I've completed a course and my due date is tomorrow... Hopefully I'll be posting soon what a lovely pain free birth I had .... Can't help being slightly sceptical having been through labour before although my teacher said that's normal and that it would be more strange if I wasn't worried one single bit. I don't believe it will give me a pain free birth but I am hoping that it will make it much more manageable though.

I do have a lot of faith in it so here's hoping .

I've read lots of stories of painfree hypnobirths on other websites. On balance, I think that it sometimes happens and you may get lucky.

My own experience was positive and manageable (helped to keep me calm and focused) but not completely pain free, largely due to back labour. (I barely felt the contractions at the front of my body or internally but the back pain was still strong no matter which techniques I used.)

I'd definitely recommend it and would use it again myself. But I don't think of it as a guarantee of a painfree birth.

Chris

I used the natal hypnotherapy CD and read a hypnobirthing book before having a homebirth with my first baby. I only experienced pain once I got to around 6cm and before that would describe my contractions as only uncomfortable. I did use gas & air after this but believe the hypnotherapy helped make the contractions very manageable and I because of this I think of my labour as a very positive experience. I'd definitely recommend it.

HTH

I used the hypnobirthing book and it certainly helped me feel less stressed in the final weeks of pregnancy and I spent labour remarkably chilled out (even when stuck at a police roadblock and taking 45min to get to the MLU, and when a day later the meconium meant I had to prepare for a CS, which luckily got avoided).

I had an epidural as my SPD managed to get even worse during labour, so can't comment on whether birth hurt.

I had an enjoyable birth experience and only felt any pain when DD was crowning. In fact, when I arrived at the hospital I was 9cm and didn't even realise . I strongly believe that my experience was due to the hypnobirthing course that I did. One thing you will learn when doing the course is that we, in Western society, are told that labour has to be a painful experience and so what follows is what you expect it to be, painful and sometimes traumatic. In hypnobirthing, you are taught the opposite along with self relaxation techniques to help you stay calm and in control of the whole birthing process. My DD was born after 30+ hour labour, however, as I said, I only felt any type of pain at the very end and even then it only lasted 20 minutes or so! My DD was extremely calm when she arrived and never cried once but was extremely alert. Every experience is different, but why should it have to hurt? It is a natural process that is using muscles designed for the job. Staying calm throughout means that you are not cutting off the blood supply that helps these muscles do their job. If anyting it will mean you are better prepared for what should be an amazing experience

Well I did hypnobirthing. I went into it calm, zen-like, breathing the way I should have done. I firmly believed it was going to keep me in control of the birth.

DD was unbirthable. I had a 2 day labour and every intervention going until an em cs discovered what we couldn't have known- dd was asynclitic and in deep transverse arrest- and hypnobirthing just couldn't touch the sides. Contractions were 2.5 minutes long with a 30 second gap for the last 11hrs, I pushed for 6hrs. I could not control the pain at all and it was because labour wasn't 'normal'. I was consumed by guilt. The gap between the belief that I could decide the labour I wanted and the reality of episiotomies, ventouse, manual rotations and major surgery was something I fell into and felt like an utter failure.

It can and does work. But I got it all wrong. I naively didn't think about the role chance would play in labour and delivery. All the upright, mobile, breathing etc in the world couldn't change the facts of dd's unbirthable position and I should have allowed for that eventuality. And thought about how hypnobirthing can also help during a cs and instrumental delivery. Because it probably can.

I am on baby number three and did NCT with DD, hypnobirthing (with local practitioner who made her own CDs) with DS and doing yoga with DC3.

Have had two homebirths I would not describe as painful. Intense yes, but not painful. Had no pain relief other than TENS (useful distraction) and birth pool. No tears, no stitching. I say this only because it as much nonsense to say that it always hurts, as to say that it shouldn't ever hurt. There is a spectrum of pain and you will be on it somewhere. Where might depend partly on your state of mind/relaxation level/confidence in your body's ability - and you can do some things, including hypnobirthing, to help you do what you can to help the process, and to feel calm about the outcome if it is different from that which you envisage.

Even if the hypnobirthing/yoga/whatever doesn't ensure a painfree experience, it can still make it a calmer/better one and the techniques are useful in many situations. So doing it is never going to be a waste of time.

