Have you ever heard a song on the radio and been transported instantly to another time and place? I’m showing my age here, but Frankie Goes to Hollywood ‘Relax’ always takes me back to the supermarket where my mum did her weekly shop in 1984. I don’t normally think about this place at all but whenever I hear that song there I am, tagging along behind the shopping trolley. Or Simple Minds ‘Don’t you forget about me’ says school disco, with the smell of dry ice and feeling that teenage mixture of awkwardness and excitement.

 

We’ve experienced millions of these moments in our lifetime and couldn’t possibly be thinking about all of them at all times. But a simple prompt can open up any particular memory and immediately we’re remembering what we saw, heard, smelt or tasted, and felt, and we’re feeling the same emotions. And as we’re feeling those emotions, our body is showing a physiological response to that too. All this happens so quickly, it’s an automatic response and may be prompted without us even realizing.

 

These automatic associations work in just the same way for concepts. The experiences we’ve had and ideas we’ve heard relating to the concepts we encounter throughout our lives are all stored away somewhere in the back of our minds. Ideas like ‘work’, ‘home’, ‘baby’ and of course ‘birth’ spark a pattern of thoughts, feelings and physiological reactions that can set the course for how we respond to whatever happens next in our day.

 

We may have collected a lifetime’s worth of negative and fear-inducing ideas about birth, so the thought of labouring and giving birth might well prompt a feeling of nervousness and the accompanying physiological fear response. But what helps the hormones of labour and the birth process flow smoothly is the opposite state of mind – feeling relaxed, calm and connected. With hypnobirthing we have a way to do some de-cluttering in that mental store, to take a good look at the material we’ve collected over time relating to labour and birth, throw out what’s no longer useful and add in new things that boost our confidence. This allows us to look forward to and actively engage with the birth process, which helps us tune in to our inner experience mentally, emotionally and physically, and work with our bodies through pregnancy and birth. We then have the opportunity not just to endure labour as a means to an end, but work with it in a way that feels satisfying, calm and in charge, even enjoyable, blissful or euphoric.

 

Once people understand what hypnobirthing is about, it generally makes perfect sense to them. These are the most common questions I get asked.

 

If I do hypnobirthing will I have a pain-free birth?

You might… or you might not! But you might well discover that whether you describe the sensations of labour as painful or not, this bears little relationship to how satisfying the birth is. Women’s experiences with the sensations of labour vary a lot – it’s absolutely true that some women don’t experience labour as painful, and don’t find the word ‘pain’ a useful or accurate descriptor of their experience. It’s also true that some women have what they describe as a painful birth that is at the same time a thoroughly positive experience. Most (though not all) women experience contractions as an intense sensation – but that doesn’t necessarily amount to pain, and even when it’s pain that doesn’t necessarily amount to suffering. It can be really useful to explore the factors that make the difference here.

 

What if I don’t get the birth that I want? Will I feel like I’ve failed?

Birth, like life, doesn’t always go to plan. It’s normal and understandable to feel sadness, disappointment, even grief, if things don’t work out the way we hoped. But the concept of ‘failure’ in birth is something our culture really needs to get rid of as it helps no-one. Do we talk about ‘failing’ at digestion, or walking, or hugging? Do we think we’ve failed if it rains on our wedding day, or a delayed train means we’re late to meet a friend? Of course not, so let’s root out this unhelpful cultural narrative. Hypnobirthing is about having the tools to respond in the way we would like to the circumstances we find ourselves in, and that’s why it can be especially helpful if labour takes an unexpected turn. It can help us get into the best frame of mind possible to decide on the wisest course of action, should we need to.

 

Can I do hypnobirthing by myself or do I have to do a class?

There are many good hypnobirthing methods out there, and lots of practitioners locally. You can download hypnobirthing mp3s for free here https://www.mindfulmamma.co.uk/free-resources/free-downloads/ and hypnobirthing books are widely available in paper and audio formats. While some people choose to DIY, there are benefits to attending a class or workshop. Of course I would say that! But many people have told me they found the workshop helped them have a deeper understanding of the techniques and how to use them, and helped their partner engage actively with hypnobirthing.

