The Positive birth company

[Secondtimemamma]

Has anyone used the positive birth company digital pack and found it helpful? I’ve read the book and found that very interesting, wondering if the digital pack is worth it too. Thank you

I used it in my last pregnancy and found it useful. However in labour it probably went out of the window 🤣

Yes I used it and found it useful.

Good set of videos and the app is great, especially the meditations.

I found it very helpful especially breathing techniques but unsure how different it is to the book, might be repeated?!

Their app- the Freya App is definitely worth getting and listening to pre birth.

I've been doing their online course, I got it for £20 around black Friday.

I enjoyed it, have found lots of the techniques helpful and hope to be able to use them during labour (I haven't had my baby yet so who knows how it will go in practice! )

The only thing I would say is that it is very pro home birth and some of the things that are said about giving birth on a labour ward are perhaps a bit discouraging in that it has less time spent talking about it and she really labours(!) the point of home births having the best stats for no intervention etc.

To add to the above - there is a science section in the digital course that I found most helpful as it helped me understand exactly what my body will be doing when the time comes!

I liked the digital pack... then went on to have an emergency section

I'm about 35% of the way through and feeling like it was worth it for me (I'm 37 weeks so haven't put the information to use yet!) as I felt completely unprepared for birth prior. So far I've done the science bit and the breathing techniques, which have made me feel more prepared already, even if I do forget it all once labour is here

I found it useful. My birth however didn’t go anywhere near to plan and what I will say is that hypnobirthing can be a bit of a double edged sword - there were various outside factors that meant I couldn’t create the fairy lit sanctuary I’d set my heart on thanks to the PBC pack (Covid, short staffed and very busy hospital, no room basically) and various issues actually with my birth that meant I ended up with an EMCS. It was very hard not to feel like I’d failed afterwards, and like maybe if I’d just been that bit more positive and believed a bit harder it might have gone differently - which is definitely thanks to buying into the whole ‘positive’ birth thing. That said, I absolutely wouldn’t have been as calm as I was able to be through everything that went on without the techniques and without the Freya app which really was worth getting.

And then on top of that they definitely embraced the gender woo and were really dismissive of any women who (politely) questioned some of their social media posts about it or expressed concerns. So that would make me very reluctant to give them another penny to be honest.

I was thinking of getting this. So with it do you get an app with meditations?
Also, for those who have purchased it, do you think it's helpful even if having a c section?

An in person class is likely to be there best thing. If you can't do that then the digital pack may help. I would say it's important to go through the info with your birth partner. They are going to be your voice at a time when you can't always advocate for yourself and they are going to have a clear head when you don't, so they can help remind you of things you have forgotten.

Positive birth is great because the focus is not about it being all natural, it's about feeling in control and being able to understand what is happening and why. There is no reason why an emergency c section can't be positive, and since it's often quite a scary situation, positive ought to help? Hopefully?

Funnily enough the original creator of the positive birth movement Milli Hill is openly gender critical if you prefer that, you can follow her directly.

@WakingFromDreams I did the course hoping for a VBAC but ended up with a c-section being arranged at 36 weeks for when I was 39 weeks.

I think it gave me a lot more information about c-sections and also a bit more confidence to ask for certain things. C-sections by nature are very medical. But knowing I could ask for the lighting to be softer, I still got to have the delayed cord clamping, immediate skin to skin etc was great. I knew none of this with my first but then she was an emergency c section, so there wasn't really time for that!

There is also a feee app called Freya which times contractions and I think has the breathing counter thing too? But the digital course was really good, I think dh found it very useful even though it was our second, he knew what he needed to do and more importantly why.

@Florencenotflo
Thank you. That is really helpful. I'll definitely have a look and I think DP will be glad to have more information about it. That's very helpful!

The Freya app isn’t free anymore, it’s a few pounds. I found that worth it though.

One other thing is that if you get the digital pack you can join a closed Facebook group which is for all the people who have the digital pack whose babies are due/ born around the same time as yours. It was absolutely invaluable to me in the early stages with my lockdown baby and not much other support - I’m still a member although I don’t tend to interact anymore my dd is coming up to 18 months - some people still do though. There’s also a general postpartum group. Obviously depends if that’s your thing and as with all fb groups and particularly parenting type ones there’s some total dickheads/ occasional mild drama but surprisingly little and it’s well moderated.

@WakingFromDreams DH says he wishes he'd had it first time round. It explains the mechanics of birth in a very simple way that really helped him understand the different stages. It also helped DH to help me make informed decisions second time around. I think it has been extended now to include post partum advice and support which sounds good.

@Florencenotflo
Thank you. That's useful to know. It's not a bad price either. It's says at the moment it is £39 for 12 months access. I think this could help DP as they're quite worried about the whole birthing process. Thank you 😊