Latest HypnoBirthing Moms and their babies.

This is just one of the newest birthing stories, click here to read more amazing stories about birth

Gloria and Wellington

My husband and I took your class in March and I wanted to let you know that we had our twins in June.They cooked until 38 weeks and despite twin A being breech, I was able to deliver them both vaginally with no pain medication.
My water broke at 2:30 am and contractions started about an hour later. After 6 hours of labour at home, we went to the hospital. I was already 8 cm dilated and the OB on call was pretty determined to perform a c-section. My midwife advocated to let me try a breech delivery, and they agreed to give me an hour of pushing before they did the surgery.
They did all of the prep work for the c-section and then let me start pushing, 45 minutes later I had a little girl and 20 minutes after that a little boy followed. They were just under 5 lbs and just over 6 lbs when they were born.
Everyone was healthy and we only had to stay one night in the hospital. It was a relief to go home and be able to relax.
I really credit the HypnoBirthing practice for my ability to stay calm and focused. At no point in the labour did I feel fear or doubt in being able to deliver them. My husband was a great birth partner, knowing when to be quiet and when to give encouragement.
Thank you for a fun, informative and helpful birthing class. I recommend HypnoBirthing to anyone who is looking for a natural, empowered birth.

Jackson

My husband and I were in your HypnoBirthing class back around March. We were the ones having our second baby who were worried about not making it to the hospital on time. We did!

I was 5 days late and had an absolutely enormous baby. 10 lbs. 4 oz. There was meconium in the waters and we had a shoulder dystocia situation. Everything turned out fine! We stayed very calm during the labour/birth, and my contractions were much less painful than with my first. We both felt that HypnoBirthing helped us to remain calm and focused and it helped me to trust my body and believe in my own power during what could have been a risky birth.

After our son Jackson was born, the doctor showed us that there was also a true knot in the umbilical cord. Everyone is happy and healthy and I also found recovery much easier this time around.

Thank you again, I will be recommending you to other mamas - to - be!

Benjamin

I wanted to drop you a line to let you know we had a baby boy, Benjamin, 8 days ago. He's happy and healthy and back home, and was born 7lb 7oz.

I also wanted to thank you for your help and all the sessions to get us prepared for the labour. They were absolutely amazing and gave us tools we will use well into the future to help mom relax! The HypnoBirthing was exactly what we needed. Ava laboured for 12 hours and had an amazing experience. Between each wave for almost the entirety of labour she would just lean back and go to sleep.
Your help was invaluable and we really appreciate it!

Zac, Ava, and Ben

The teacher becomes the student

As a Clinical Hypnotherapist, I have always had a deep belief in the benefits of using hypnosis. I feel that for me to be the best Hypnotherapist for my clients I need to experience everything that I preach and teach.
However I had never had a baby; that is until Saturday May 3, 2014, when my son Flynn was born.

Minutes after birth

I waited a really long time to get pregnant, even though I teach HypnoBirthing, and am so excited for everybody when they become pregnant, I just didn't know if it was something I wanted to do. I really wanted to make sure I was ready, emotional, mentally and financially before having a baby, and that took until I was in my late thirties.

I was able to get pregnant easily and it was going smooth and easy, life was good. That is until January 11, 2014, when my mother had a heart attack in front of me. We were alone when she collapsed, which was terrifying to deal with. Later that day at the hospital my mothers heart ruptured suddenly, which is very rare and fatal. My sister Nicole and I were both with her in those final moments and even though she had a breathing tube in she was awake and aware, so we were able to tell her we loved her.

Flynn Francis

This was one of the most stressful situations a person can go through but to be 5 months pregnant was not ideal. I was very concerned about the amount of stress I was under and how that might effect my baby and his birth.
So this is when I needed to walk the talk! I needed to use as much of those relaxation techniques that I teach, and do a ton of self hypnosis, to reduce my stress levels.
The rest of my pregnancy was fine and the grief process became a bit easier with each passing week and month.

