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Hypnobirthing may be calm, but it is not always quiet.

birth· Calm· From mindfulmamma· hypnobirthing

10 Oct

Hypnobirthing is calm but not as you know it.

How calm can give you your voice.

By Sophie Fletcher

Author of Mindful Hypnobirthing Instagram @mindfulmammauk

You’re about to give birth.  How do you think you are going to be?  Quiet, noisy? What would you prefer?  To be calm on the inside but noisy on the outside, or calm on the outside but noisy on the inside?  Or perhaps you want to be both.

Birth is a primal event, it’s instinctive and powerful and sometimes unpredictable. And each one is totally unique. You may find you are quiet, but on the day you may feel you need to make noise and that is ok. In fact, both are completely normal when they are instinctive.

As a hypnobirthing teacher and doula with over 10 years experience I have seen a lot of hypnobirthers. I have seen quiet hypnobirthers, so quiet, that midwives didn’t know they were in labour, and I have seen noisy hypnobirthers, so noisy that I could hear the midwives whispering “she’s not really hypnobirthing is she?”.

Well, breaking news she is hypnobirthing.  She is vocal and active because that’s a normal instinctive birth behaviour. What she isn’t is frightened, anxious or afraid of what people might think when she roars. She may not look calm on the outside but she is in a great space internally.

True, calm may look quiet, but sometimes it looks strong and primal and noisy. Internal calm is the very antithesis of quiet – it is a woman who knows she has a voice. She is prepared, a woman who knows deep down that she can do this, whatever happens.

Calmness it’s an inner state of mind.  It’s a place where you are present, aware, connected.  A state of mind in which you can make decisions from a place of strength rather than fear. It enables women to slow down, consider and reflect, to step away from kneejerk decision making that can so often lead to regret or loss of power.

Research is beginning show how anxiety can interfere with choice-making cells in the pre-frontal cortex, the part of our brain associated with high order thinking. When anxious or desperate, we eagerly accept and apply advice, good or bad, we are less discriminating.  When you are calm internally you can make informed choices because you understand consent and can find the time and space to make the right choices for you.

Calmness is also about the external environment you choose to birth in, reducing interruptions, thinking about the things you can see, feel or hear. Hypnobirthing helps you understand the unconscious processes that go on every moment of our loves, the constant interaction between the unconscious and environment. They give you the ability to learn how to manage your own space, and to organise it in your own unique way of ‘calm’.  It encourages you to explore that aspect of yourself, and to take make the birth space your own. To be comfortable with moving things around, rather than thinking “am I allowed to move the bed”.

If you are birth partner, you may “trying to be calm” on the outside for your partner but internally be in turmoil.  You may also project your own anxieties and fears onto your partner. Your assumptions about the noises she makes, may be based on your own learned expectations of birth, and tap into your need to ‘rescue her’. Instead, mindfulness based approaches can teach you to be observant of your own feelings, to be comfortable with your own discomfort.  As a partner you will learn techniques to keep the birth space free of your own anxieties and to be a responsive but not reactive birth partner.

By learning certain aspects of your own behaviour and by understanding birth, as a birthing partner, external calmness can be a genuine reflection of your internal state and an acceptance of her experience.  Your partner will know and feel this deeply.

For all those of you about to birth, know this – calm can be internal, it can be external. Calm can be quiet, it can be noisy but most of all it is powerful and it is strong. Calm creates the space for the energy of birth to roll through, and for you to feel in control of letting go free of inhibition, free of fear and connected with the deepest part of yourself.

 

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01

“The course was brilliant, although we were somewhat sceptical beforehand it was great experience, and a super day to share together our expectations and needs.”

2018-10-10T15:58:21+00:00
“The course was brilliant, although we were somewhat sceptical beforehand it was great experience, and a super day to share together our expectations and needs.”
https://www.mindfulmamma.co.uk/testimonials/01/

02

“I’m looking forward to my birth experience and left the venue with a smile on my face and a bounce in my stride. This Course should be standard for every pregnant mother and her birth partner.”

