hypnobirthing practice: what exactly is meant by "practice"?

[Focusfocus]

I am 29 weeks and am one class done out of a 4 class hypnobirthing course. Before the course began last week, I'd read Sheila Kitzinger, Maggie Howell and a bit of Mongan.

Everyone says you should practice the techniques and I am wondering what you did if you practised?

I plan to listen to the affirmations while doing my birthing ball exercises. Have also been going to sleep with a full body audio relaxation that ends with the birth. I generally feel quite upbeat about the birth. After todays class will possibly have breathing exercises to practice and DH will have some scripts to rehearse with me - all of which I plan to club together with my birthing ball time to save time.

Anything else? Or does practice mean something different? All experiences welcome.

I listened to the cds in the evenings, with the lights down low, sitting in positions I learned from prenatal yoga.

Also practised the breathing techniques whenever I could.

It's brilliant that you're feeling positive about the birth - but if I had to give one bit of advice it would be to not put all your eggs in the hypnobirthing basket. Think about interventions etc too, just so you're prepared.

Thanks! I've over researched all sorts of interventions (I come from urban India which I don't know if you know is C section central and vaginal births are considered very abnormal) - and its only after dreaming of forceps, ventouse, diamorphine, spinal blocks etc that I began with hypnobirthing.

'Practice' for me meant listening to the CDs whilst relaxing and falling asleep five minutes in every single time I think you just need to practise the visualising and breathing so that you're familiar with it all by the time the birth comes around. For me listening to the CDs help diminish any pre birth anxieties that led to a more chilled out pregnancy as well.....even if the birth doesn't go exactly according to plan at least you won't be worried and stressing about it in advance!
Good luck

Haha understand the falling asleep. Waiting at the hospital for something, listening to a track and had a solid one hour nap as it relooped and played three times!

Basically just keep going over the scripts, practise the breathing and affirmations

I found ot really useful to rule out the deep relaxtion that didnt work for me, and focus on the ones that did

I listened to the scripts when going to sleep at night and built up a positive reinforcement between listening to them and feeling relaxed and in control.
Then when I went into labour, listening to them again in a quiet dark bedroom meant I could quickly return to that calm, controlled feeling I had been practising.
This saw me through to about 9cm dilated (then I started shouting and swearing after that ).
I swear by hypnobirthing.

I just listened to the MP3 (found it so relaxing I mostly fell asleep). Put the music on in labour and for some reason it completely gave me the rage - DH had to gently remove my laptop as I was about to lob it out the window . Was 10cm when the midwife arrived and insisted she do a visual check as she was trying to fob me off with a nice shower and a paracetamol. So I reckon the practice did some good...

Did yoga and breathing from about 15 weeks once a week. Got the Katherine Graves book and MP3 at 35 weeks and read the book a couple of times and listened to the CD/Affirmations about 20 times, went to sleep with it and when I napped. Mainly found it nice to relax as I got towards the last stages, when I couldn't sleep, when nerves crept in. Also put some positive photos and phrases around the room which kept me in a positive frame of mind.

Did any of the hypnobirthers still find labour agony?

Yep. For me, hypnobirthing only "worked" for the first few hours. From then on it was - how shall I put it - a tad useless.
The pain was completely all-consuming.

Thank you. I'm not the only one then. I've discovered the answer to life's greatest mystery: why do some women suffer agony giving birth and others feel only 'a pressure'? And it has nothing to do with hypnobirthing techniques!