So did it help you?

[Opinionated]

For my next birth I would like to avoid all drugs. Previously, I have only used gas but would like to here from people that used these techniques and found them useful. Where did you learn your skills?
Did you find they helped in transition?

[2boybubs]

Hello, I had gas and pethidine with my first and had the second drug free, I found that my husband massaging my lower back really hard, effectively countering the pressure was a big help. I was also a fan of the hot water bottle for both births. I think anything that helps take your mine off of things gets you through the contractions. I don't remember transition for either baby, so I don't know what would help there.

Oh and with the second baby my midwife insisted I feel the head coming out with my hand because it would take the pain away, I am glad she did because it honestly really worked. Sounds weird but the pain just completely stopped for a short while.

You get endorphins that you wouldn't have if you had drugs and they are fantastic, I felt like I was on top of the world after having my second. Couldn't say that after having the first!

[Mish73]

I used hypnobirthing for pain mgmt for my first baby and got through without any drugs no worries (only 9hrs though), i had one moment where i was thrown out of wack by a midwife who wouldnt shut up - thankfully my husband told her. i used a clinical psychologist to learn what to do (claimed through Medibank Private), was thinking of going for some refreshers for the second baby due July but havent got round to it yet.

Psych said it doesnt work for everyone - not everyone is able to put themselves into the right mental state i think, but i also think it takes a lot of training/exercises so it comes easier/ easier to use, so give yourself plenty of time before birth to practice.:)

[faroutbrusselsprout]

Calm birthing got me thorugh 72 hours of labour (which ended in an emergency c-sec)
I wouldn't have persisted for that long without it.

[Boobycino]

I loved the gas! Best thing. It tasted just like maccas soft serve icecream (or... was that just my imagination?!?!?)

I think the whole action of reach, holding, and breathing in the gas at the right time in the contaction took enough concentation that I think that helped with the pain. Took away the focus on the pain.

[deesalie]

Having someone providing continuity of care... who I trusted... who I could look into their eyes and they'd support me back unconditionally. DP was ok in that dept. but if you can get an IM or doula it makes tonnes of difference

[~Emmylou~]

I was pretty skeptical about hypnobirthing but I recently supported a lady who used it (I'm a doula) and I tell you what, I am now a believer.

She did a 30 hour posterior labour with not even a mention of having drugs using the techniques she learned. I almost felt redundant :laughing:

Long, posterior labours in first time mums (esp. in a private hospital as she was) often end up with epidurals and god knows what else.

She just sat on her birth ball and breathed, and listened to her visualisations until the very end when we needed to get her moving around a bit because the baby was still posterior and not moving down even though she was nearly fully dilated. She had a beautiful, drug free birth, it was just amazing to see.

As a doula, what really got my attention was how even when she was nearly fully dilated she still looked like she was in early labour. To look at her I would have said she was nowhere near that far along because she was still so relaxed. She hardly opened her eyes the whole time and she hadn't even broken a sweat. I've been at lots of births, and I've never seen a mum reach transition and still be so together and relaxed. It was a real eye opener for me.

Go for it I say. :)

[Mrs Nietzsche]

I found it did help.. but you need to do a birth plan etc. Nobody would really believe I was in labour as I was just lying on the bed etc. Quite a few comments were made about how the baby wasn't going to come any time soon, the drip was recommended at least 5 times to speed things up, etc etc. After 21 hours I had an epidural - the 2 hours trying to get it in were by far the worst of the whole time. (It turned out I was fully dilated then anyway (hadn't been checked before that, but ended up with c-section at the pushing stage just due to cord 3 times around neck tightly - freak occurence - severe distress).

So yes it totally and utterly did help - but as things got more to the business end I was totally demoralised by the comments from midwifes - so if you do a birth plan the way you are supposed to and make sure they know you don't want to hear any of that - you'll be fine. MIdwives made comments to me like 'you aren't doing much' ... 'you aren't *really* in labour' and so on. Very demoralising!

I really was feeling the pain though, it's just that you don't have that response of your body because you're so calm... it's like stubbing your toe, you can either scream and shout, or you can kind of slowly breathe through it.

[~Emmylou~]

So yes it totally and utterly did help - but as things got more to the business end I was totally demoralised by the comments from midwifes - so if you do a birth plan the way you are supposed to and make sure they know you don't want to hear any of that - you'll be fine. MIdwives made comments to me like 'you aren't doing much' ... 'you aren't *really* in labour' and so on. Very demoralising!



I can totally see how that would happen and I think that is a good reason to have rock solid birth plan and a partner who has his wits about him, or a doula.

Midwives are used to using external signs to judge where labour is at - doulas do this as well, after you see enough births you start to notice patterns and signposts that are usually pretty reliable in terms of guesstimating where someone is at in their labour...and in a doulas case she also has a relationship with the woman so she is relying on that as well (and independent midwives also have this relationship of course, but I'm talking about hospital midwives in this context).

