Pregnancy yoga and hypnobirthing the same thing?

[Mamaofdrama]

I’m currently 18 weeks pregnant with my 3rd baby! After 2 assisted births at the hospital, I’m very keen for a relaxed home birth if possible!

I’m doing pregnancy yoga which includes breathing techniques etc

But now I’m looking in to hypnobirthing and I love the thought of it but is it the same/similar techniques as yoga? If so I don’t really fancy spending another £200 on classes?

Has anyone done both? Or would anyone recommend hypnobirthing?

There's a bit of an overlap but they're different.

Pregnancy yoga helps you deal with aches and pains like backache etc and stretch in a safe way - there aren't that many pregnancy-specific classes around. It's also nice to mix with other pregnant women and share experiences/get to know people.

Hypnobirthing is about preparing your mind to deal with birth, having a positive outlook, as well as knowing about the different stages of birth. You might cover relaxation and breathing in both yoga and hypnobirthing.

Positive birth company does online hypnobirthing classes (access to a load of videos basically) for £35 and they're quite good. I've never done a class for £200 odd as it always seemed exorbitant to me. It's not like they have high insurance or equipment costs or anything!

@HustonBess thank you! I’ve been loving the yoga at the moment we’re learning a different breathing technique each week.

The hypnobirthing price has varied between £150 and £200 but its all for different course lengths etc

Maybe I’ll try the online course instead
Thank you! X

I did both and there was a little bit of overlap but that was actually really helpful - we did breathing techniques in yoga and our relaxation at the end of each session used a script that was quite like the hypnobirthing ones. I found that that meant that when we did those in hypnobirthing I got the techniques much faster than other people and found it much easier to 'go into' the scripts. However, hypnobirthing included a lot of other things that weren't covered in yoga (and not all yoga classes do breathing techniques and visualisations).

I found hypnobirthing very helpful in the earlier stages of labour - unfortunately it wasn't so useful for me in later labour, but that was at least in part because mine was badly managed by midwives who refused to believe I was in active labour (they've since actually apologised for their mishandling of the situation) so I was put in a more stressful situation than necessary because baby became distressed etc. I'm still glad I did it - it definitely did help in those early stages and I think it might have helped more in later stages in different circumstances.

My hypnobirthing classes were free at my local hospital (lucky, I know) - I'm sure not I'd have paid £200 for them, but I would have paid £35!

Just going to agree with the PP that the Positive Birth Company online course is absolutely brilliant!

Thank you all

Like others I did pregnancy yoga from 17 weeks and then the Positive Birth Company digital pack, which was £20 in a one off sale last month. Definitely recommend doing both as despite the fact I initially assumed I'm too practical for "airy fairy-ness" I found the practical knowledge that hypnobirthing equipped me with was really useful in addition to yoga, which also helped me when unable to sleep or baby was in an uncomfortable position during pregnancy. We didn't use everything from hypnobirthing, like the scripts etc we didn't bother with as we couldn't stop laughing and likewise I found that part a drag at yoga but everyone has different take aways

I had my first baby less than a week ago. The labour was reasonably quick (9 hours total) and I used a tens machine plus gas and air from 7cm dialated. Most people in our NCT group paid hundreds for the same woman (we live v locally to her) and I don't think they had/have anything more than we got other than more money to lose if they feel it wasn't worthwhile.

Congratulations @cardboard33 thank you I think I’m just going to go with the positive birth company! This is my 3rd and to be honest I just want it for the relaxation techniques which I could easily do at home x