any tips on getting over fear of childbirth?

[Chequers]

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Yes, stop listening to other people's experiences, it just makes you needlessly worried.

just a quicky here.

i can fully relate to your fear ... iwas very scared teh first time...stayed tense through out labour...

second time around i was scared ... knowing i had done it before helped me...but also scared me.

i found this poem on teh net somehwere...i read it alot and really really really tried to BELIEVE EVERY WORD OF IT...

Confronting fear

Birth is the strongest force a woman normally experiences.
If there is harmony with this force, your body and mind will enter into a different state,
One that surrenders totally to natural forces.

Labour and birth are a matter of believing, trusting, and listening to your instincts-
A matter of getting close enough to yourself
and to the information you are receiving from your body.

You must rely on yourself.
You cannot rely on anyone else, a partner, a support, a coach; they cannot do it for you.
Their support and love are invaluable,
Making it possible for more than just yourself to share in this most beautiful act of love,
The joyful bringing forth of life.

Tune into your labour, unfold your inherent birth knowledge.
Use your own rhythm,
Get behind it and don't have your mind in any time of the future.
Accept each contraction one at a time,
Just as you expect the sun rising each morning, without question, one day at a time.

A factor in labour is the intense sensation.
It is beyond the expectations of anyone who has never given birth.
This intense sensation is simply part of the whole, and when there is no fear, it simply is.
It is nothing more,
Nothing to be afraid of,
Nothing to waste your time and energy fighting against.

and having come out the other side..after an easy peasy labour (of not tensing up and making my body go all soft and floppy)i swear it is sooo true xxx

i really hope this helps you

Hi

Sorry you feel this way. I did not (looked forward to labour - it was a tough one, but forgotten the moment I held my baby) so I have no idea how you feel, but I do want to say that it sounds normal to me to be scared, and to take your feelings seriously, but try not to let them run away with you.

Yes, it hurts, but there is something beautiful at the end of it. And there is pain relief if you need it, from gas and air (highly recommended) to an epidural (never thought I would need one, but very effective).

Sounds like hypnobirthing maybe up your street if what you want is to learn to look at labour in a positive way.

I hope it goes really well and that you have a straightforward labour and lovely baby at the end.

Chequers I'm not going to deny it hurts but the baby will come out one way or the other. What you should focus on is what happens when you have a tiny baby to look after afterwards!
I have had two good births. You will find your horror stories and then you'll hear good experiences. Do hypnobirthing if it helps you or maybe find yourself a doula to support you with it (I don't have experience of doulas but there are lots of people on here who do) You'll be fine.

god i love that last bit...it is sooo true...'when there is no fear it simply is'

ive gone all goose bumpy

hi chequers,
I had a great thread on another site about how to use positive thinking during childbirth, a lot of people there gave me lots of great tips and I ended up making the following list (would link you to the thread but you need to pay to view it)

I have made myself a list of things to go through and think about which will hopefully help. Will brief DP too. Unless of course KG really does want to come and be my doula???? hehe
anyway, this is my list
1.) Remember the pain WILL end. There will be breaks, and it isn't forever. (and there's a fab prize at the end)

2.) Relax. Make a conscious effort to stay calm and focused and not get too tense.

3.) Keep active.

4.) Accept the pain. Be in control of what is happening and work through it.

5.) If 4.) isn't working then try distraction.

6.) Vocalise. low ooohing noises instead of shouty screaming.

7.) Don't think about drugs or things taking the pain away.

8.)Remember to breathe!

I did antenatal yoga for 20 weeks with each my pregnancies,
I really enjoyed getting in touch with my body and the feeling that babies can arrive in this world in a calm controlled fashion.
I didn't feel like I was going into the unknown and as somewhat of a control freak in real life, I really enjoyed feeling like I was taking control of the situation and not sitting back waiting for it to happen to me.

Giving birth is a huge physical thing for your body to go through, an elderly friend of mine likened it to running a marathon, you would't enter into it without training.

Have a look through the archives, there are a few threads asking for positive birth stories, there were loads.. (will go hunting in a minute for you)

I have heard that hypnobirthing can help provide positive birth experiences...