For ds (14 mths) I had a doula and she gave me Marie Mangan's hypnobirthing book and cd.I used it even though this was only 2 weeks before my due date and it's recommended to do it every day 6 weeks before. I have to say my birth (after an extremely traumatic one 1st time round) went exactly as I had practiced saying during the hypnobirthing cd. I gave birth within the hr to my waters breaking, no unbearable pain, it was entirely managable through breathing and I had gas and air for the last 5 mins or so because it all happened so fast I was unable to get to hospital and gave birth at home. The ambulance team was fantastic, ds was perfect and has been a lovely relaxed baby whereas dd had colic and I'm convinced it was related to our awful birthing experience.I had no stitches, which after the 1st time round meant so much to me

I don't think you have to do a course to do hypnobirthing it's more about having absolute faith in your body (I desperately didn't want to experience the kind of birth as I had with dd). I became very relaxed once I started using the cd whereas before that I was more full of dread about the birth.

I would view it that doing the rainbow relaxation cd each day is only going to do you good because it is a set time for you to relax and bond with your baby.

I also had photocopies posted round the house of baby in optimum position. And spent at least half an hr every evening on all fours draped across a birth ball.

I really do believe hypnobirthing worked for me, it was a dream birth, best of luck with it,

dd: epidural, very painful birth.

ds: used maggie howell natal hynotherapy cd A LOT during last three months of pregnancy. was sceptical too, but figured even if it made it slightly more bearable it would be worth it. quick, painless homebirth. amazing.

I did natal hypnotherapy from about 32 weeks (first baby). I chose that over hypnobirthing because they don't claim it'll give you a pain free labour (which I didn't feel was feasible for me). I wanted something that would give me a sense of control, no matter what happened but I went in with an open mind and ready to go up the pain relief scale as I needed. I think if you push yourself to have a pain free labour you could end up disappointed if you need drugs/epidural.

I'm an anaesthetist and have seen hundreds of births and honestly each one is different in terms of pain level, so please don't plan too much. My birth plan was healthy mum and baby please - anything required.

I started with pains at 40+11 and had stop start labour. At first just felt like period pains and used the hypnotherapy techniques; I honestly wondered why it didn't hurt more. Then it stopped for a few hours and then the following day I got proper contractions (and for me they were considerably different to period pains!) and used hypnotherapy plus TENS. Then stopped again that night for about 6 hours. Finally started properly at 40+13 at midday and progressed quickly, again using tens and hypnotherapy and paracetamol. Went to hospital 3 hours later by which time each contraction really hurt but I still felt in control and coping - I was 7cm on arrival and gratefully grabbed hard onto the gas and air. Had to have a CTG trace and not enough time to fill the pool for my planned water birth - pushing within an hour and delivered an hour after that. I didn't have any drugs other than gas and air but that's because it was all so quick, not because I'd have felt less good about the whole thing.

I used natal hypnotherapy, actively concentrating on it, until transition (shortly after arriving at hospital) but after this it was too intense to do picture the mental images required. However, the midwife commented on how calm I was throughout the whole thing and I certainly didn't lose it at any point. BUT - i gave birth within 3 hours of getting to hospital and I'm damn sure I'd not have been calm if it had gone on for hours and hours. In my opinion nothing helps with pushing the head out, you just have to grit your teeth and push beyond what you think you can bear, though the intense relief when the head's out is almost worth it and holding your baby is worth it twice over!

I've no doubt that natal hypnotherapy helped me:
Sleep well in late pregnancy
Relax in pregnancy
Cope emotionally with going very overdue
Control my pain in the stop start phase of my labour and up to going in to hospital.
Feel in control all the way through
Feel positive about my experience

I don't think it helped with giving me a straightforward birth - I was just lucky (but it's worth remembering that the majority of people do have normal births). And I doubt it's value in very late labour.

But since the CD costs about £12, I think it's value is indisputable and I wouldn't think of giving birth without it.

Soory for the long post, but it's what I would have wanted to know when I was chosing.

Good luck!

That was a very interesting post MagnumIcecreamAddict, Alpinechildcare is getting lots of great advice here I just wanted to say about pushing the head out, one thing that really helped me was that I knew what was happening when the burning sensation kicked in during crowning - I only knew this because of the Ina May Gaskin book my doula lent me but reading about it through so many birth stories there prepared me. I hadn't felt it during my 1st birth because of epidural (it was an extremely painful birth despite the epidural as baby maintained prosterior position whole way). I was really relieved I had gas and air then,I think it distracted me, I felt no pain, ds just slipped out.It's a good idea to read many positive birth stories I would definitely recommend the Ina May book.

I did the Marie Mongan course using the Rainbow Relaxation CD and going to classes. I'd highly recommend it. Yes, it's a lot of money but it really is worth it.

I don't think you can guarantee a pain-free birth, as everybody has a different pain tolerance. However, I came pretty close to it.