I found supporting a hypnobirthing mum really different in that sense because all the "signs" that I look out for were much harder to pick. She just didn't seem to go through that process of "early labour/active labour/transition with all the associated physical and emotional milestones. She just breathed, and breathed and breathed and suddenly it was time to push...pretty good outcome really :laughing:

[mummidwife]

I work in a great public hospital as a midwife. Midwives do form meaningful relationships with the women they are with during their births. We see them at their antenatal visits, we do their childbirth education, we do lots of monitoring of high risk pregnancies and form a lovely rapport with the woman, and in the case of rural communities we see them all the time after their babies are born. We also have excellent skills when it comes to being with women in labour. We have years of training and are very skilled professionals. We are there to pick up the pieces when things go wrong. We are there for plenty of drug free, normal, natural, empowered births and we know how to save the lives of mothers and babies. Yes hospital birthing is not perfect for everyone. Independent midwifery and doularing are not perfect either.

[onatural]

Sorry but that doesnt happen in my area much, with a really high induction and c section rate, facilities from the 1950's and a birth ed class that promotes epidurals as the norm , i live in rural nsw where women are turned away from hospitals in labour cause of no maternity services. its like lotto if you dont plan plan plan push battle and basically avoid the health system all together. i love ready about hypno and calm birth but what if you cant afford a class this info and skill is not available to you ? thats sad .

[davally]

We did a calmbirth weekend before DS was born and while I didn't get the drug-free Intervention free birth I had hoped for (but then I did have a posterior bub, induced early due to pregnancy complications) I did get an empowering birth where I felt I was in control and made decisions rather than things being forced onto me. I credit this to calmbirth because in addition to birthing techniques it gave us options and ideas for what could be done, so DH and I had contingency plans (meaning he could be my voice and I could focus on laboring. I was also lucky to have a supportive ob.

I highly recommend Calmbirth. I know in Canberra they can do deals with couples who cannot afford the classes so as to not turn anyone away (but not sure how that works). So if you want to do calmbirth but cannot afford the classes, still ask.


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[goldenhoney]

I got through 3 days of labour using some of the techniques with DS1, so equipping yourself and practicing is important - but I really felt like it didn't suit my personality or how I laboured. I wanted to have more up my sleeve for next time.

My physio friends put me onto Juju Sundin Birthskills which I found to incorporate some relaxation techniques, but also with more active pain management tools to work with your labour. I like to move my body no matter what I'm doing in life (just cannot sit still!) so her 'match the pain' philosophy was great for me. I didn't feel disconnected or distracted at all. The endorphin high was amazing. What I love about Juju Sundin is she was not disrespectful at all about how birth progresses - there were lots of stories in her book with different labour variations, interventions and outcomes. I also learnt acupressure for use during labour.

I think investigating a range of methods is important and also putting time into practice and understand what you doing - no matter what it is you find that suits you.

[Polly6034]

Thank you all for your stories about hypnobirthing. I hadn't heard of it until my osteopath mentioned it to me this morning, and it's something I really want to do - strategies to keep us both calm and in control during labour? Sounds wonderful!

Any Brisbane ladies around who can recommend a practitioner? Thanks :)

[4intheBed]

I read the book, tried to do meditations but found it hard to find the time. I recently had a water birth with no drugs or gas and a natural 3rd stage. I found that i didn't need anything to calm me or a meditation to take my attention away, I accepted that each contraction would bring its own intensity and i would approach them one at a time, without focus on how many I had done or had to go. I reminded myself that if I could have a small smile then I knew my body was relaxed, and that was my only part in the labour, I was to relax while my body did all the work. I had an amazing birth, I was clear and a part of everything, I don't think classes or books are needed, just a calm approach.

[MamaNurture]

Thank you all for your stories about hypnobirthing. I hadn't heard of it until my osteopath mentioned it to me this morning, and it's something I really want to do - strategies to keep us both calm and in control during labour? Sounds wonderful!

Any Brisbane ladies around who can recommend a practitioner? Thanks :)

Hi Polly, I bet we have the same osteo - at Nundah? We are doing hypnobirthing classes there. Through Pregnant Possibilities. The practitioner Bree is really good, very nice and a good teacher. Honestly, going back in time, I don't think I would do it again. Just because I don't think we are really 'hypnobirthing' parents. It's not an approach that suits us really well. But I am definately getting something out of it, ESP for during the pregnancy and general life skills etc. And we undoubtably will use those skills in labour. So yeah. But yes, would definately recommend Bree if you were going to do it.

