Hypnobirthing Fail please help

[FeelingFlat]

I'd read about hypnobirthing a few years before being pregnant and loved the theory. When I became pregnant I fully committed to hypnobirthing and felt so relaxed and so so excited about the birth.

The first few hours were spent beautifully relaxed in a birthing pool and I was so confident that I would birth in the pool with no interventions. Many many hours and all interventions later my baby arrived via c section. In the immediate aftermath I was just happy to have a beautiful healthy baby and had absolutely no time to reflect on the birth.

Since, I've had multiple friends that have had the birth I 'wanted' and now my emotions are very hard to deal with.

Please please do not remind me I should just be happy I have a healthy baby, I count my blessings all day every day.

Has anyone felt similar when they were so confident in hypnobirthing and has now lost all faith to give birth again (this is my first child) I have such sad feelings about the c section as I spent my child's birth in a state of pure panic thinking I was going to die.

:(

I did hypnobirthing for both my dc. The first time it worked and was a v easy birth, the second birth was awful mainly because of how I was treated by the midwife which took months to get over.
You may have a different and better experience next time,

How long ago did you have your baby?

Birth is utterly unpredictable. Hypnobirthing sells you the lie that you can have some control. Before intervention like a c section was possible the risk of death to the mother was about 15%, baby mortality was much higher.

Let me put it bluntly... why does the type of birth you had matter?

Have you really noticed any lasting impacts on your physical wellbeing or your baby’s? Assuming not... then who cares how your DC exited your uterus? She made it out, and now you and she can get on with living your lives!

As a culture we place so much emphasis on the birthing experience... but honestly, magical or crappy, it’s maximum about 48 hours, usually MUCH quicker, and then it’s over. I don’t think you should feel hung up about it, if you can help it at all. I was once told “the only birth you’re almost guaranteed not to have is the one you planned”.

Sorry it didn’t work out how you planned but in reality as you know we can’t really plan anything in life with absolute certainty . Most hospitals have consultant midwives who can see you postnatally to go over your birth if you might find that helpful . When you’re ready they can also discuss future pregnancy and birth and support you through that when and if it happens . And it sucks doesn’t it when others had the birth you wanted .

Contact your delivery unit and request a debrief.

Find out how everything happened. Tell them you believed you were going to die.

Hypnobirthing isn't just about a "magical" birth, it's absolutely about empowering you and helping you to manage wherever your birth takes you. I am so so sorry you were frightened and nobody took the time to reassure you. Perhaps that would have helped to calm your breathing and in turn your mind.

Emergency's happen and it's very easy for the medical professionals to forget that there's a human being there, not just an incubator for a baby. Even if you were having a section, you should have been reassured regularly by the people not operating that you were ok.

Book a debrief. I am so sorry you feel so sad xxx

Hypnobirthing is brilliant in theory. The problem is that every birth is different and there’s a million things that can go wrong or force doctors to intervene. I really wanted a ‘natural’ birth (not hypobirth exactly but water birth with minimal help and pain relief) but it wasn’t to be. Ended up with an epidural and assisted delivery hooked up to a million machines. Luckily my baby was delivered safely and I was unharmed and In the end that’s the only thing that really matters. Try not to compare yourself to your friends. What happens during birth is largely out of your and their control.

I would speak to HV, OP. In some areas there are specialist perinatal services that can help you work through some of the difficult feelings surrounding all of this.

Hi @FeelingFlat, I experienced similar with DC3 although we never even made it into the pool as my waters had been broken for 36 hours without contractions. He was delivered in a room jam packed with medics and on oxygen for half an hour.

Similarly with DC1, after a lovely unmedicated hypnobirth, I had a retained placenta leading to a load of intervention and stress.

DC2, however, was a textbook hypnobirth.

After DC1s birth I felt really traumatised and would mutter 'syntometrine' in my sleep apparently!