Using techniques to stay calm and controlled made it a very positive experience. Even when the contractions were coming thick and fast, I was able to cope with them and laugh in between.

I lost the plot a bit when I got the burning sensation of the head crowning and did try to do the backstroke in the pool to get away from it! But up until that point it was all perfect. No howling or crying, just a lot of intense concentration on breathing and focusing on how I was feeling. The first thing I said when DS2 arrived was "Wow, that was cool!"

Check out www.hypnobirthing.co.uk for loads of helpful info.

(Also a pregnant first timer here, hoping for a home waterbirth)

It looks like Maggie Howell's Natal Hypnotheraphy CDs come in two flavours: Home Birth or Hospital/Birth Centre.

Has anyone got any experience of how they compare, or if they are practically the same?

If I'm planning a home birth is it worth doing both in case of having to transfer in? (I think the thing most likely to make me utterly lose it in panic is being transferred to hospital, so maybe some specific preparation for this would be good?)

Thanks for all the advice and experiences on this thread, it's very helpful to us first timers!

Seashore - I'm doing the same one as you did. Mongan with Rainbow relaxation and also on a course. What did you understand as the point of optimum position picture? I didn't really get that...

Also did you find that you fell asleep and woke up at the same bit of the cd?! I'm a bit worried that I won't go into deep relaxation on the day when listening as I am so easily distracted but I guess I still have 7 weeks so will listen every day! Did you?

Thank you all so much for your posts. It's great to see such a range of experiences. I'm going to do the course anyway because the way I see it, I'm only going to do it once (for this baby anyway) and it can't do any harm to prepare in more than one way.

I'm not convinced enough to go the whole hog, home birth route, so I am also going to do the traditional antenatal classes as well, so I'm prepared for medical intervention and their methods of pushing etc, should I need them as well.

I've decided on the birthing centre at UCH in London because apparently they are used to hypnobirthing, and have birth tubs, but although they don't offer epidural to everyone, if you are really struggling they can move you upstairs to the labour unit, which seems a good compromise to me.

Thanks again for all the posts.

honeymoo, I used the Rainbow Relaxation CD before and during my labour and I used to fall asleep within minutes of putting it on (except when actually in labour of course!!!) My teacher said this was a good sign as it indicated that I was deeply relaxed. So I wouldn't worry.

I laboured to full dilation in 4.5 hours and found it very manageable. I was 9cm dilated on admission to hospital and fully dilated 10 minutes later. I had a bit of gas & air in the hospital and felt that was quite adequate. I would describe the sensations as intense rather than painful to be honest.

I ended up with a crash section under general anaesthetic as DD was very distressed (despite a super-calm mum!!!) which I am sad about but having made it to full dilation I would not be frightened of having another baby and very much hope to manage a VBAC if we do have another. I had previously been terrified of labour and birth. I think the relaxation and breathing helped me to stay calm during a stressful experience in hospital (being wheeled straight from the triage room to theatre) and I would recommend it and certainly will use it again if I have another baby.

spiltheteaagain - I reckon go for the Hospital CD. My friend used this for a homebirth and thought it was great, and also that the hospital specific bits (which I believe were minimal) would've been good preparation for a transfer.

Honeymoo, hi, yep I got the point about the optimum position picture, I'm an artist so visual images draw my eye anyway, but the idea is just that if you put the pictures in places you pass frequently in your home (I put one on the kitchen door, beside bathroom mirror, and down by the bit of wall I could see when hanging over my birth ball) that the concept of that position will seep into your subsconsious and actually take place. Oh I also had one on the wall beside the kitchen where I ate dins.

Yep I fell asleep and woke up pretty much at the same place each time, it's all still sinking in though,actually I almost felt drugged for a couple of hrs after each listen as I became so relaxed!

On the actual day, for me, although at home and so I could easily have put the cd on, I didn't as we had thought active labour was still yet to come, it all just happened so fast, it was a preciptious birth, but from practicing the cd each day on the run up, the whole idea of birthing the way it is recommended there sunk in deeply and when I found myself on my own bed, with the window being opened for fresh air I thought - this is what I wanted. So beware, I'm 50 miles from a hospital! My clinic mw said to me weeks after that of course once you become that relaxed it all happens quicker. I hadn't intended a home birth but at heart it was what I had really wanted after my first birth. Best of luck with your birth

Alpinechildcare a birth centre sounds fantastic, you'll have the best of both worlds, good luck

TBH Honeymoo, just thinking about it now, I was in such a state of relaxation on the day that nobody, myself, my doula, noticed I was actually in labour! So there's def something in it!