“I would really like to share my birth story with other expectant mothers please as I feel that hypnobirthing allowed me to have the birth I never thought would be possible.”

“This time 3 weeks ago I was  searching for positive hypnobirthing induction birth stories trying to keep a positive frame of mind about my upcoming labour. I had agreed to be induced at 41+5. I am so pleased to now be able to share my own positive birth story!

In the build up to my induction date I tried to kick start my labour as naturally as possible with the usual attempts of eating spicy food, pineapple, clary Sage oil baths and massage, bouncing on my birthing ball, long walks, hypnotherapy, acupressure points- the list goes on. With no success I tried 2 sweeps over week 41 but again, no success.

I had initially started learning hypnobirthing techniques to reduce my fear and anxiety around birth, due to a spinal condition I had been told I was unable to have an epidural and that c-section may be the best method of delivery for me. My partner and I attended Fernanda’s mindful mama course in Loughborough and immediately felt the benefits of viewing pregnancy and birth in a more positive way. My partner and I both felt that Fernanda had a very calming influence on us and so, following the course I asked Fernanda to be my Doula during labour.

I went into hospital on Saturday night and had the first hormone pessary, I ended up having 2 of these over the next 24 hours because they kept on falling out. My body did respond to the hormones and surges built up and slowed back down repeatedly over 2-3 days. This was not the labour I had envisioned or planned. At one stage while being monitored my baby’s heart rate had increased and the midwives needed to find a clear baseline to establish whether or not he was distressed. Using the Mindful hypnobirthing MP3 I managed to calm the baby’s heart rate back to normal. This for me was clear evidence of how a calm mother can help to create a calm baby.

The hypnobirthing techniques I had learned helped me to stay relaxed and maintain an open mind throughout my birthing journey. Fernanda’s knowledge and experience helped us feel in control; she empowered us to make informed decisions during my time in hospital.

At 4pm on the Monday I was taken to the delivery suite and started on the hormone drip, things got intense pretty quickly. I used pregnancy and birth affirmations through headphones, a cooling eye mask to help block out my surroundings and any distractions. I also used a tens machine and gas and air to help manage the discomfort of surges. I listened to the Contraction Wave MP3 when surges became more intense. At 5.17am baby Neo made his arrival weighing 9lb 12oz, I had a natural delivery and extended skin-to-skin contact before my partner cut the cord and Neo was checked over and weighed. He is now 3 weeks old and people regularly comment on what an alert and chilled out baby he is.

As a family we cannot thank Fernanda enough for all her help and support, we now highly recommend hypnobirthing and having a Doula to anyone we know expecting a baby!”

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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Is it for us? And if so how can I prepare?

by Sophie Fletcher

I get asked this question a lot, “what are my views on having siblings at a birth”.  An answer to that question is almost impossible for anyone apart from a mother to answer, as only a mother knows her own child and how they may respond to the experience.  Equally important, how she will feel about having her son or daughter there? Will it relax her or will she be anxious about how they are processing the experience?

Credit: Dancia Donnelly. Birth Photographer, Minneapolis

There is little research, but of the research that exists the majority show that children respond positively to birth and even that there is a sensitive bonding period for sibling and newborn at this stage. This bonding period may be very important for longer term relationships as there is some indication that the initial reaction of older siblings to their baby sibling is a good indicator of what will transpire a year on or may even set the course of a life-long relationship.

I know many women who have had siblings at a birth and the reports are largely positive. Women say that the contractions eased and some of the most intense emotional experiences where when they were holding hands and smiling at their child.

Having your child at the birth can really help releases oxytocin. I love this quote from Danica Donnelly.

I didn’t know you could have a “favorite” contraction but my favorite one was when my 3 year old son climbed up on the bed and held my hand during the contraction and looked into my eyes and smiled at me. I can’t remember if he said anything to me but just looking at his sweet face and knowing that he was loving and supporting me and that he wasn’t scared, but rather excited for baby brother, it made that contraction so easy to get through it almost dissapeared when I looked upon that sweet face.” Danica Donnelly

You can read more about her experience here, but I love the photo above!

I also hear women say that they had planned for their child to be involved but in fact their child slept through and woke up in the morning to climb into bed with them and the new baby, or were woken up just after, or before, baby was born.   What seems to be very consistent is that the child is in the house, with a dedicated carer, grandmother/friend, and carries on with their day in a very normal way, perhaps wandering in for short periods of time, but nearly always being there at the last moments or just after baby is born.