 

My partner thinks this sounds a bit airy-fairy

(or) I’m single, will this still work for me?

Many birthing women comment that using hypnobirthing was a great way to involve their partner in birth preparation and help them feel confident about what they will actually be doing during labour. Partners like the way it gives them clear information about how the birth process works, and practical tools for supporting the birthing woman. Most women find the support of a birth partner invaluable during labour, but it’s not always the woman’s life partner who does that job. Some women are single, and some women choose to have somebody else supporting them, for example another close relative or friend, or they hire a doula.

 

I’m already 39 weeks pregnant! Is it too late?

I’ve seen this approach have amazingly quick results for people, one woman I worked with went into labour the day after our class and was able to use what we’d covered. That said, most people find the greatest benefits of these techniques with repeated practice over weeks and months. Although the workshop I run is just one day, most people are listening to mp3s regularly before the workshop and then stepping up their practice afterwards. Practice is really important, but it’s easy – little and often is most useful, and that might be spending a few minutes practising techniques every morning then playing an mp3 to relax to in the evening.

 

What is the link between hypnobirthing and mindfulness for birth?

While different approaches drawn from different traditions, both are ways of practising the art of letting go, physically and emotionally, and tuning in to our inner experience in the moment with kindness and openness. I find they work very well together as an integrated approach, and that’s what I enjoy teaching.

 

If I’m hypnobirthing can I still use movement/ make a noise/ use a TENS machine/ have an epidural?

One of the things I love about hypnobirthing is that it’s so adaptable – you can be really creative with it and use it in combination with anything else you want to do, and any other comfort measures that take your fancy. It’s a common misconception that hypnobirthing means keeping very still and quiet. While some women do make very little sound or are physically quite still, others combine hypnobirthing with a lot of dynamic movement, a lot of sounding (or mooing or roaring!), or periods of movement and stillness, sound and quietude. You can do it in the way that’s right for you, the way that works for your body and your baby on the day.

 

Will you make me cluck like a chicken?

It’s incredible how persistent this myth is! It’s a hangover from stage hypnosis, which is very different. Hypnobirthing and hypnotherapy are about harnessing the resources you already have, to help you achieve the things you want – I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, and I’m not interested in trying. What excites me is seeing how people can use these simple techniques to take big steps in the direction they want to go.

 

Is this just for hippies?

This really is for everyone, people who use hypnobirthing come from many different walks of life and use the techniques in many different types of birth. Hypnosis and hypnotic techniques are widely used by all kinds of folks from sportspeople to business executives. Hypnobirthing is becoming much more widely known, I would say almost mainstream now. Over a decade ago when I had my older children I’d never heard of it, but in the 5 years I’ve been teaching hypnobirthing in Oxford I’ve seen it go from a bit left-field to a completely normal thing to do. Most midwives are very well aware and supportive of hypnobirthing.

 

Is this about having a perfect birth?

Hypnobirthing is about getting the best out of the birth circumstances you find yourself in, optimizing the chances for your best possible birth. You really can use it for any birth, from the planned caesarean birth to birth in the sea with dolphins, and the many varieties in between. Birth is part of life, and I don’t know about yours but my life is rarely perfect! While life isn’t generally perfect it is often good. This isn’t about setting ourselves some kind of standard we have to achieve. There are many different ways to have a positive birth experience and hypnobirthing can help us make the most of whatever unfolds on the day.

 

“I got to 10cm without any pain relief and found the breathing techniques were able to help me cope with the experience and keep me as calm as possible during intense contractions. Before doing a hypnobirthing workshop I was terrified of labour but after the class we both left feeling more positive and able to think about labour in a rational way.”

