Hypnobirthing

Has anyone done this???

Also does anyone know if there are classes in the Hutt Valley or Wellington???

Also has anyone had success doing this after a bad first labour/birth??? Thanks

I looked into it but there was no one doing it in my area & it was really expensive. You can get cds to learn it yourself. Self-hypnosis techniques are pretty simple. You just have to come up with a few affirmations for yourself, like "I trust my body" or "I'm willing to have a beautiful, gentle birth" or whatever you like. Then just go through the usual relaxation & visualisation techniques ... there are lots of videos on you-tube etc to teach yourself.

They generally go something like this: visualise yourself slowly descending a staircase into a lovely pool of water. The water gets deeper with each step. You go down 10 steps until you are totally immersed, you see a glowing light, swim towards it, find a treasure chest, open it and find one of your affirmations inside. Slowly back up the stairs into normal consciousness.

I didn't do hypnobirthing as such, but I did just tell myself, my body can do this, I have great inner faith that our bodies are made to do this naturally.

And i agree, I never watched the clock either.

The other thing you might find useful, is I just relaxed into the contractions, and told myself this too shall FADE!!! And I seriously slept in between contractions :P, my body was very efficient and i went from 1cm to 10cm in 1h40mins :D

Oooh can someone tell me more about this.

I am freaking out about giving birth, not that I had an awful birth, but I felt out of control which for me is probably what freaked me the most, I am a big believe of mind control so if anyone can point me to website reading info on this i would love to read it and just see what its all about.

Sorry to thread jack.

I would ask your mw, she would probably know or know of someone who could point you in the right direction.

Which book did you get?

I used the book "Hypnobirthing. The Mongan method".
I had a hideous first birth experience, with every intervention under the sun - apart from c-section. I got PTSD after it and later PND :(
I was determined to be completely in control the second time. I planned absolutely everything!
I read the book and practised some of the breathing techniques often.
Had monthly accupuncture for relaxation/energy.
Compliled a list of postive affirmations- some from the tribalbaby website and some from the book - and read them often and during labour.
I read up on and taught my DH and Mum accupressure techniques to use on my during labour.
I had a meeting with DH/Mum/midwife when I told them all how I wanted the birth to go and what I wanted each of them to do, and what would happen in different situations - and gave them all lists, lol.
I decided not to time contractions or time labour. I decided not to have any routine interventions, and to only have interventions if there was something wrong with me/baby - had 1 scan all pregnancy, no stretch and sweeps, and told midwife I only wanted minimal internals during labour- and only if absolutely necessary.

I cant say I really had a hypnobirth, but I did use the techniques, was very calm for most of it - started to panic at one point, but was reassured and relaxed again when the mw said it was cos I was in transition!

DS is one next Mon, and I still cant believe what an awesome, amazing, natural experience his birth was. I was so freaked out after Isla's, I could never imagine that it could go so differently and so well!

Look into acupressure, a friend of mine did it with her first and went into labour a few hours later about 2 days before her DD, it's meant to be really effective, more so than acupuncture.

Hmm I might have to look into this further.  Do you think reading the book will be enough? I know classes would be beneficial but I don't think our $$ will stretch that far. 

Sabrina, I went to my local library but they only had the one book which Kellz mentioned above. The Wellington Public Library might have more though but when I did a search that was the only one that came up...

There could be something online that you could rope your DP into watching but agree classes could be better and I know with my DP he wouldn't really 'care' unless he was in a class - anything I told him about babies he wasn't too interested until we went to antenatal then it was 'make sure you listen to EVERYTHING she says!'

We would have liked to do the classes too but the only ones we could find were in Auck, and they ran over 6 weeks,....would possibly have done it if they were still running a weekend course tho.