Apparently you don't have to push??

[dappymoo]

Ok I am confused.
I've been looking into this hypnobirthing stuff as I am super nervous and anxious and aware that this will not help..!

So a book I'm reading (and some stuff on the internet) says that you can "breathe" the baby out, and that pushing is just something that has come about relatively recently due to the misconception that if instruments aren't used, we need to push ourselves.
It also says that animals don't make a big song and dance about pushing, they just "expel". And even women in comas have given birth apparently too?
And there's more about how pushinh tenses the muscles and closes sphincters etc...
This does make sense to me, and the idea of a calm, gradual birth is all very nice...

but...
Why does everything I have ever heard/ known about birth involve "PUSH!" and "the pushing stage" etc? Seriously, do we just go against everything they say in hospital. I plan to talk about this with my midwife, but are they really open in hospitals to you "refusing" to push...?
I don't really get it! Or, like a video I just watched, can you try and breathe the baby out and if you need to hurry (baby in distress) then you go for the more forced pushing?

I am so up for hypnobirthing and would love to try a homebirth but at the same time there is a worried cynic in me!

Well surely that might be part of it?

Right away after I had DD1 I wanted another to try to do a better job of it. And tbh, even though I ended up with the same result again (actually worse to some degree as DD2 was distressed, we were all worried, the spinal needle would not go in, I had a general and afterwards needed to be recatheterised as I couldn't wee!!) it kind of did help. This was for a couple of reasons: labour was nicer the second time around and also because it confirmed for me that there is something fundamentally wrong with my pelvis that I can't control.

Was your DH really frightened by the emcs/complications? Sometimes I think men are more likely to have not considered that things might not be fine, and then suddenly to be in the hospital holding a strange baby (who you really don't know how to look after) with your wife undergoing some procedure which has full-on risks must be hellish. When I was pregnant with DD2 my DH was quite relaxed about my birth-related deliberations, but now we're not even trying for DC3 but if there is one I have promised it will be a leisurely, calm planned section. Neither of us wants to hear a baby's heartbeat go through the floor and stay there again.

Maybe if you did go for a debrief with someone medical and your DH came too it might help him understand that things could be different next time? PALS will know who you can speak to to arrange a meeting.

Yeah you're right it IS part of it. :) But I'm a twin myself so also really, really couldn't imagine growing up without a sibling.
Yeah I think DH was very scared by the unexpected detour the birth took. We'd done NCT classes and he was the most irritatingly vocal member of the natural birth lobby in the room but hadnt' actually thought what that might entail in terms of seeing me bellowing at him for a good 19 hours. He also didn't take on board that you can do everything RIGHT and it still all goes tits up. Plus he wouldn't read any books or even my birth plan til the day before... and then left it at home when we went to the hospital. He doesn't see the point in counselling. He couldn't even see the point in me getting my notes. He's not very good at emotions sigh.