I always say to people that hypnobirthing is about the experience more than the outcome.  A mother who has a positive experience, is well set up for parenthood emotionally and physically. The preparation a mother undertakes during pregnancy also benefits the baby. We know now that stress can have an impact on baby’s development  – hypnobirthing practice reduces that stress and it’s not uncommon for women who have birthed after preparing with mindfulness or hypnosis, to say that their baby seems very calm and settled.  Perhaps also a reflection of their mother’s state of mind.

Caesarean births happen, and there should be no recriminations or sense of failure.  Instead you can allow yourself to celebrate the truth that you nurtured, loved and grew your baby for 9 months, you prepared to welcome your baby with love and you opened your arms with joy for your baby when they were passed into your arms for the first time. Rebecca did not feel bullied, coerced, or pressurised into that decision – she made it from a place of intuition, and a place of acceptance and love.

Thank you for sharing your story Rebecca, and welcome to world baby Otis. x

End of the plan….not the end of the world.

I attended a Mindful Mamma hypnobirthing workshop in Nottingham when I was about 32 pregnant.  Prior to the workshop I had read the book and had been listening to the hypnobirthing track every day from about 24 weeks.  I was also doing active birthing classes and tried to remain relatively healthy during my pregnancy and was still at the gym 3-4 times a week up to 40 weeks in the hope that this would help make labour a bit easier.

One of my birth preferences was that I would do as much as the labour as I could at home and then go to the tranquility of the Sanctuary Midwife Led Unit at QMC, Nottingham, where I would have a drug free (well maybe a bit of gas and air) water birth and intervention would be kept to a minimum.

I soon found out that baby Slater had other ideas.  Week 40 came and went as did week 41.  I was listening to my hypnosis tracks, using my birthing ball, side stepping up hills and stairs, walking and reciting my affirmations, you name it I was doing it.  Whilst on the one hand I was feeling extremely calm, relaxed and even excited about giving birth I was also aware that time was ticking before talk of induction would be raised.

I had been booked for induction on Sunday 22^nd at term +12 and must admit I wasn’t massively keen on the idea.   I already knew that I didn’t have to accept induction and when the 22^nd arrived the hospital were happy for me to just pop in and be monitored.  I was told that baby seemed happy and went home praying that he would make his arrival overnight.  This didn’t happen, so on the Monday after much discussion between myself, my husband and the hospital we decided to go ahead with starting the induction process.

On the morning they gave me a 24 hour pessary.  My husband and I did lots of walking around the hospital grounds and I started getting tightenings.  They seemed quite intense and were coming every three of four minutes for about 5 hours.  I stayed overnight at the hospital and used a TENS machine and listened to my hypnobirthing tracks to help me relax enough to get some sleep.  When monitoring me and baby the midwives kept commenting on how well I was handling the discomfort and the fact that even through the tightenings baby was remaining extremely calm.

On the Tuesday they checked and although my cervix had softened it wasn’t open, so they inserted a six hour tablet with the view that this would open my cervix and enable them to break my waters.  The tightenings intensified on Tuesday so I continued to breathe through them, repeated my affirmations, took a bath and my husband was brilliant talking me through my breathing and reading through the relaxations for me.

I was sent down to delivery but come Wednesday morning when they examined me my cervix still wasn’t showing any signs of opening so they were unable to break my waters.  They said that they could try again or I could have a C-section.  After some discussion with my husband and using BRAINS I decided that I would have the section.  Although this had been the last thing I thought I wanted Mindful Mamma ensured I  had the knowledge and confidence to ask the questions I needed answered and enabled me to make an informed choice that I felt was right for me and my baby.

As baby was still showing as very happy on the monitor and I had managed to remain calm and positive throughout I decided that I didn’t wish to continue trying as I didn’t believe that the next phase of induction would work.  I decided that I would rather get baby out whilst we were both calm, rather than risk trying again and ending up with the baby in the distress and needing an emergency section.

I remained focused and calm throughout the surgery.  The theatre team even commented on this, as I chatted away.  Otis Vincent Slater made his very chilled arrival into the world on Wednesday 25^th November at 4:22pm weighing 7lb 14oz.  One week on and the main comments we get from visitors is how content and calm he seems.  I think Mindful Mamma (as well as his daddy’s genes) has played a part in this as it helped me relax and stay calm not only during the birth but also throughout the pregnancy and I think that has affected Otis.

I must also say that a number of midwives I encountered commented on how impressed they were with my birth preferences, attending Mindful Mamma made it possible for me to put together a set of preferences that covered everything I wanted in a simple, yet effective manner.

I don’t think I would have handled the circumstances I found myself in anywhere near as well if I hadn’t completed Mindful Mamma and I have already been recommending the workshop to friends.

Whilst the section wasn’t what I planned and the discomfort and recovery time are frustrating I am taking the positives from the situation.  I’m somebody who is usually running around and busy, busy, I think the section has made me slow down and just enjoy this precious time with Otis in a way that I may not have done if I had had the birth I planned, so every cloud has a silver lining.

by Sophie Fletcher               

I’ve been teaching classes for over 5 years and understand the theory around the home environment and a home birth.  Especially a mum’s sense of well-being and that connection with her birthing body.