Will go hunting...

also a few people recommended a book called "childbirth without fear" which I never got around to reading.

have you got a good birth support? a female support? someone who has been there and done it? a mother, a sister, friend or doula?

do some inspiring reading

Janet Balaskas, Ina May Gaskin,Sheila Kitzinger are my top 3 favourites

their books also cover the mechanics of labour, how it works, what your body does, which actually demystifies the whole thing

it reminds you this is a natural process, and learning more and understanding more, will help you go with rather than fight against the process

hypnobirthing a good idea , have heard lots of positive things about it

is it a general fear of the whole thing or a particualr fear about one aspect? always best to look at, confront and deal with fears well before you set foot in the labour room

have you considered a home birth? being in your own environment, free to move, vocalise, go to the loo, eat, sleep , bellow etc as you need to can be incredibly helpful in making labour a better experience.

beansontoast, that's a really fab poem

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Would really really recommend Active Birth yoga classes. One of the good things about the one I did in Bristol is that women bring in their babies and tell their birth stories. It makes you see that there are all kinds of normal in childbirth. And all of the women were just thrilled to have their babies.

Things I found helpful:
It will end. Even if you have a 48 hour labour it's such a short time in terms of your entire life that you can get through anything.
(Easy for me to say, though, I had 2 quick labours)

Also, I found it really helpful to find out as much as possible about the biology of labour. Which hormones are acting where, how the muscle contractions force the baby out, how the baby retracts to turn for the last push etc. Bizarrely, as my contractions changed and evolved I could think "wow - that stinging feeling is the baby's head crowning - I'm going to meet him".

Make sure you're going to have the right people with you when you're birthing. if you think it wouldn't be reassuring to have your partner there, don't be afraid to get someone else in. Etc...

Its really not all that bad - honest. You may find that as you get nearer the time you start to feel a bit better about it but just in case.....

...ignore screams in the labour ward - some women find that sort of thing helps them focus, it's not neccessarily all down to pain,

avoid silly labour programs / sensationalist stuff

remember you have a lot of options for pain relief and you don't have to make your mind up about what you want until you are in labour

if it hurt that much people would only do it the once.

I can honestly say I am a total wimp and completely terrified of hospitals and medical procedures but I am about to have DC3 after two long labours with DCs 1 and 2(I heart my epidurals )

I've heard good things about hypnobirthing but not tried it myself.

well, you know it will be painful, but you just have to remember that the pain will end, and you will get a fantastic baby at the end.

re the screaming, if you do need to be vocal, low ooohing/mooing noises are much better than screaming.
I can't remmeber exactly why but will try and find out

i won;t lie, it is painful and it is hard work BUT it is a different pain to others you feel in your lifetime

firstly, it builds slowly, so your endorphins kick in and help deal with it

second, it is a positive pain , a productive pain, you get a BABY at the end of it

third, it won;t go on for ever, it will end

you need to go into labour like you would go into battle, strong, focused and eye on the prize! you will , hopefully, powerful, empowered and strong.

needing to scream, shout, swear is quite normal .

some women are quiet and go into themselves, some don't

a certain amount of fear is normal , as it is fear of the unknown too, but taht is ok. don;t allow the fear to overtake you though

i won;t lie, it is painful and it is hard work BUT it is a different pain to others you feel in your lifetime

firstly, it builds slowly, so your endorphins kick in and help deal with it

second, it is a positive pain , a productive pain, you get a BABY at the end of it

third, it won;t go on for ever, it will end

you need to go into labour like you would go into battle, strong, focused and eye on the prize! you will , hopefully, powerful, empowered and strong.

needing to scream, shout, swear is quite normal .

some women are quiet and go into themselves, some don't

a certain amount of fear is normal , as it is fear of the unknown too, but taht is ok. don;t allow the fear to overtake you though

Chequers - I have a copy of Childbirth Without Fear you are welcome to. Let me know and I will post my email for you to get in touch.

Yeah, that is so true. The pain is different to normal pain as it is there for a reason and means your bosy is doing what it should be doing.