My birth was very quick and intense, I went to bed around 11pm on the Friday, having lots of practice labour, which was mild and I fell asleep. I woke up a couple hours later having a really strong surge, which I needed to sit up for and breath very slowly and deeply. Then I just laid back down and went to sleep again. I had one of these every 30 mins or so but just kept sleeping when I wasn't having one.
I got up around 4am and ran a bath, to help me relax a bit more, I had a few more of the stronger surges but again fell asleep while in the tub. I got out of the tub around 5am, and woke up my husband.
He wanted to know if he should call the midwife, but I said no I wasn't sure I was in labour yet.
So I got on the bed on all fours and rode out the surges breathing, breathing and more breathing. I timed them and said call Carly(midwife). She arrived around 6am and my surges where 2-3 mins apart and lasting for over a minute. My husband got the birthing tub ready and by 7am I was in it. At 8:30am I was doing involuntary pushing, so Carly checked me and I was fully dilated. I was very excited because I wouldn't let Carly check me when she arrived, cause I just didn't want to get caught up in the numbers game. I remember looking at my husband and saying high five!!!!!!!
I stayed in the tub for about another hour pushing and nothing was happening so we moved me to the bedroom.

Flynn 3 weeks old

Carly checked and my membranes  (water) had not broken yet and was bulging ahead of the baby, so we ruptured the sac. It felt good when that happened, but there was meconium, in the fluid. The midwives decided to call an ambulance was called as baby just in case there was any concerns with the meconium. Normally we would just get in the car and drive to the hospital but baby was on his way out. I continued to push, while the EMTs were present and the decision was made to transfer me to the hospital because my baby's heart rate was low. Before we even left the house I managed to push him all the way down into my vaginal space and Carly could see the top of his, head. We arrived at the hospital and within minutes he was pulled out of my with forceps. This was not my ideal situation but his health was the most important thing. Besides I ended up having a 99% home birth and 1% hospital birth.

Some people have referred to my birth as tramatic because of the forceps, but I don't view it that way at all. I look at my birth as a wonderful experience, we just had 15 minutes at the very end that weren't fantastic.
My little boy was  born at 11:31am, safe and healthy. We named him Flynn Francis, the Francis is after my Mother Frances (Fran).
I missed my mother immensely during my birthing and since as well, in those moments when you need your mom.
The love I have for my son is the so deep and intense it is almost scary. I know now that if my mother loved me half as much as I love my son, then I was truly loved by my mother. It is sad that I had to learn this just months after my she died.

A view from "down under" about HypnoBirthing

The women who say giving birth doesn't hurt

• by: CLARE GOLDWIN
• From: Daily Mail

Ask a woman to describe the single most painful experience of her life and most mothers won't hesitate to say 'childbirth'. But Verity Lovelock would disagree. In fact, the trainee architect insists that giving birth to her son Nathanael 20 months ago wasn't just pain-free - it was enjoyable. 

To read more click here

 

Pooping During Childbirth

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Pooping During Childbirth

Truth: If you're pregnant, and if you squeeze that thing out through your vagina, you're probably going to poop while doing so. I know what you're thinking: Does this mean I might lose even more weight in the hospital? The answer is yes, every little bit helps. No one can take that away from you. Now let's all put our heads together here and think this damn thing through.

One: You're pooping the baby out anyway, right? It's like the same muscles. And, giving birth basically feels like you're taking the biggest dump of your life and you don't even care who knows. Yes, childbirth is a Miracle Tender Moment Incorporated full of the most tender feelings a human can pretty much ever experience, and yet, you. are. pooping. out. your. baby. Stand in your truth! Feel the now! Taste the rainbow!

Two: You don't even know it's happening. Honestly, I think this may be the best part, but I understand that to some women this is actually the very worst part. I suppose that's because they were hoping maybe they could stop it from happening.

Three: You cannot stop it from happening really. A nurse friend was all, yeah, you're probably gonna. ESPECIALLY when the baby's head comes out. That's just too much of a big thing being pooped out at all at once and so you're also going to mix some poop in there. (Last sentence is mine and not that of a medical professional.)

