Hypnobirthing with twins

[Scotlian]

Has anybody tried this? How did it go? How soon/late should you start practising? And are there any CDs you'd recommend which are geared towards twin births?

Listened to a friend's one (she'd copied it off someone else so not sure who it was by ) but ended up getting annoyed at the constant singular "baby": I'm going to be pushing TWO out surely there are differences?

Am 13 wks pg with twins, ds1 is 11 months so don't have time to go to courses or anything but wanted to get organised early. Bit of a control freak, that's me.

Thanks all

Hi Scot. Have a look at this
I haven't used the version for twins but used the original for my birth in Jan. I had the most amazing birth, really peaceful.

Congrats and goodluck

Thank you! Question: are the 2 CDs (pregnancy relaxation /preparation for birth) very different? I mean, if I could just get away with buying one which one would be better in your experience?

Glad to hear your birthing time was so fab. Congratulations

Sorry. been away.
I only got the one, when I was 36 weeks...so used it for about a month. The birthing cd. Have a look at this thread where we discussed hypnobirthing. Hope it helps.

I tried Natal hypnotherapy (preparation for birth) and Hypnobirthing cds with my twins (Natal do a twins one) and it did help, but I actually found books about natural birth much more helpful because with twins they like to micro-manage your labour (epidural, continuous monitoring etc) which would make using hypnobirthing difficult.

So you need to make sure you can argue your case for a natural birth first! Lamaze: Giving Birth With Confidence and Ina May's Guide to Childbirth really helped me, and Emma Mahoney's Twins and How To Survive Them has a good section on natural birth with twins (the other books don't really touch on twins birth unfortunately).

There are not really that many differences with actually pushing out two babies ime - the first one is the hardest of course because they are 'paving the way' and then the other one just slipped out! No two births are the same tho of course.

I think hypnobirthing is a brilliant thing for all labours, inc twins. But for me I didn't really use it because by the time I was pushing I'd had 10hrs of labour and when the mw was shouting 'push' I did, even though I didn't feel the urge to push. If I'd had more confidence in the hypnobirthing I would have said no I'll wait until I feel the urge to push (and done some visualistion etc). I needed forceps with DT1 which was ok cos it was still vaginal birth but I think I could have avoided it if I had had my wits about me (which I didn't really after all that gas and air!)

If you need any more info come and find me on the 'D'ya ever...' threads (usually the top thread in the multiples section )

I gave up on hypnobirthing after about a month of listening to the CDs. I never intended for it to replace (drug-based) pain relief in labour, but hoped that it would give me some relaxation / breathing techniques to make things easier. However, even when I tried to use the techniques during ultrasounds (which I found very painful) it just didn't help at all.

Instead I read Juju Sundin's Birth Skills, which was really helpful. I knew that I was very likely to have an epidural, and be lying on my back from start to finish (I am in Hong Kong, don't know if this is standard procedure in the UK). I did indeed have an epidural, and after 13 hours the boys were born with forceps. I think the Birth Skills that i learnt in the book really helped before I got the epidural, and helped me to have a positive attitude to the whole experience, so I felt calm and in control, even though the room was full of 13 people all speaking Cantonese...

I guess it just takes a bit of trial and error to find ut what will help you. Good luck!