What helped, apart from just time, was a release session with my hypnobirthing teacher before DC2 was born. It was very therapeutic to relive and let go of the emotions. Just saying how I felt out loud was half the battle to be honest.

With DC3, who is now 11 weeks, I still feel emotional about his birth but I have the benefit of experience and knowing that I did the absolute best I could in the circumstances I was faced with.

Did you use a teacher? I'm sure they would do a session with you if you asked

I’m so sorry you had a traumatic experience. I was a bit suspicious of some aspects of hypnobirthing but for other reasons also had a traumatic delivery and felt very out of control. I really get that you need to grieve and I would treat it like that. I don’t know if I will manage to have another child but it’s three and a half years on and it feels as if I might. I think giving birth is such an ambivalent process, there is the possibility of life and the possibility of death, it is frightening but natural, painful with out that necessarily signalling danger - these are such complicated feelings to exist simultaneously and I think because it’s so hard to comprehend there is a tendency to try to simplify it in the advice we give to women. This is on all sides. And it’s well meant but minimises what we go through and what it takes.
I am so sorry I don’t really know what to say but I think it is ok to spend some time processing this enormous thing you went through. I think many women do. And I think many go on to have more children.

To those with kind replies thank you so so much, it really means a lot xxxx

@HJE17 whilst I do understand your point it was a terribly traumatic experience. If I started a thread saying I had a terrible car crash and was rushed to hospital and thought I was dying you wouldn't question my anxiety or fear. But we're supposed to just understand that birth can go that way and deal with it.

I absolutely understand your feelings, I had an emergency c-section with my first after placing a lot of faith in hypnobirthing. Part of the reason I struggled was a constant battle between my emotional mind and my rational mind.
I had a vbac with my second, which did settle some of my emotions. However i’m not sure whether time would have healed anyway. I probably swung to the opposite extreme and became more determined than previously.

I did a hypnobirthing course, but the emphasis was not on having a natural birth - it was about remaining calm during a painful and stressful time, it focused on asking the appropriate questions and working together with our midwife and any other health professional present. We discussed epidurals, C-sections alongside the natural pain relief methods and vaginal delivery. Even though we had an emergency during labour which nearly ended in forceps (then baby came too quickly), my husband and I felt totally in control of the situation with all our questions answered by the team. I would go as far as saying that unfortunately your course didn’t prepare you for all eventualities and therefore you felt the control and choice taken away from you. I would request a debrief in hospital and for any future births, find a hypnobirthing instructor who prepares you for all outcomes (even the most serious emergencies).

• emotional- I wanted an intervention free birth *rational- you have a healthy baby

Hypnobirthing sells you the lie that you can have some control

I completely agree with Sinister. I'm sorry you feel so unhappy about your birth I felt very similar. I did pregnancy yoga with all the chat about avoiding intervention, all the mantras about my body knowing what to do.

Yeah, if my body was left to its own devices it might have killed my baby. I had obstetric cholestasis so induction was necessary and it was horrible. Nothing like the water birth I had hoped for where I'd barely need any pain relief so I could experience every moment of my baby's birth. When everyone else on my pregnancy yoga Facebook page was saying how wonderful their births were and how they needed no pain relief, just Golden Thread Breathing, I wanted to punch them all.

15 months on I still don't like thinking about my son's birth but I realise it wasn't unusual and it wasn't 'my fault.' I get it, OP, and I hope you feel better soon.

The hospital I birthed at offered a thing called ‘birth after thoughts’ where you go and a midwife talks you through your notes and explains what happened and why, you can ask questions and say how it was for you. I recommend calling your midwife team and asking for something similar. It helped me feel better although I didn’t really expect it to. Good luck

I remember being pregnant for the first time and swallowing this idea that a drug free waterbirth was the gold standard of childbirth, and I was going to do that because that’s what educated women like me did.

(Bloody NCT propaganda - and I didn’t even do NCT classes!)

