What is hypnobirthing?

I get it, hypnobirthing is a bit of a vague name for something you probably haven’t really heard much about before. Is it an antenatal class or isn’t it?

Maybe you have heard your friend talk about it, or you heard about a celebrity who used it, maybe you heard about it in the media and you are interested but you really aren’t sure what hypnobirthing actually is. And if we are being totally honest, it sounds like it might just be for hippies, right?

I really do get it, because I thought the same when I was first told about it. It didn’t sound like it was for me until I learnt what it really was, and once I’d done a course in preparation for my second birth, I was totally sold. And that is why I am here today, teaching hypnobirthing to expectant parents in Wakefield and Leeds.

Unfortunately all hypnobirthing courses aren’t the same, but I can tell you what hypnobirthing on MY courses looks like.

In a nutshell, hypnobirthing is an antenatal class, designed to give you all the information you need, and teach you really easy to use tools and techniques to help you have a more positive, comfortable birth, no matter what that looks like. Hypnobirthing is most definitely for EVERY type of birth!

My hypnobirthing courses are full birth preparation courses, they cover everything you need to know about labour and birth as well as teaching you ways to cope with the various sensations of labour. I’m not a hypnobirthing teacher who shys away from talking about pain in labour.

I cover all the nitty gritty of labour and birth, what happens, how it happens and ways to make it happen as easily as possible. However, the crux of any of my courses is that this is YOUR birth, so it’s 100% up to you to choose how YOU want your birth to look. I just give you all the information you need to help you make those choices.

What's the “hypno” bit all about?

Ok, so during a hypnobirthing course, you will be taught how to use self hypnosis to aid relaxation and to help you cope better with labour and birth. But before you panic, there is no pendulum swinging, and nobody will be “in control of you”. As much as I would absolutely love to be able to make your birth partner think they are a chicken, I can’t. Self hypnosis is all under your control, and put really simply it’s just a state of deep relaxation.

You will never be unconscious and unaware of what you are doing, you will just feel really chilled. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t like this bit of the course. Hypnosis is a popular form of therapy used to help people get over phobias, lose weight and stop smoking, and has been used for a long time in the birth world too.

We use this method of self hypnosis as it allows us to really easily and quickly access a state of total relaxation, which is really, really useful during labour and birth to help you feel more in control, and allows labour to progress more smoothly.

But it also allows us to access our subconscious brain, which means we can then help to fill it full of the useful things we need for birth, and dig out all the bits that are fuelling any birth related fears and worries, the stuff we absolutely don’t need to take into the birth room with us.

Can anyone use hypnobirthing?

Absolutely, 100% yes. Hypnobirthing is for everyone! Whether you are planning a home birth or a c-section birth, or anything in between.

Everything you learn on my course will be useful for you.

Whether you plan to use all the pain relief on offer or hope to avoid it as much as possible, my course is for you.

I’m hugely passionate about giving you tools and information to enable you to make informed choices about your birth, so you feel in control, and respected during this life changing event.

Does hypnobirthing really work?

Now obviously I am very biased, I’m a hypnobirthing teacher, so I’m always going to say yes, or else I wouldn’t do this as a job. But let me give you just a few statistics to back this up.

In 1996 a study carried out by Waldenström, Bergman, and Vasell found that 31% women who used hypnobirthing used some form of pain relief, compared to 91% of women who didn’t use hypnobirthing.

Another study by Jenkins & Pritchard found that hypnobirthing shortened labours of first time mums by 3 hours on average.

These are just two studies, but there are more out there and the anecdotal evidence from people who have used it before, and rave about it, is growing. If you want to read some of those kinds of stories you can head to my birth stories section to read some of my hypnobirthing clients stories.

If you think hypnobirthing sounds like something you need, you can head to my group courses to see when my next dates are or book a private course with me!