Four: But your husband or family or partner or whoever is standing around looking right there and probably with a camera and is totally going to see it. Up until now, they probably were not looking at your butt in this way this whole time? Maybe even never? Even if you started dating in HIGH SCHOOL? Sigh.

The theatrics and agony of labor are about many things both literal and symbolic, but let us all agree right here and now that they are about transitions and releases. Therefore, the poop must come out. And it must be ushered in joyously, as gently as Nature's Pillow, as the Big Finish to nine months of gassy purgatory. And as we all know by now: That which cannot handle the poop surely cannot handle the scoop!

And the scoop is this: I'm afraid there are no easy answers here. But really, going forward, now that you'll have this baby, I think that's a good theme for everyone involved to get used to - the no easy answers thing. And the poop. So, go ahead: Release the Kraken!

Five: At least knowing this helps you figure out who you really want in the ol' delivery room, eh? Let's take that list, cut in half, and then burn whatever's left. Hey - some people have honest-to-God orgasms when they give birth. Is that what you want your mother-in-law to see? I think you're beginning to see that pooping is clearly the more family-friendly option here.

Six: Listen. It's not every day that you, as an adult woman, get to poop in front of multiple people, not even care, have it cleaned up for you, and with no pressure to get anyone off while doing so. No offense to scatophiliacs, but this thing is looking more like a day at the spa every minute.

Seven: OK, so my nurse friend also says that if you MAYBE if had diarrhea at the beginning of labor, which is pretty common, like even before you ever got to the hospital, that you might have been cleaned out already in that regard. So maybe you won't poop? Also, enemas were routinely given in the past to avoid the embarrassment caused by the "leaking from the back passage," she told me, but that's less common now, although not apparently out of practice and not even always effective. And super uncomfortable! So maybe you can reduce your chances? But remember the baby head still? So yeah. You probably still will. Also, she did say, and I'm sorry, that some women have been known to drop like, full-sized loads. I'm sorry?

Eight: The labor and delivery nurses have SEEN IT ALL BEFORE. They will not be remotely fazed by this. I asked my OTHER nurse friend, so you could fart, bark and take a big dump while you were in labor and it'd be no bigs? "That's routine," she said. Then I was like, would anything shock these people? And she was like, maybe explosive diarrhea? And even then, no.

Nine: When you get to the part of giving birth where it's time to actually push (i.e., Poop Time) you're going to LOVE the whole little setup they have ready for you. It's like this whole little kit at the end of the table that's like basically there to wipe away your poop super quickly. It's like a slip-n-slide with a basket at the end.

Ten: I relay to you a story for your consideration. A cautionary tale passed down from prego to prego: Once, a prego found out as she neared her due date that she was probably going to poop on the delivery table. She fretted and worried so much that she went to her husband.

"I really don't want to poop on the table," she confessed to him. She was so upset that she made him promise to tell her if she did. For weeks leading up to the delivery she talked about it and worried about it. And when the day finally came, she was so nervous about it that it was in the back of her mind during the entire labor. Eventually, she had her baby, who was healthy and precious.

"Well?" she asked her husband.

"You were great," he said. "You were perfect. No poop!"

Finally a day passed in the hospital and it was time to check out with a postpartum nurse before going home.

"Did you have a bowel movement yet?" she asked the patient. "No, not yet," she replied. "But should I be worried? It's been more than 24 hours."

"Oh honey," the nurse replied. "You went so much on the delivery table that you won't need to go for three days."

Tracy Moore is a writer living in Los Angeles. She did poop during childbirth, but it was the super-cute kind and everybody applauded.

Article on Trauma Free Childbirth

The Search For Trauma Free Childbirth

Childbirth:Hypnotherapy

CHILDBIRTH: HYPNOTHERAPY
Loose the Lamaze; ease the pain with hypnosis
Globe & Mail, Jun 24, 2008

From the outside, it would appear the birth of Ashley Desson- Demetriadis’s first child was a chaotic experience.

The Oakville, Ont., resident’s plans for a home birth with a midwife were derailed when the baby’s heart rate dropped and she was rushed to hospital.