 

“Well, the labour process was interesting and ended up being quite far removed from the natural birth I wanted but I felt so positive about the whole experience and that the right decisions were made at the right times. I remained in control, relaxed and calm throughout even when it became apparent the outcome was going to be different to what I had wanted and planned.” (Claire and Ian)

 

Guinevere Webster is a clinical psychologist and mindfulness teacher specializing in birth and parenting. She runs mindful hypnobirthing workshops in Oxford through Mindful Mamma, and volunteers for Positive Birth Movement Oxford and Oxford NCT Home Birth Group.

This article was first published in the May 2018 of NCT Oxford’s digital newsletter.

One of the most challenging situations during birth is when something unexpected happens that necessitates a radical re-think of approach. I have heard so many examples of this in birth stories – and the way in which labouring women and their partners are able to negotiate these twists and turns in the birth journey seems to have a significant impact on their birth experience, both in the moment and in their memories of the event.

I’m not just talking about the big dramatic denouements – the unexpected breech baby who prompts a dilemma about c-section versus vaginal breech birth – the very quick labour with a baby who arrives before the midwife does – the labour that starts spontaneously hours before a planned c-section. It’s also the seemingly smaller events that nonetheless change the course of a labour, or introduce elements the mother wasn’t expecting – a birth pool that can’t be filled for some reason, meaning the mother must seek alternative sources of comfort – a labour that is proceeding so quickly and smoothly as to make a planned epidural pointless – a partner stuck in traffic on the way home from work – a chosen birth centre that happens to be full on the night.

Almost anything could happen – and most probably won’t. It would be impossible and even counter-productive to try to prepare for every possible situation, and perhaps what is more useful is the ability to stay flexible with the unfolding of events, adapting to the circumstances as they arise in the moment while staying true to the spirit of our wishes for this birth. In Mindful Mamma courses we do a visualisation based on the idea of a tree, which represents a woman’s wishes for her birth experience – firmly rooted in well-practised mindful hypnobirthing techniques, able to bend and sway with whatever the weather happens to be on the day, but remaining its essential self.

What can help us to harness this mental flexibility when it’s most needed? I’ve been thinking about a way to capture the steps involved in this kind of mental manoeuvre that’s practical and easy to remember. Maybe what we need when everything is at sea – when we seem to be pulled away from familiar shores on tides we didn’t know were there – is a guiding star: something we can re-set our co-ordinates by, a light in the fog.

This approach is loosely based on the RAIN acronym, suggested by various mindfulness teachers for dealing with difficult emotions (explained here by Tara Brach). But these steps are specific to a mindful hypnobirth, and expressed as STARR.

Stop – the first step is to stop and acknowledge the situation – step outside it for a second to recognize that in this moment, something unexpected is happening. It can be tempting in such moments to rush forward with some kind of action. Instead, take a moment to press pause, and label the situation as an event we weren’t expecting but still have a choice in how to respond. This step might also involve asking others who are involved to press pause – for example asking the midwife or obstetrician for some time, to let this turn of events sink in, before you continue the discussion.

Techniques – use your practised techniques to calm your body and mind. Unexpected events often create anxiety, but any decision is better faced from a place of calm and focus. Perhaps 321 Relax, the lengthening breath, or the shoulder anchor.

Allow – accept that this situation, whether we like it or not, is happening right now. As Tara Brach puts it, “allow life to be exactly the way it is” – because it’s already that way. When we allow a situation we can bring our full attention to it, seeing clearly how best to respond.

Re-plan – it’s time for plan B. How can you adapt your birth preferences in light of what’s happening now? You may well find that many of your wishes can be carried out in a slightly different way. Even in the most medical of birth scenarios there is room for negotiation and choice. Small changes to the atmosphere in the birth room (lighting, sounds, the way people speak or stay quiet, how the baby is greeted and welcomed once born) can make a big difference to the parents’ experience of their baby’s birth. This is the moment for BRAINS – you may need to gather more information (for example to make a decision on a suggested intervention) and for re-planning. If you could summarise your key birth preferences in one or two bullet points, what would they be? Now express that to the people who can help you achieve them. As Sophie Fletcher writes in Mindful Hypnobirthing (p.195), it can help to clarify the following three points (and write them down if possible): ‘1. These are the facts I was given. 2. This is the choice I made. 3. These are the reasons I made that choice.’

