Riverside Relaxation

Today was the first really sunny day of the year so the riverside venue for the Teddington HypnoBirthing course was absolutely perfect. We sat in the sun by the river for lunch, and watching the boats go by added to the relaxed atmosphere of the course.

How Every Birth Should Be

I had a lovely phone call yesterday. The sort that makes me extremely happy. The call was from a father whose wife had just given birth to a lovely baby girl, their second baby. The first labour had been long and difficult. In fact it was so bad that it was some time before they had a second baby. This time round she did a HypnoBirthing course with me in Teddington. She also decided to have a home birth and hired a birthing pool; both very sensible and practical decisions, and the best possible scenario for a gentle birth. The baby was born in four and a half hours, in water, and the comment from the midwife was: "It was amazing. It's the way every birth should be."

I'm looking forward to her birth report to add to the website http://www.thehypnobirthingcentre.co.uk/.

Our new HypnoBirthing Website is ready

Well its happened at last - my brand new HypnoBirthing web site has gone live! We have switched over to a content managed system so I can actually go in and add course dates myself. We also have an on-line bookings system, which should help make it a little easier for those booking onto our HypnoBirthing Courses.

We've included a pile of new features, but kept the best of the old site including the fantastic natural childbirth testimonials and stories that all you ladies have sent me over the years.

The site has been built by Channel Computing - Web Development, marketing and SEO, and uses an amazing Opensource product called "Joomla!" if you want to get a similar site up and running yourselves.

Please let me know if you like the new site, and keep sending in those wonderful HypnoBirthing stories. Finally I have been warned that there could always be a few teething problems with a new site like this, so please bear with us during the first few days!

Birth Bliss - story from TIME Magazine

Hi All,

Here's a great hypnobirthing story from TIME magazine, tells you all about Marie Mongan and how the movement started, as well as some of the benefits. We're really getting everywhere aren't we!

Birth Bliss - TIME: "The phone rang at 7:30 a.m. and I stumbled out of bed, bleary-eyed and eight months pregnant, to find a message from Dan Gilman: his wife Laura Beth was in labor. I had never met the Gilmans, but they had generously invited me to witness the birth of their third child. They were using a pain-control technique I was learning myself: hypnobirthing."

How Marcie missed the second day of her HypnoBirthing Course....

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to share this lovely birthing story from Marcie and Mike, who missed the second day of their hypnobirthing course - because they'd already given birth! Luckily even one day appeared to be enough to give them great help with the process - please enjoy Marcie's story.

"Dearest Katharine.

We hope you're well. We're so sorry we missed our second hypno-birthing session on Saturday - but you could say i was putting what we'd learned the previous week into practice!!

My waters broke on Saturday morning at 2.30 am and so, as you were teaching more hypno birthing we were delivering our new son, Blake Nathaniel Evans!!

I have to say, and from the bottom of my heart, that even just the one session of hypno birthing and listening to the CD in the week before, helped immensely.

We went to the hospital after the waters broke as surges had not began and they sent us home. I went into my "hypno zone" as Mike calls it, breathing, being in touch with my body and letting it do what it knows how to do and just helping it along. 4 hours later when we were back in the hospital, the midwife couldn't believe that i was fully dilated and ready to push!

Blake was born and on the breast just over 9 hours after my waters broke. No pain relief apart from a tens machine in early labour. Not even gas and air!! (apart from for the few small stitches i needed)!

So, we wanted to say thank you. What an amazing, lucid experience!

Sorry we missed the second workshop!

Fondness

Marcie, Mike and Blake."

The new venue for a HypnoBirthing course at the Union Jack Club turned out to be a huge success. The room was ideal - with plenty of daylight but quiet, and the staff were unfailingly helpful and courteous. I hadn't realise just how very convenient it would be. From the east of London it was just a few stops along the Jubilee Line and it was very easy for people to reach it from anywhere served by Waterloo. We had a couple who came from Guildford and it proved to be extremely convenient for them.

It was a lovely group, and I'm looking forward to meeting everyone again next weekend.

Howard Ludwig was initially sceptical about HypnoBirthing....

Another great article from the US, Howard Ludwig gives an entertaining account of his discovery of HypnoBirthing, and the birth of their children. Enjoy...

The SouthtownStar :: Howard Ludwig: "To say I was skeptical about Hypnobirthing is an understatement.

I first heard about the technique of pregnant women using hypnosis to achieve pain-free labor two years ago. The flower child teaching our childbirth class briefly explained Hypnobirthing and showed a video on the method.

'Yeah right. That's gonna work,' I said to The Wife while rolling my eyes.

'You're getting sleeeeepy. Verrry sleeeepy--' I said jokingly, gently swinging my imaginary pocket watch in her face.

The Wife delivered our son without hypnosis. Several months later, she learned a friend in her book club successfully used Hypnobirthing to deliver her son. Then, I learned her instructor lives in Chicago's Beverly community.

Tricia Fitzgerald became a Hypnobirthing instructor after using the technique during the births of her three children. Until recently, Fitzgerald's clientele was exclusively in the north and west suburbs. Her first class in the Southland was held this summer. Her second class is under way in Chicago's Mount Greenwood community.

I initially spoke with Fitzgerald before the birth of our second son on Nov. 24. She explained Hypnobirthing is not the sort of hypnosis that makes you quit smoking or cluck like a chicken, but rather a deep state of relaxation.

She compared the feeling to that of zoning out in front of a bonfire. The subconscious mind takes control of the labor and delivery while in this relaxed state. Nature is allowed to run its course.

"It is just very different than the medical culture of childbirth here in the U.S." Fitzgerald said.

I remained skeptical. I told The Wife what I had learned about Hypnobirthing and was surprised that she seemed open to the idea this time. I still felt it would be easier to teach a squirrel to string Christmas lights than give birth under hypnosis.

Then, it happened......

(Read the rest here)