I even considered trying hypnobirthing, but that was far too woo for me. I had to throw the book away when it said that the urge to push doesn’t exist, and women who say they experienced it were kidding themselves. How I laughed when I felt the urge to push. I would have loved to have imagined away such a horrible sensation.

But I digress, OP. Be kind to yourself Hypnobirthing isn’t a golden ticket to a perfect birth, and we shouldn’t have been sold the “perfect birth” as a dream in the first place.

I had a drug free waterbirth and it was the most mentally and physically traumatising event of my life. I felt so cheated for thinking it’d be wonderful and empowering.

I'm sorry you are feeling like this.

I did the hypnobirth class too, but ended up having a (failed) induction and then a low emergency C - Section due to high blood pressure.

Whilst I feel I had it relatively easy and was extremely thankful for the smooth section I had, I did feel a little let down by the hypnobirthing...

My course focused very much on the "natural birth" and your bodies ability to deliver your baby. There was very little information on what happens when things don't go to plan, as apparently, if you were truly hypnobrthing, this wouldn't be an issue.

I gave feedback to the hospital, that whilst the course was very good on some aspects and helped me to remain calm throughout my pregnancy, I left very unprepared for the induction and the section.

After a difficult birth, it is understandable that you feel a bit bewildered after whilst you process what happened.

I also agree with the posters who have commented that so much emphasis is put on having a "birth experience". As the midwife who told a very stressed me, just before my sections, it really is just a means to an end before getting your baby. Anything else is a bonus.

I hope you find some closure.

Hypnosis can do certain things really well, but inspite of what they say, your mind is not 100% in charge of your body. You can't hypnotise away a too large or badly positioned baby.

I had the same experience as you during my first birth, although I actually felt that the hypnosis helped me remain calm and positive.

(I have successfully used hypnosis for other things since, including before having major surgery, and it's great, but it can't do certain things well at all.)

Just read that back - I didn't use hypnosis instead of anaesthesia for the surgery - that would be a bit too much of a leap of faith.

Hi OP,
I felt very similar after my first birth. I followed the Marie Mongan hypnobirthing with an instructor and was so relaxed and positive, confident that I would birth at home in a pool with minimal pain.

I did birth at home, although not in the pool, and only after hours and hours of agony (badly positioned baby) and an episiotomy because I was too exhausted to push effectively. Whisked off to hospital afterwards due to meconium in the water and for my extensive stitches. I felt traumatised and like a total failure, and sobbed for ages because it was so terrible and I was certain my child would never have siblings.

What helped me was hearing other women tell their ‘real’ birth stories, and being able to make sense of information that I had heard before, but couldn’t process properly because I was avoiding anything ‘negative’ E.g. that while our bodies might know what to do up to a point, we have much more painful and riskier labours than other mammals due to having larger brains and narrower pelvises for walking upright. Most hypnobirthing success stories seem to be with second labours, which on average are easier anyway.

I went for a very medicalised birth for DC2, and thought the epidural was wonderful! I actually had a third baby and went back to hypnobirthing - this time using the Natal Hypnobirthing and Mindful Hypnobirthing approaches which are less extreme in their claims than the Mongan method imo (DC3 born at home in under 2 hours, probably more to do with being a third than the hypnobirthing, but it did help me stay relatively calm!)

Be kind to yourself and ask for a debrief if you need one. Know that you did great under the circumstances, and anything unforeseen was out of your control anyway.

I did hypnobirthing with my first and it didn't turn out as I'd hoped.
Ds1 was small for dates do I had to be induced then he went into distress and had to be delivered by high cavity forceps and then spent 5 days in special care.
However, I'm still glad I did it as I looked forward to the birth before all that happened and was calm during labour despite being on my own until fully dilated and it would all have been a lot worse if I hadn't.

DS2's birth was completely different - a bit of gas and air and out he popped.

I'm sorry for your experience and I hope you will come to terms with it in time and go on to have an easier birth in the future.