Relax – use your mindful hypnobirthing practice to help you through this twist in the journey. What techniques will work in harmony with any interventions you choose to accept? What techniques can you use in place of something you’d planned that is no longer available to you? Using your skills can help you stay calm and focused, enabling you to get the best you can out of any situation.

Women deep in the zone of labour probably won’t be thinking about what all the letters of an acronym represent. This one’s for birth partners – as the labouring woman’s supporter you’re ideally placed to pull this out of your back pocket if it turns out it’s needed. ‘Ok – let’s do STARR’ – you can guide your birthing woman through each step.

There is little point spending a pregnancy preparing for all sorts of birth scenarios that are unlikely to happen to you. But some forethought on the steps you would go through in any situation that requires a change of tack is time well spent.

 

 

 

We are not on this earth to accumulate victories, or trophies, or experiences, or even to avoid failures, but to be whittled and sandpapered down until what’s left is who we truly are. This is the only way we can find purpose in pain and loss, the only way to begin to mend a broken dream, and the only way to keep returning to gratitude and grace.

 

This insight from Arianna Huffington, whose son was stillborn, brought me strength and solace after losing my baby girl at 15 weeks of pregnancy last year.

At the time of writing, I have sought and celebrated nine pregnancies, felt nauseated during six, formed a tiny but recognizable human in five, and brought a baby to birth in three. I have taken on board myriad suggestions for improving my childbearing fitness, and found that with pregnancy, trying harder bears little relationship to success. I have come to rely much more on the wisdom and information from within my own body, mind and heart, than on the ultrasound screen’s cold staring black eye, or the well-intentioned advice of people who don’t really know, because there is no answer to be known. I am deeply grateful to everyone who was willing to see my suffering and offered me kindness, whether expressed in words or otherwise.

 

It may feel an intensely private grief – the loss of this child who was known only to us. For many families this is a lonely and isolating experience, something that is difficult to share or talk about, perhaps even more so for fathers and partners as Mark Zuckerberg has pointed out. But pregnancy loss is incredibly commonplace. While stillbirth (the loss of a baby after 24 weeks’ gestation) is much rarer, miscarriage is estimated to occur in at least 1 in 6 pregnancies. Some parents find comfort in connecting with others who have had similar experiences, via the Miscarriage Association or SANDS for example.

The term ‘babyloss’ includes pregnancy loss as well as neonatal and infant death. ‘Pregnancy loss’ refers to both miscarriage and stillbirth because while the physical experiences differ, research in this area suggests that there is no linear relationship between length of gestation and depth of grief (Moulder, 2001) and it is important not to make assumptions about how parents may feel after the loss of a pregnancy at any stage. People deal with these events in different ways, and the same parents may have different feelings about different pregnancy losses. I hope that these words may be a source of comfort to some who are going through the pain of losing a baby. I know they are also likely to strike some wrong notes with others. In the end we can only speak our own truth, and listen carefully to others speaking theirs.

 

To begin with, mothering seems to be all about holding close. ‘I can’t believe my baby needs me so much!’ ‘When will she sleep through the night?’ ‘How can I get time to have a shower?’ ‘Can he really be hungry again?’ Mothers often find it difficult to imagine how and when their babies might begin to develop some independence, and may feel pressure to push them towards faster progress with sleep consolidation, developmental milestones, and moving on from the sources of emotional comfort enjoyed in babyhood.

Eventually there is a subtle shifting of gears and we begin to realize that our job as parents is gradually to let our children go. It can be startling to feel the strength of our child’s will to follow their own destiny, of them pulling away from us towards the future. How to continue loving while allowing and encouraging growth out of the family?