But because Ms. Desson-Demetriadis, 25, was versed in a form of self-hypnosis geared to birthing moms, she says she was able to close her eyes and keep the complications at bay. A very healthy baby Noah arrived quickly, with the help of vacuum assistance.

“If you ask me, I say it was great. Fantastic,” the interior designer says of the February birth. “As everything turned south, I don’t feel like I experienced it. I feel like I witnessed it.”

Forget Lamaze and its offspring. The latest in childbirth support is all about benign mind control. It’s called hypnobirthing - and it has nothing to do with men in tuxedos waving pocket watches.

In the past 10 years, as hypnotherapy has grown in popularity for treatments such as smoking cessation, the practice has started inching into the mainstream. As Ms. Desson-Demetriadis’s Hamilton-based instructor, Lara Stewart-Panko puts it, she’s hearing a lot less “hypno what?”

Ms. Stewart-Panko teaches a trademarked technique called HypnoBirthing, created by a New Hampshire hypnotist, Marie Mongan, whose first client was her own pregnant daughter.

Others teach variations on the technique, such as Toronto hypnotist Shawn Gallagher, an associate with the Ontario Hypnosis Centre, who calls her course Hypnosis for Childbirth. The centre also trains hypnotherapists in the specialty - about 20 certified practitioners a year since 2002.

The underlying philosophy of hypnobirthing suggests that the more tense and afraid the mother is, the more pain she will feel; so controlling stress and fear are the starting point to a more comfortable experience.

Practitioners teach moms-to-be how to close their eyes, breathe deeply and sink into a deep meditative state, often with the help of their partners, who can offer a physical cue such as a hand on the shoulder to initiate the hypnosis. Visualization methods are also used, as are tips on how to manage pain, especially during contractions, which the hypnobirthing community calls “waves” or “surges.”

Last weekend, Ms. Gallagher had students hold their hands in buckets of ice water to learn how to numb pain using positive affirmations. Another goal is to shorten the time spent in active labour. Many of the mothers she has trained in the past 10 years happily report short labours - about 4 1/2 hours seems to be the norm, Ms. Gallagher says.

Still, while Ms. Gallagher is encouraged by the interest in her practice and in hypnosis in general, she is careful to explain that self-hypnosis may not be for everyone.

“Some people are naturally talented at it, but there are a range of responses,” she says, adding that couples looking for courses should be wary of anyone who promises a completely pain-free experience.

Ms. Desson-Demetriadis was intrigued when a friend told her about using the technique. She was looking for an alternative to the gruesome, painful birth stories she was hearing from friends and family.

While the practice is a form of natural childbirth aimed at steering expectant moms away from rising numbers of induced births, epidurals and cesarean sections, hypnotherapists are not all vehemently opposed to these practices.

It’s not an either-or choice, says Janice Daigle, a doula and hypnobirthing practitioner in Richibucto, N.B.Ms. Daigle uses the analogy of a baseball team: A woman about to give birth needs everyone on her bench, she says. Her starting player may be hypnobirthing, but she’s also got to have doctors, nurses, the epidural and the caesarean section on her team. Hypnobirthing can help her deal with the worst of it.

Practitioners say they are starting to receive referrals from obstetricians and nurses. And some doctors and nurses are enrolling themselves.

Ms. Daigle currently has five doctors enrolled in her course. One Montreal medical resident, Marie (who asked that her name not be used because she wasn’t offering her professional opinion), says she’s taking a hypnobirthing class to balance her medical knowledge.

“I’m a rational person. It’s really simple,” says Marie, 27.

“It gives me more tools. I don’t want to be passive.”

Even women who know their pregnancies are high-risk are turning to the practice.

Oakville mother Nancy Ortenburg, 38, choose hypnobirthing for her second birth after her first baby was stillborn in a very difficult labour.