[babymoore]

My husband and I practiced Calmbirth every day for 3 months leading up to the birth of our son. I found the relaxation and the breathing techniques really wonderful. But during the actual labour, I did not find it very useful!! Having said that, I did not have any drugs at all and I had a natural birth! I was induced at 42 weeks and from the time I was induced at 9am on a Thursday to when our son was born at 4:26am on the Friday morning, I only once thought of having drugs... but I'm so glad I didn't!! My husband reminded me of breathing during the labouring and that helped... but I tell you what, and I'm sorry to say this, it was not calm for me at all! But I would totally do it again very happily!! I also have a hairline fracture in my spine, so the pressure on my back was excruciating... I thought my spine was going to snap! I had an amazing midwife and student doctor counteracting the pain by pressing hard on my back during each contraction! That really helped! Sorry that I can't be more positive about it! I honestly do not know how people have orgasmic births!! That's really foreign to me!! But I am really glad I did calmbirth - whilst I don't think it did a heap for me, it did help me a little.

[Bunnymermaid]

I went to a Hypnobirthing class when I was about 27 weeks pregnant and practised the techniques daily from then on. I was induced at 40 weeks due to gestational diabetes, and I think the use of the syntocinon drip during the induction really affected how well the hypnobirthing techniques worked.

I was able to cope with the contractions by focusing on breathing for the first five hours but after that it became too intense and I had pethidine (twice - first time it worked wonderfully, second time it didn't seem to work at all). I didn't find the techniques to help during transition (though the drip was up too high and I was having contractions one on top of another without breaks in between). After a midwife shift-change, the new midwife reduced the drip dramatically and the techniques seemed to work very well. I didn't experience any pain during the pushing stage (it was still very hard work, but not painful). My ob said that I was definitely in 'the zone' and very focused while pushing, which is probably why I didn't experience pain during that stage. I listened to the hypnobirthing cds pretty much through the whole labour (about 10 hours), except the first hour or two.

[squishie]

We did calmbirth and I had a 12 hour labour completely drug free. I was do calm and confident at all times. My hubby was so good at helping me remember to breathe etc and although my son arrived superman style (fist next to his face) and I spent over an hour in theatre getting repaired, I was calm and got through that without a problem as well :)

[captainscaptain]

Oh and with the second baby my midwife insisted I feel the head coming out with my hand because it would take the pain away, I am glad she did because it honestly really worked. Sounds weird but the pain just completely stopped for a short while.

Thanks for telling me that, I will definitely try that next time as that burning was so intense that I pushed way too fast and had a 3rd degree tear. I didn't even look at his head with the mirror!

[Bel0v3d]

Can anyone recommend cd's I can't afford the classes but would like to try the meditations.

[Opinionated]

Wow, an old thread of mine get's dragged back to life just as I am interested in it. Thanks.

[beccacino]

Can anyone recommend cd's I can't afford the classes but would like to try the meditations.

Before I enrolled in the class and bought the book etc I borrowed the book "Hypnobirthing" The Mongan Method by Marie Mongan from our local library and it had the CD that comes with the book. There might be a wait for the book though so best to try asap to get hold of it. Not sure of the legal jumbo for a borrowed book but once we bought the book we imported the CD into my iPod for easy usage. We've had 2 from 2 awesome hypnobirths so far & highly recommend hypnobirthing to EVERYONE who is silly enough to tell us they are having a baby.

p.s I'm not sure what the difference between calmbirth & hypnobirth is exactly but my hypnobirth couldn't have been any calmer. :D

[Polly6034]

The Hypnobirthing book is only about $15 on Book Depository, bargain!

And our Hypnobirthing instructor said there's no difference between Calm Birth and Hypnobirthing except the name and that Calm Birth was adapted from Hypnobirthing by an Australian.

[breakthemould]

I just saw this thread and thought I'd add a technique that I used in my birth 5 months ago that really helped me.

I had only read about Calmbirthing and similar ideas, and read Juju Sundins book called Birth Skills. I had a 36 hour drug free birth for my DS 2 years ago and wanted to do it the same for my DD.

I did lots of rocking, swaying, blowing and the usual but one visualization which really helped me (and I'm not a visualisation kinda girl) was to picture a bottle, like a wine bottle, full. I would picture it as soon as the contraction started to build, and a would take really slow deep breaths and with each breath OUT I would picture some of the substance in the bottle disappearing. I would do this for the whole contraction, only a few breaths because I was breathing so deeply and slowly, and bottle would be empty as the contraction finished. I imagined 'blowing the pain away' - the pain was the substance in the bottle, and with each breath the pain was closer to being gone.

Its weird, and I don't know where I got it from, I think I made it up, but it REALLY worked for me. I tried to explain it to DH after one contraction and he looked at me like I'd lost the plot!

Maybe it will help someone else though :)

[bubhubby]

There is a significant difference between Calmbirth courses in Australia and Hypnobirthing and to learn about the differences scroll down the link page...here is a link to explain the difference between the two:
http://www.julieclarke.com.au/pages/courses/calmbirthr.php