Hypnobirthing

[TrueOlympian]

Hi all,

I'm pregnant with my first child, and as you can imagine, I'm terrified by the thought of giving birth. I think I'm more afraid of the unknown and whether things will go well or if we will need any emergency care. To overcome this, I have been reading a lot about pregnancy and childbirth, and of course, I came across hypnobirthing.

I like the idea behind hypnobirthing, which is educating women about the childbirth process and making them understand the various stages of labor, so they can work with their bodies. However, I find the hypnobirthing specialists a bit like preachers and I don't like that they don't trust the NHS. During my extensive research, everything I read on the NHS website is actually up to date with medical knowledge. I think they try to sell courses by scaring pregnant women who are in a very vulnerable situation.

To get to the point, I'd like to attend one of the hypnobirthing courses to learn about breathing techniques and what will happen to my body, but I don't want a preachy or scaremongering course. I used to follow KGHypnobirthing, but her videos are now so against the NHS that I don't think it's a good fit for me. I also saw good reviews for The Positive Birth Company, and they seem less preachy. There are also some local practitioners where I live (Edinburgh) with good online reviews. Has anyone attended any hypnobirthing courses, and do you have any feedback?

I'm sorry for the long message, and thank you in advance.

p.s. the username is from a post I saw online

I did the positive birth company hypnobirthing online, but I didn't pay for it my friend gave me her log in, I wouldn't have paid as it was basically the same as the book just online videos

I'm glad I did read the books though as although my birth ended up with a labour ward induction so I didn't use hardly anything from hypnobirthing, apart from the breathing, I understand what was happening and why

Congratulations on your pregnancy OP 😊

I did hypnobirthing with my second child and it was brilliant for me, even though I was sceptic and thought it was tosh right up until I delivered 🤣

I found an independent practitioner, who was an ex midwife at the hospital I had my baby at, she also sat on the hospital council (or whatever its called) so definitely wasn't anti nhs!

I would recommend looking for someone independent and doing a bit of research. Focus on the breathing aspects they teach you and the "turning off the pain" part. It really did work for me, to the point where the labour line didn't believe I was in established labour, kept telling me not to come in and I nearly had DD in the car on the way ha! But it wasn't scary at all - so please don't worry.

Best of luck x

https://positivebirthscotland.com/

I'm not sure if this website would help at all

The Baby Academy do a free introductory course to hypnobirthing. Might give you an insight before you go paying for a course

Congratulations!

I did hypnobirthing with my first. Along with my husband.
We read the book and did a 1:1 course with a qualified therapist in SW london. (Marta Lieb)
Having classes was far better than just using the book.

For our 2nd pregnancy I did a mindful birthing course with Nadia Rafaat in SW london.

On reflection I preferred mindful birthing.

But try them and see.

For both pregnancies / labours I attended a regular yoga class and towards the end had refular reflexology, as well as the Webster chiropractic technique.

Highly recommend!

13 years ago I did natal hypnotherapy from the CDs.

It was amazing.....
My first labour i didnt realise that it actually was proper labour.... I thought i was in early stages.... I was told i would KNOW it was real because I would feel the pain and realise, but i never had that so didnt realise....

I'd chosen homebirth (as the safest option for a low risk pregnancy) and my midwife popped round to check i was not in established labour (with the aim of going back home to bed) and I was 7cm.... this was the first point i realised i was in proper labour.... 17mins later I was a Mummy.

Drug pain free birth with just a tens machine which i onnly got up to level 3 (of 10)

Second time round i knew what labour felt like (NOT pain) and number 2 had a labour of 1 hour 2 mins. (The placenta took longer than the baby).... a drug free, pain free home hypno water birth.

I cant recommend hypno-birthing enough but i also find it extremely useful during dentist appointments and some other unpleasant medical procedures I have needed since

I used the positive birth one, also for free with a code. It was ok but I felt it blamed mums who end up with intervention for 'medicalising' it.

I had to have an induction in the end as they suddenly needed baby out. Once the drip was in, my contractions ramped up to the highest on the toca chart thing with only 10 seconds in between.(Now I realise I had a reaction to the induction drugs). There was no way I could have implemented half the techniques I'd learnt effectively. And the content taught me that despite it being completely out of my control (I was 42 weeks and waters had gone over 24 hours so risks of infection) it was my fault and that's hard to get over. All the way through the labour I was also worrying that I had messed it up and was doing it wrong, which seems ridiculous now but I couldn't do the hypnobirth breathing so obviously I was a failure.

I wish I'd not bothered with it and just gone in with a birth plan of me and baby coming out ok.

I also did the positive birth company course and read about 5 books. For me, it was about knowing all of the information so I could stay calm and know what was happening, and they also teach you to advocate for yourself which is very useful! I had 2 very straight natural births and I think hypnobirthing absolutely helped.

I did the positive birth company. I found it very useful - it goes a lot into understanding what is happening with your body throughout labour which I think helped a lot. Helped me remain calm - for reference I had an induction which are supposed to be awful but mine was a great experience and I basically only had to push twice! That might have just been luck of course but I do think knowing what my body was doing, knowing how to stay calm and knowing what I had the right to ask for / refuse helped me massively.

You just have to take what you want from it - I wasn't into all the positive affirmation stuff so I just disregarded all that.

I buried my head in the sand first birth and it didn't go well , second one I did the positive birth hypno one and the whole thing went a lot smoother.
I honestly wish I'd done it the first time it made the whole experience better (it's still birth so ya know not fun) but I would highly recommend.