“I was hysterical with pain,” she says. “I thought, ‘There has to be a better way.’ “

When her second daughter started to arrive prematurely in January, Ms. Ortenburg and her husband rushed to hospital in Oakville, but there was no neonatal intensive care unit there. If Ms. Ortenburg could hold on until the next morning, there would be room for her baby at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

She credits hypnobirthing with slowing her contractions. “It got me through 28 hours,” she says. When mom and baby were ready, it took only five pushes for baby Charlotte to appear. While she did need a pain reliever near the end, Ms. Ortenburg feels that hypnobirthing helped her and her husband “make the best we could have out of the situation at hand.”


Note: This information is for educational purposes only. It is intended to supplement your current health program and not to replace the care of a doctor. For diagnosis or treatment of any disease please consult a licensed physician.

You're in Labour, and Getting Sleeeeepy

New York Times, April 27, 2006

My parents definitely thought I was a bit crazy when I mentioned a hypnobirth," Adrienne Pratt said. Ms. Pratt, eight months pregnant, and her husband, Armando Guato, gathered with two other expectant couples on Easter Sunday afternoon to learn a newly popular technique for helping women remain serene during childbirth.

For many, the word "hypnosis" conjures up an image of a swinging pendant lulling a hapless woman into a trance. But hypnobirth is not about inducing a trance; it is a combination of relaxation, breathing and visualization techniques to control labor and birthing pain, said Linette Landa, the hypnobirth teacher.

Slow, smooth breathing counteracts what Ms. Landa called "the fear-tension-pain syndrome," the notion that women fear birth, so their muscles tense up, resulting in pain.

"We're all about the subconscious mind," said Ms. Landa, a tall, tranquil woman who teaches yoga. "The conscious mind is out of the picture."

Move over, Lamaze. Today, many women are reaching out to a variety of other drug-free childbirth alternatives, including aromatherapy and birthing pools, according to experts on gynecology and obstetrics.

They are inspired by Web sites like Urbanbaby.com, reality birth television shows like "House of Babies" on the Discovery Health Channel and celebrities like Angelina Jolie, whose sojourn with Brad Pitt in Namibia spurred speculation that they would have their baby using water birthing. Tom Cruise caused a stir when he said Katie Holmes would give birth in silence. (He later explained that she could make noise, but that others had to be quiet for a calm delivery of their baby, a girl, born on April 18.)

While "silent birth" raised eyebrows, even the more widely practiced hypnobirth, with more than 2,000 instructors nationwide, still draws its share of skepticism.

"When you hear 'hypno,' you think weird, hippy, earthy type stuff," said Kelly Yeiser, 31, of Ashville, N.C., who had her first baby last August using the technique. "But it's really more about meditation and getting yourself into a calm, relaxed state."

Byron Bailey, a government worker in Washington who attended the hypnobirth class with his wife, Jaylin, said, "The idea of someone swinging a pendant — that's the sideshow aspect." The couple are expecting their first child in May.

The women attending the class said a big appeal of hypnobirth is that it builds confidence. Mothers-to-be complain that people are quick to share their worst childbirth stories, in excruciating detail, at the first sight of someone else's pregnancy, feeding worries about labor and delivery.

Ms. Pratt, 36, a project specialist with the Inter-American Development Bank, in Washington, said hypnobirth helps banish such fears because it focuses on the positive.

She was practicing its deep, distinctive breathing — no Lamaze-style panting. The mother "breathes the baby down" and out instead of pushing, according to the tenets of HypnoBirthing. (The name was trademarked in 2000.) During sessions over several weeks, and daily home exercises, the mother also practices visualizing the baby easily descending and leaving her body so often that the image becomes imprinted in her mind; a CD is available for practice and for last-minute guidance. A birthing companion — husband or midwife — tries to keep the mother in a positive, totally relaxed state of mind.

HypnoBirthing mothers even use a different vocabulary. For example, a contraction is a uterine surge or wave, pushing is birth breathing, and false labor is practice labor.

Getting used to all this takes practice, admitted Jennifer Stanton-Brand, 38, who was attending the class with her husband, Stephan, a sales manager in Baltimore. They are expecting their first child next month.

Ms. Stanton-Brand has not yet developed a routine that is second nature, as the method recommends, but said the exercises "have helped me become more inward."

