I only just discovered you can breathe not push

[drivingmisspotty]

Recently given birth to DC2. During pregnancy a friend gave me a hypnobirthing book that described how to 'breathe the baby out'. I tried it and this birth was so amazingly different from birth number 1 and all that horrible pushing and tearing. I thought I had done my research the first time round (and spent quite a bit of money on an NCT course) and wonder why did nobody mention this to me sooner?!

Worked fine with my first as well.

Was my first birth too.

I think people's health, expectations and life experience are so different, which I think makes the births different (apart from medical complications)

I spoke to a friend who gave birth 2 weeks before me. She described her labour as fairly hideous - we chatted over our birth stories and, if you had to bullet point it, our labours were very similar but our experience of birth opposite. The main differences were our expectations I think- I expected contractions to be agony and was scared I wouldn't cope, they weren't; she expected them to be to 'cope-able' and not to hurt, they weren't. I expected to have a long labour, contractions to stop/start, wait it out, work with my body to continue the process (birth ball, walks, etc), she expected her contractions to start, waters to break and go into hospital within 24 hours. I thought I was capable of doing it and was determined not to have drugs, I prepared had a water birth and did hypnobirthing; my friend said she knew she would need drugs, knew she would need a hospital environment.

Having said all that there always are bound to be births where, no matter how prepared or aware the mother, the birth will not go well. But our experience should be able to be as positive as possible.

I should say too that even though it was my 2nd birth, I had 5 days of stop start contractions (proper ones - it's called prodomal? labour), including through 2 nights. Some women just get that, in retrospect it is what happened with ds1 as well. Without the hypno I would again have been exhausted by the time transition hit. So having been there helped, but it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, my first birth with epidural meant I really didn't have a clue how it felt! I was numb for 8 hours and slept till it was time to push!

Exactly gentleness - my friend said she was 'in labour' for 3 days. I said I stop/started contractions for 3 days (was in fact 2 nights- midnight to 8am, then third day which turned out to be the birth day). It is about perception, expectation.