I'm sorry you felt this way, I know what you mean! I declined my induction initially against medical advice (waters broken but no contractions) then I knew I had to agree or baby would be in danger, I struggled to do even the breathing as the drip is something else. Even the midwives and doctors were really negative about the drip, saying I will need an epidural and always asking when I'll be having it, I did in the end as it was impossible overreacting to the drip and no break in-between contractions, when I really wanted to try hypnobirthing
But to anyone reading and worried about inductions I still say my birth was positive and me and baby were very well after

I did one with Sarah Ockwell Smith (before she became so well known). It was OK but I think the main take home was the need to relax and trust your own body. I think pregnancy yoga was actually better for this as it helps with the breathing/relaxation/movement needed to generate oxytocin which helps with birth.

I'd recommend it, my birth went nothing like planned but I think it helped (my husband thought so too, he did it with me). It gives you some good techniques

I read "Your baby, your birth", which was helpful about the ideas of hypobirthing, but I think the most helpful thing was that my husband also read it and we talked about what I might want in labour and what we agreed was important so I knew we were both on the same page and he would be able to support me and also advocate for me if needed.

I did pregnancy yoga with my second which I really enjoyed and was good for breathing exercises. There was a group of us who carried on to do baby yoga with the same teacher which was nice and turned into a nice group to meet up with on mat leave too.

I joined a local hypnobirthing group close to where I live to learn more before having my dc. Found it helpful and insightful learning from the teacher and other's experience (she was previously a midwife). Don't be too dismissive of any healthy scepticism of the NHS. Too many NHS trusts are running roughshod over the wishes of the woman in labour and maternity services are getting a reputational battering for good reason in many cases. Too target driven and not intuition led at all. I'd recommend finding local well recommended hypnobirthing lead.

Thank you all for responding. I was wondering, for people who mentioned they had an induction, what type of induction did you have? I read that there are various ways to be induced.

My sister also had an induction and epidural with her first child, and everything went well and fairly quickly (less than 6 hours). With the second, the labour progressed very fast and they didn't have time for an epidural. She's saying that the first birth was her favourite. She never did any hypnobirthing, her ob explained what would happen and she just followed the medical advice. Just to mention she gave birth at a private hospital in a different country and she completely trusted her ob, which I think played a role. I find that here the main issue is that you don't know who is going to be with you in the room when you give birth and whether you agree on interventions etc.

My induction was with pessaries. Not completely straightforward as the first one overstimulated me where I was having no breaks between contractions but wasn't dilated, so they had to give me an injection to reverse it and wait 24hrs before trying again. I wasn't allowed to go home during this time either.
2nd one worked fine and like I said, was a very positive experience.

I did hypnobirthing with my first. It was probably useful for the beginning bit, but I ended up having a very long labour (about 40 hours in total) and so after a while hypnobirthing just wasn't cutting it any more! I ended up having an epidural and a forceps delivery in surgery as a last resort before a C-section.

The second time around I just opted to go straight for an epidural and it was much easier all round. My third ended in an emergency c-section.

My point is - don't set your heart on a particular birth, because your body will have its own ideas. Hypnobirthing sounds lovely, but if your baby is in distress and you are in extreme pain, then you will really value epidurals and competent doctors! By all means try it, but just keep your mind open to the idea that it may not happen like in the hynobirthing books and videos. Some people (usually I find with a later child, e.g. second, third etc.) can manage birth with only breathing and a pool. Others, like me for reasons I cannot say, need doctors and hospitals. Whichever it turns out to be for you is not your fault.

What about pregnancy yoga instead?

I learned breathing techniques at pregnancy yoga that I used in labour and built up some strength too?

I didn't do hypnobirthing before my 1st and really regretted it. I went into a really negative frame of mine during the labour and was convinced I couldn't do it. Hoping to avoid that this time.

I so recommend it. I went into my first birth looking forward to it, and I had a very easy and positive (accidental) home birth. I know that not everyone will have the same experience but I really think having a positive frame of mind did help me. I did PBC as it was in the midst of Covid, but I would invest more into it doing it again.

I didn't hugely buy in to the affirmations/hippy stuff but I loved the birth education and I really felt I understood what was happening and felt in control despite having a very quick labour and us being on our own until the very end. I also did NCT and found PBC much better for the science-y bit.

I did pregnancy yoga too which I'd recommend.

I did hypnobirthing through the NHS with my second.
Didn't really expect much but I was very wrong! It made a gigantic difference and I would highly recommend it to everyone!!!

Can't recommend specifically as we're a million miles from Edinburgh and used a local practitioner where we are, but I found the course really useful in terms of understanding what would happen in labour, and not fearing it.

It was much more in depth than our antenatal classes were in terms of the actual mechanics of labour.

As it turned out my labour was too fast to use some of the techniques we'd learned but the breathing really helped me through the contractions.

I had the drip induction, and I was only getting about one minute or less break in-between contractions which is why I struggled, I also was very slow to dilated despite the contractions. Until I finally agreed to an epidural then went from 2-3cm to 10cm in 3 hours and a very quick and straightforward pushing phase

I couldn’t get on board with the positive birth company course. Just not for me. I did the first few videos but couldn’t get my head around the idea of birth being romantic and a chance to whip out some battery-operated fairy lights, so didn’t feel it was worth carrying on with the rest of it. I was also surprised by how low-budget it was. The audio was a bit patchy in places and it was clearly just filmed on a phone or amateur camera in the presenter’s home. Just didn’t really feel as professional as I expected it to.

I found the C-section UK courses much better (because I know I am having a c-section) but I think if I wasn’t, I’d look for a hypnobirthing course lead by a midwife. I did find a local course and they also did 1:1 sessions (3 for £300) which I thought was a good option. The sessions were all with qualified midwives.