I had really bad MS but it wasn't having a tummy bug for months as I knew what was wrong with me and that there was a reason for it - I was making arms, legs, kidneys etc for my baby. When i get tummy bugs there is all that, arghhh what is wrong with me?, how long is this going to last? What caused it? etc etc

With DD1 I told myself that for 1 day that year I would be in a hell of a lot of pain but then it would be over - that seemed to help me.

Chequers - the screaming is entirely optional - I went through 14 hours of induced labour with contractions every minute at least without managing to scream. I did do some fairly creative swearing though. However most of it was frankly a bit boring - we did sudoku.

Come on....if you are the sort of person to be filmed giving birth, are you more likely to be the quiet type who just gets on with things, or are you likely to be the ooh so slightly dramatic type?

I think labour brings out how you are though - if you are a sweary little bugger under stress, you'll curse like a trooper. If you are a screamer, you'll probably do that too, it doesn't actually make a blind bit of difference (though the latter will give you a sore throat afterwards).

It's one day and you have to do this really strenuous thing which is mentally and physically challenging but you get this amazing prize at the end, so it's worth it.

I had one of the worst case scenario births - having booked a midwife unit I ended up with a fully medicalised birth, emergency CS at the end and then my liver went kaput three days later and yet I'm doing it again and this time I'm doing it at home. If it was really that bad, I'd have stopped at one.

Seriously..theres nothing to worry about..go with the flow..chillout!!
I was scared 1st time, but you know what i managed very well, gas and air 8.5hrs later baby!
You will surprise yourself as to how good you are!
Ignore everyones horror stories and what you see on tv, is what they want you to see.
2nd/3rd/4th time was a breeze, and i did actually enjoy giving birth..just focus on meeting your baby..you'll forget about everything else.

You can get cds to help you relax in pregnancy - sort of train you to hypnotise yourself into a calm state. I used them second time round and it did help me calm down, plus if nothing else, I had a great sleep when I dozed off during them (oops!). Can't remember how I got hold of them, but try googling hypnobirthing. The classes themselves were so expensive I tried the cheapo option.

And i never found it all that painful..infact dentist drill or giving birth..id give birth any day. Same here whomovedmychoc...i have 4 and my mum had 7..if it were that bad we'd all only ever have 1.
I'm betting that you are going to be fabulous and a brillant mum.

Hypnobirthing sounds like it could be great for you- someone else on my course was there coz her midwife told her it'd be the best thing for her- she was petrified of the whole thing.
She said she felt positive for the first time afterdoing the course, and she's given birth now but I've not seen her since her due date (still had bump then!) so haven't got her side of how the actual birth went.
I've not given birth (this time) yet either, but the positive, calming focus from the course (that DH has too, not just hormonal pg woman!) has been brilliant. The courses are expensive, but we've already found it as 'skills for life' not just labour. DH is able to de-stress, and he figured out how to control his back pain using techniques we were using on the course. The key thing I've found was that we (DH and me) couldn't do it from a book- I'd end up telling him how to do it, and we both work better as a team learning to do it together (I had been looking at doing Gowrie motha's gentle birth method, but decided from reading that we'd better learn to do positive visualisations, etc, properly so invested in hypnobirthing instead of all the therapies in GBM).
Last time I had a 'good' birth; despite not being able to talk/think about labour before hand, I was very anxious. However, I think it would have been better had I learned the hypnobirthing stuff before ( but I didn't KNOW then how good DH would be at supporting me, the investment really is in you birth partner using the skills to help you relax- I know now I won't be able to focus myself all the time, I WILL need his help).

Its good that you can identify your issues now, while you can do something about it!
Lots of other people have given you good tips and advice, hope you find something that works for you

Having had two hypnobirthing babies I have to say that it was well worth it. I literally slept through most of the labor and birth of ds1 and ds2 was too short and hectic to really sleep through but managed just fine through all the craziness.

Nothing truly prepares you for giving birth because it's different for everyone. It was nothing like I thought it was going to be. All you can do is arm yourself with knowledge and tools to cope with whatever situation.

I would recommend "Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method" by Marie Mongan. It is a very easy read, with really wonderful information.

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