2018-10-10T16:06:37+00:00
“I’m looking forward to my birth experience and left the venue with a smile on my face and a bounce in my stride. This Course should be standard for every pregnant mother and her birth partner.”
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“Thanks for a brilliant class. I feel so much more relaxed about the whole thing and as a lovely bonus am now sleeping at night (after practising with the CD). Feel like a different person.”

2018-10-10T16:08:44+00:00
“Thanks for a brilliant class. I feel so much more relaxed about the whole thing and as a lovely bonus am now sleeping at night (after practising with the CD). Feel like a different person.”
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01

“I just wanted to say thank you, for such an interesting relaxing and empowering day. Both Martin and I really enjoyed it, and he’s got just what I hoped he would out of it – some confidence in his own abilities as a husband, supporter, advocate and future Dad!”
2018-10-30T17:01:06+00:00
“I just wanted to say thank you, for such an interesting relaxing and empowering day. Both Martin and I really enjoyed it, and he’s got just what I hoped he would out of it – some confidence in his own abilities as a husband, supporter, advocate and future Dad!”
https://www.mindfulmamma.co.uk/testimonials/01-2/

02

“I just wanted to drop you an email to thank you for the fantastic course on Saturday. We have talked about almost nothing else since we left your home and both feel that we have gained so much from it.”
2018-10-30T17:01:30+00:00
“I just wanted to drop you an email to thank you for the fantastic course on Saturday. We have talked about almost nothing else since we left your home and both feel that we have gained so much from it.”
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03

“I came in with a very sceptical husband who was telling his mates on Saturday night how fantastic the course was and giving tips to those who are going to be Dads later in the year.
We also learned so many simple things that we wouldn’t have even thought about before like the fact that I find it so much easier to relax when Mike is touching me.”
2018-10-30T17:01:51+00:00
“I came in with a very sceptical husband who was telling his mates on Saturday night how fantastic the course was and giving tips to those who are going to be Dads later in the year. We also learned so many simple things that we wouldn’t have even thought about before like the fact that I find it so much easier to relax when Mike is touching me.”
https://www.mindfulmamma.co.uk/testimonials/03-2/

04

“I would just like to commend you on designing and running such a really fantastic course! It really has empowered both of us,to the point where most of our fears about birth have disappeared already. We have always wanted to go down the natural birth route, but felt that there was not enough support & advice out there about how to do it drug and pain free. Your course, although short, covered pretty much all aspects that I felt were missing from our antenatal classes & many more. Vic now feels a lot more confidant, and I actually feel like I have a proper role in the whole event, other that driving her to the hospital & sitting on the rocking chair! “
2018-10-30T17:02:13+00:00
“I would just like to commend you on designing and running such a really fantastic course! It really has empowered both of us,to the point where most of our fears about birth have disappeared already. We have always wanted to go down the natural birth route, but felt that there was not enough support & advice out there about how to do it drug and pain free. Your course, although short, covered pretty much all aspects that I felt were missing from our antenatal classes & many more. Vic now feels a lot more confidant, and I actually feel like I have a proper role in the whole event, other that driving her to the hospital & sitting on the rocking chair! “
https://www.mindfulmamma.co.uk/testimonials/04/

05

“I did really enjoy the course yesterday and I am definitely feeling much more positive, I was surprised actually by how much Luke and I talked about the course immediately after and the impact it has had on Luke, We both feel like he is more involved now and that he has got an invaluable role to play!”
2018-10-30T17:02:38+00:00
“I did really enjoy the course yesterday and I am definitely feeling much more positive, I was surprised actually by how much Luke and I talked about the course immediately after and the impact it has had on Luke, We both feel like he is more involved now and that he has got an invaluable role to play!”
https://www.mindfulmamma.co.uk/testimonials/05/
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