"When something gets tense, I breathe and go inward to a place I can control," she said.

Obstetricians interviewed said that expectant mothers are more focused on finding new ways to reduce, or even eliminate, labor and birth pain.

At one end of the spectrum, women are opting for Caesareans in record numbers. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the combined percentage of women who had C-sections or used drugs to induce labor was about half of the 4.1 million childbirths in 2004.

Of the remaining women, many fear that drugs will hurt their newborns and want a way to avoid them as well as to control the pain.

Some of the alternatives they are selecting include water birthing, in which the woman immerses herself in a tub or pool to reduce labor discomfort, and sometimes for the birth. Another technique is for the woman to change positions so she is not always lying down, but is sitting on a giant ball, for example. Some women have acupuncture, and others use aromatherapy to create a soothing environment.

The trend is toward nonmedical methods, said Dr. William Camann, associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and co-author of the recently released "Easy Labor, Every Woman's Guide to Choosing Less Pain and More Joy During Childbirth" (Random House).

Once, he said, "there was no overlap, and there tended to be animosity and distrust" between those who espoused natural childbirth and advocates of medical procedures. But that has changed, he added, because women are researching alternatives and finding them on the Internet.

Hospitals today are also more accepting of a woman's desire to be in control during labor and delivery, Dr. Camann said. "There's been a gradual trend toward acceptance of alternative methods, even though five years ago, asking for a hypnobirth was almost unheard of. Now it's much more common."

SO, does it work? In 2004, The British Journal of Anesthesia said studies involving 8,000 women found that those who used hypnosis techniques during childbirth rated their pain as less severe than those who did not.

Jennifer Macris, 38, of Annapolis, Md., said that during the three-hour labor for her baby, born on March 26, she listened to a HypnoBirthing CD through headphones. She was so calm that nurses asked her husband, Jeff, if she was sleeping.

"There was no pain," she said. "I felt a bit of pressure, and the baby was out. There was only a little tear that required one stitch."

Still, Dr. Camann and other doctors warned mothers against rigidly adhering to any single alternative.

Ideally HypnoBirthing allows a woman to remain so relaxed through contractions that there is no screaming to tire the mother or alarm the baby, and labor is shorter.

It doesn't work for everyone: Jennifer Richards, 29, said she gained self-confidence from hypnobirth methods, but had an epidural because of the intense back pain during her 30-hour labor.

"I used some of the things I learned," she said, "but not as many as I would have liked."

In contrast, Ms. Yeiser of Asheville, whose baby was born after only two and a half hours of labor, said, "I was so relaxed that I slept through the first stage of labor."

That's what Marie F. Mongan was seeking when she set up HypnoBirthing after her first two deliveries, the first in 1954, when women were routinely strapped down and given ether, and their legs tied to stirrups.

The first birth using her program, which is based on her training in hypnosis, was that of her grandson, Kyle, in 1990.

The number of those taking HypnoBirthing's four-day instructors' course has doubled in recent years and has increasingly included nurses, she said. Her 1992 book, "HypnoBirthing, the Mongan Method" (Health Communications) is in its third printing.

Her HypnoBirthing Institute, outside Concord, N.H., is just starting to keep statistics on how many women deliver using her techniques, something hard to measure because women who take the classes may later find that a medical necessity calls for drugs. The course is usually a series of five classes, which in Bethesda cost $200.

Ms. Mongan said natural childbirth has been derailed by medical intervention. When Queen Victoria insisted on chloroform during the deliveries of her nine children, she set the precedent for ceding control of birthing to doctors, Ms. Mongan writes in her book.

While many hospitals now permit hypnobirth, doctors are wary because they fear litigation. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists leaves it up to the individual doctor's judgment.

Such techniques are not a surefire way to avoid pain, but rather "adjuncts and not the end-all to birth," said Dr. Jeffrey M. Segil, an obstetrician who offers the HypnoBirthing option to every patient in his practice in Dover, N.H.

"Women should not be set up to feel that they've failed if they can't follow through to a totally natural delivery," he said.