Hypnobirthing in practice: how helpful was it during labour?

[TheWildZebra]

Hypnobirthing - what’s your experience?

I’m 6.5 months and have just finished reading Siobhan Millers hypnobirthing book. It makes it all sound so easy, like we have so much control over our bodies in birth. I want to believe it, it certainly creates a great sense of security and agency over a process that is literally the most unpredictable thing ever.

But how much of it is ideology?

now that I’m showing, I feel like I have someone - colleagues and even near strangers- come up to me on an almost daily basis to tell me their birth horror stories. Surely if hypnobirthing was something everyone practices (and I don’t think it’s mega niche given it’s including in antenatal classes etc) then you’d hear less about these experiences.

I’d like to hear from those who went into birth wanting to rely on hypnobirthing, and otherwise were meant to have very low risk pregnancies/ births. How did it work for you?

https://ebay.io/m/2Y17uU
This is it I think (I’m not the seller!)

The hypnobirthing books I read told me the pain would be manageable if I did some breathing and visualising. That was not the case.

How do you square the historically high rate of deaths during childbirth with the notion that your body “just does it”? I thought people mostly realised that pregnancy and childbirth are fairly risky for women. It’s only of the reasons often mentioned on here for why women are due respect for the process of pregnancy and childbirth…

Thanks. I think that poster feels superior and would like everyone to know.

Peoples’ experiences are wildly different and most because something was one way for one person, doesn’t mean anything for others necessarily.

I came out of my experience absolutely humbled and infinitely more empathetic.

Didn't particularly help.

Like PP I did yoga in my first pregnancy, the breathing with gas and air and a birthing pool got me through to transition, I did find transition quite scary and a bit out of contol feeling both times but I thought the exercises were very helpful for 1st stage.

Was induced. I am afraid did not help one bit.

I had to have the drip, I was nearly 3 weeks over, my hind waters broke, they had to get baby out. I had a reaction to the drip which meant I had contractions at the top of the toca chart with 20 seconds between them for about 12 hours. I had done all the hypno birthing prep. It was hell, I ended getting far more relief by thinking HYPNO WANKERS!! with every contraction.

I think it can be useful if you see it as a way of staying calm and letting go of control in a very stressful situation.

What it cannot do is make your birth perfect or pain free . You cannot control the birth you get, no matter how hard you try. You might need forceps, a section, stitches, etc and if you've been in labour for a very long time some pain releif might actually be a good thing.

in my first labour it was useless. It was short but very painful and not what I expected of a first labour. My second was slower, i knew what to expect of the pain and I actually did use it to stay calm and breathe though it. It was a text book sort of birth but that was luck of the draw rather than the hypno birthing techniques.

I actually believe in hypnosis and use it for relaxation. So I'm not cynical about it but I did find tge book I read very focused on 'perfect natural births' and I think it's a shame the focus isn't on just 'staying calm how your baby comes out one way or another!' It's something that could help calm women when they are having interventions or sections.

I had a calm birth with my first, it might have worked well if I’d heard of it back then. Not too long ago with my second I did a course and bought the cards, read them regularly in the lead up to the birth and it was the biggest waste of my time and money ever. Load of bollocks, when you’re in a certain level of pain no amount of affirmations cut the fucking mustard. None.

It only worked for me with my 3rd, as by that time I understood what I was feeling and what it meant. DCs 1 and 2 I was a screaming, mooing, wailing wreck!

Not at all helpful for me. I only realised with my second baby that I am not a “calm” birther, I need to be loud and shout and vocalise. Trying to breathe and be calm actually made it hurt more! The tracks were also just incredibly annoying to me in labour, though I enjoyed listening to them in pregnancy so it wasn’t all bad.

Not at all. But it depends on your labour. Mine was back to back and complicated.