But apart from my birth I had never seen it play out until I became a doula where I really began to observe the difference between a home birth and a hospital birth. In my class I always support mums to birth where they wish, making a home birth or a hospital birth as familiar and comfortable as possible at an unconscious and conscious level.  I’ve never been openly pro home  birth or pro hospital birth, because I think that the parents should make an informed choice based on what is right and wrong for them.  In fact, even I thought a home birth was a bit ‘out there’ before I trained in hypnosis for birth and discovered this whole new/old world of birth.

Now after hearing so many stories recently of women having a normal labour only to be told “his head just wouldn’t come down” or “I was so exhausted, I hadn’t eaten in hours, they said I was too tired”, “they said it was too long even though I was fine and he was fine” “my contractions slowed down so they put me on a drip” “come into the hospital so we can check that your waters have broken, then they induced me”.

The amount of women I have heard say they went into hospital, had a perfectly fine labour and are told at the last minute they can’t do it ending up with a forceps or ventouse seems to be escalating. In the US sections have risen from 5% to an average of nearly 40% in 30 years. What is this about?  Maternal death according to Ina May Gaskin is increasing after unnecessary interventions.  Assisted births average at around 12% in the UK, increasing to 21% for first time mums.  What is going on?  Are the Doctors saying that 20% of us can’t birth our babies without help? Of course we can.  But we need time, patience, self-belief and inner strength. Not doubt and fear.

These women are fine, their babies are fine, why are the doctors intervening and traumatizing these women unnecessarily?  The women that I hear from, are women who have read the books and done the classes about normal birth.  They’ve learned that if everything is fine and baby is fine, do nothing. These women are excited, prepared, ready and confident in their ability to birth.   Yet they are being filled with fear and the message they can’t do it, quite literally at the final push. I’m sure that if they had had a home birth things might have been very different.  Call be cynical, but it feels as if they have a better chance or a normal birth at a home birth.

During my last birth, there was an exchange between the consultant and a midwife in another room, she had the door slightly ajar, not letting the consultant in, and she said to him “leave her alone, the CTG was normal, she doesn’t consent” “the consultant trying to force the door, said “I just want to make them aware of what I think”. This midwife shut the door in his face. Another midwife may have let him in; he may have scared the mum who may have consented to unnecessary interventions.   As it was I heard the lusty cries of a healthy newborn a couple of hours later.

I always knew that a father or birthing partner’s role was hard, just how hard it’s become I didn’t realize. Any deviation from what the hospital consider the norm (hospital policies do vary, which tells you something in itself) and the pressure becomes intense, often it seems these parents are told things that are just not true, information is withheld on risks of interventions, or risks associated with a parents choice to do nothing exaggerated, based on the clinicians own distorted view of birth.

These women are not given the time they need, many doctors do not seem to trust that women can birth normally (one consultant said to me, “first time mums find it very difficult, they very often have to have help, birth isn’t a normal event”).  This approach tends to reverse at a home birth in the care of midwives who are experienced in normal birth.

If a woman is exhausted, honey in hot water can help her at the last moment, not telling her she’s too tired to do it while preparing the forceps or ventouse.   If she’s told she’s got ketones in her urine and she hasn’t got the energy, read Odent’s work that says high levels of ketones are normal in birth and show that women during labour do have higher ketones as their smooth muscles in their uterus are working rather than skeletal muscles and that these muscles can more easily process fatty acids as fuel.

Of course I’m not going to advise you, you can make your own choices about wether a home birth is right for you. But if I were birthing again this is how I would do it

1. Have a home birth, I wouldn’t go near the hospital unless I had to.
2. If my waters broke before labour started I would take my temperature, and monitor baby’s movement  knowing labour would almost certainly start within 48 hours.
3. I’d eat if I were hungry or before active labour started.
4. I would do anything to avoid a CTG monitor, choosing instead to have regular listening in with a Doppler.
5. I wouldn’t have any vaginal examinations, certainly if I sensed I were further along, I wouldn’t want to be on a timer for second stage.
6. I would choose the position I wanted to be in at any point.
7. If I were told that they were concerned about something, I would ask “is this something you are concerned might happen or is happening”. Lots of intervention is prophylactic (preventative) based on a midwife or doctors own interpretation of what could happen.
8. I would allow time.

But this is hard to do when you are told that your baby is at risk because you have been in second stage too long, or the baby’s heart is showing some decelerations,  (some decelerations are normal, other’s aren’t – do you know the difference?), you may be at risk of infection, or your labour has slowed down.  I knew of a mum recently who was scanned at 42 weeks and told she was having a huge baby (over 11lbs), they wanted to give her a caesarean and gave her a detailed and traumatising description of a shoulder dystocia reducing her to tears – this mum went on to have a very fast normal labour with no intervention at all and a 9.10lb baby 1 day later.

So what to do? Err on the side of normality.  Read ‘Birth Matters’ by Ina May Gaskin,  “Heart in the Womb” by Amali Lokugamage, “Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering” by Sarah J Buckley, particularly be aware in Ina May’s book of the birth stories – women that are tired that have been having a long labour, but are supported by strong women to find those reserves within them, without a doctor twitching in the room.  Perhaps even consider a home birth as an option and ask your community midwife about home birth.

Having a home birth in the hands of experienced midwives, preferably a few independents that I know and love would be my choice, with no doubt and no fear, but lots of laughter, strength and self-belief.