Why Bother With Hypnobirthing?
Would you love to feel calm and in control of your labour and birth?
Do you want to feel as prepared for birth as you possibly can be?
Would you love to stack the odds in your favour of a shorter labour, less risk of vaginal tearing, increased opportunity for a better birth (whatever that looks like to you)?
IF you’ve answered YES to those questions that’s exactly why YOU’LL want to bother with hypnobirthing (and if you’re not quite sure what hypnobirthing is head here first).
It’s a bit like marmite. People love it, people hate it, and a good dose of people aren’t even sure what marmite even is (but have a loud opinion).
Before I started teaching hypnobirthing I had read comments from women saying that it didn’t work for them and I was always curious about why. Why and how can something based on science, physiology and psychology NOT work?
Suffice to say if you use the concepts, skills and techniques that hypnobirthing offers it will support you to have a better birth WHATEVER TYPE OF BIRTH THAT NEEDS TO BE to ensure the wellbeing and safety of you and your baby. If your home birth turns into a c-section you can still create a better environment and keep body and mind calm by using hypnobirthing tools and techniques.
I can’t promise you your dream birth, or the most serene birth in the world with rose petals in a birthing pool, but nor can anyone else. I can promise that hypnobirthing will help you stack the odds in your favour, know your rights, and know the questions to ask so you still feel an element of control.
Let’s get a few things straight:
Hypnobirthing, at least not the style of hypnobirthing I teach, does NOT guarantee or promise you a vaginal birth
It does not promise you 100% serenity or comfort
It does not promise that your birth plan will be carried out to the letter
It does not promise that you will NOT have an induction or a c-section
It does not promise to make you immune to pain (though it definitely increases your comfort levels which helps you feel LESS PAIN)
It does not make you bulletproof, but it gives you heaps of protection and tools to dodge those bullets
You can use hypnobirthing for any type of birth - induction, c-section, forceps, ventouse - and even if that type of birth was low on your list or the last thing you actually wanted, hypnobirthing can still help you to have a better experience than if you were ferried into theatre feeling petrified, clueless as to what might happen next, and feeling way out of control.
What does hypnobirthing do?
It helps you to stay calm, to ask the right questions so that you can make an informed choice if there is a suggestion of intervention. It helps you to understand the role that you play in labour and birth, and that’ s huge. You are constantly influencing your birth either towards the way you want it to be or away from it. AND, that does NOT mean that you are to BLAME if your birth wasn’t exactly how you wanted it.
There are SO MANY factors at play. You do your bit 100%. You cannot control the whole world lovely.
Look at it this way, you can plan the perfect romantic picnic with all the trimmings but if an unexpected storm comes your way (or a car load of hooligans) that’s not the fault of YOUR planning. If you don’t get all bent out of shape about it you can still make the most of it.
Sometimes these types of picnics also turn out amazing because of that great big cow pat you accidentally fell in, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a moment of annoyance, disappointment or fear. And in an ideal world, the cow pat incident wouldn’t have happened.
Birth is a bit like that. We acknowledge that things might not go exactly how we want (but at least we brought the blinking picnic and showed up!). There is understandably a grieving process for mums who didn’t 100% get the births that they wanted, and with time there’s a gradual acceptance that they did all that they could (and the storm was an unpredictable curveball they could not prevent).
There’s only ONE thing that you cannot CHOOSE during labour and that’s to NOT BE THERE. You have to be there, with the right knowledge, every other decision can become an active choice.
Of course there WILL be times that even the best laid birth plan (which is why we create preferences) goes out the window, but a good hypnobirthing teacher will have prepared you for that so that you can begin to navigate the next best route for you and your baby.
As I write this 75%+ of my hypnobirthing mums have told me they had the births they wanted, their dream births, and the remaining 25% still said they benefited from their hypnobirthing knowledge and skills in their pregnancy and labour and had the right birth on the day.
Hypnobirthing is not just the tools and techniques, it’s a way to dramatically improve your physical and emotional state.
The benefits of hypnobirthing:
You feel calm & relaxed during pregnancy & labour which helps you have a better birth (more effective contractions, less pain)
You feel confident & empowered
You know how to create the optimal birthing space (so much more than twinkly fairy lights)
You know how to get the best from YOU
You KNOW the right questions to ask if intervention is suggested (I’m not against intervention, in some situations it’s life-saving but there are also times that it might not be necessary if you personally had the right tools AND optimal environment).
You are less likely to experience a vaginal tear or at least a less severe one (better birthing positions, increased blood flow)
You’ll shorten the length of your labour
You will feel in control even when control looks like deeply relaxing and letting go
You feel informed and actively involved in the process
You understand what is happening during each stage of labour (= less panic about that strange sensation).
Right now no-one can say for definite what your birth story will be, but I know from experience that whatever form it takes you can benefit from hypnobirthing (and your birth plan doesn’t have to be followed to the letter for that to have happened).
I’m running the next series of The Birth Preparation Programme in September and again in October. If you’re around or more than 20 weeks into your pregnancy it’s perfect timing for you. It’s no fluff and no frills but it’s all the BIG stuff that you need for a better birth. Check it out here.