This makes a lot of sense to me.  From a psychological perspective having a sole carer for a sibling takes any what if anxiety away from the mother, but it also maintains a consistent routine for a child during a very transitional moment for them, a time of great upheaval and change.  It also ensures that the child is still close to their mother and conveys the message “there is space for all of us”.   Imagine as a young child being an integral part of the preparation and day that your brother and sister is born, rather than your mother being taken away and then suddenly she’s in hospital with a tiny baby which everybody is cooing over.

If you are having a homebirth you can of course have as many partners as you wish, however children attending in a hospital or birth centre setting is much less common and varies significantly from country to country, hospital to hospital.

Presence at a siblings birth can normalise birth for children, something that lasts a lifetime. I hear lots of women say that being present at their sister or brothers birth created a powerful bond with their sibling, but also helped them see birth as something very normal; a powerful gift for any woman.

Here are some suggestions for preparing, but if you have any suggestions or something that you want to share please do, I’d love to hear your stories! 

Your preparations

Talk to your child and other women who have had a child at the birth

Do your research and make sure you are making the right decision for you and your child

Find a trusted friend or relative who is a dedicated carer for your child during the birth

There are several things that you can do to prepare a sibling for birth

• Read books about the arrival of a baby brother or sister
• Talk about birth being hard work and effort
• Find some videos you can watch together
• Prepare them for sounds etc

Things that they can do before the birth

• Listen to baby’s heartbeat during midwife visits
• Help blow the pool up and fill it up on trial run
• Help get snacks together for the mum, maybe baking granola bars
• Design an affirmation board (hypnobirthing mums)
• Do yoga positions with mum (if they are doing yoga)
• Spend time shortly before the birth making a birthday card for the baby
• Involve them in a blessingway (dependent on age)
• Help decorate the baby’s room

On the day (these are dependent on age)

• Go for a walk in early labour
• In early labour make a birthday cake with them
• They can help fill your drink bottle
• Perhaps be a photographer
• Help get cold cloths
• Hold your hand
• Cut the cord
• Help weigh baby
• Snuggle up with parents and baby afterwards

Websites

http://www.lalecheleague.org/nb/nbsepoct04p178.html

https://www.bellybelly.com.au/birth/siblings-at-birth/

Books

Hello Baby

What Baby Needs

Huxley’s Birth Story by Sophie Addison

On Wednesday I spent the day feeling more and more uncomfortable and went to bed feeling increasingly so.
At 12.30 ish I dreamt that my waters had gone (this was not a dream) when I woke I jumped out of bed and my waters went in a very movie style way!!

My hypnobirthing played a very important role here as adrenaline could of taken over.
I decided to take a shower and listen to some hypnobirthing tracks with the plan of going back to bed however by the time I was out my contractions were 5mins apart and the white horse birthing centre recommend I went in to be checked.
The hypnobirthing music had me in a very calm and centred place before leaving home I felt totally relaxed and serene.

On route to hospital we played the affirmations and by the time we arrived I was in a very calm mindful place.

Sophie in the second stage of labour

We arrived and were shown to the most amazing birthing room complete with pool, swing ,birthing balls and lots of space.
I was now contracting every 3 mins with increasing intensity however I remained at this stage for the next 16hours !! (My baby was back to back, which I did not know until he was delivered as I had made it very clear if anything like this was to happen do not tell me.)
I used my hypnobirthing music & affirmations to stay focused through out.
In fact when the track ended I would only speak to say to my husband to say “play the lady.” Now a joke between us.
The hypnobirthing tracks played for the full 20hrs and I am totally convinced I would of ended up with intervention if it wasn’t for my calm hypnotic state all thanks to the techniques we learnt on the course.

Eventually (16hrs) in I felt I was nearing the pushing phase and got into the pool where I delivered my healthy baby boy at 19.36 on the 23rd June.

Although it was a long labour I wouldn’t change it for anything. For me birthing my baby albeit intense at times was the most incredible experience of my life.

The skills learnt on the course and listening to the tracks throughout my pregnancy certainly got me through some tough moments. For this I can’t thank you enough.

And I never thought I would say this I can’t wait to do it again!

Birth truly is beautiful. If only all women could believe it. Sophie Addison

10, 9, 8, … relaxation deepener exercise

Recognise the signs of transition, let go and trust.

Understand the difference between undisturbed birth and medicalised birth

Be a great hypnobirthing partner