Our job, as Goethe said, is to give our children ‘roots and wings’. Scientific explanation of how this works can be found in Why Love Matters and The Psychology of Babies. It seems clear that the more children’s needs are responded to in infancy (thereby giving them firm emotional roots) the more confident they are to spread their wings and fly out into the world when the time comes.

 

The paradox of parenting is that in order to let go, we must first hold close. The shock of pregnancy loss is that this letting go happens just at the very earliest time when we are starting to learn to hold on. In fact we may not realize how much we have begun to hold this baby close in our hearts until we are suddenly forced to switch gears and find a way to let go.

The physical letting-go of pregnancy loss may feel brutal, and something our bodies are struggling to do. The emotional letting-go may feel almost impossible as we acknowledge the depth of our inner connection to this person we know both on the most intimate level and also not at all. The yearning to meet this baby face-to-face may be unbearably strong, and the deepest sense of loss may result from the knowledge that this can never happen.

 

However intense the pain of the loss, the tender shoots of love for our babies endure. Throughout our lives we feel the imprint of this baby on our hearts, and a lasting connection with this person known so briefly. Fascinating research indicates that there is a physical element to this felt connection: pregnancies of any length give the mother a lasting gift of healing cells https://lauragraceweldon.com/2012/06/12/mother-child-are-linked-at-the-cellular-level/

Both my grandmothers suffered stillbirths and miscarriage at a time when the emotional pain of this was often unacknowledged, but it was clear that they carried this with them throughout their lives. In her eighties my father’s mother was able to travel to Wales (where she had been evacuated during the Second World War) to find her stillborn son’s grave, which at the time she had been discouraged from visiting. My mother’s mother died aged 95, and as she was dying spoke of her joy at preparing to be reunited with her late husband and their lost babies.

 

Times have changed and although the pain and grief of pregnancy loss remains just as powerful, we now have greater resources and support to enable us to grieve and say goodbye. Many parents find it helpful to have a way to acknowledge the emotional upheaval they have been through in letting go of a pregnancy, even when their feelings about the pregnancy were more hesitant or ambivalent.

In an increasingly secular society it isn’t always obvious how we might acknowledge the passing of babies lost in pregnancy with some degree of ceremony or ritual. If we have a religious or spiritual faith we can draw on its support and customs. Otherwise, we may wish to create our own ceremony, however simple, perhaps on our own or maybe with the support of a celebrant. Many families find comfort in simple rituals such as lighting candles, reading a poem or text, singing or music, creating artwork, or planting a tree, and naming the baby. Jackie Singer’s book Birthrites is one of the few to address this subject and contains some rich ideas for simple but beautiful ceremonies for marking pregnancy loss.

 

My physical terrain has been changed forever by my children’s passage into the world, bearing the scars of their birth journeys. Some of these changes weren’t ones I wished for, but since having children I appreciate what my body can do – how it works – in ways I couldn’t before.

In the same way, my emotional landscape also bears the wounds of my babies’ losses – scars of pain, anger and sorrow that are slow to heal, and will never completely fade. There will always be empty spaces around our kitchen table, tears in the fabric of our family that gape wider every time someone comments on the age gaps between our children or asks whether we thought about having a fourth. Perhaps these numb areas, ridges of hurt and bitterness, will be part of me forever. But I can also accept the possibility that these scars might change my capacity to love – for the better. In stretching against this scar tissue, my heart may open wider.

While I realize with deep gratitude how fortunate I am to have three children, I’ve learned the hard way that one child does not replace another. Each one is uniquely his or her own self. So I really know how amazing it is when a baby forms, grows, journeys through birth and arrives into the world. What a miracle each child is. And how lucky I am in the work that I do to witness each day this miracle in its countless forms.

 

Moulder, C. (2001) Miscarriage: Women’s experiences and needs. London: Routledge.

Special thanks to Becca Bevis for her thoughtful comments on a working draft.

Picture credit: Blickpixel (Creative Commons)

Earlier this month I attended a screening of MicroBirth – this film highlights the importance of the way in which a baby is colonised by its mother’s bacteria during and after birth, and emerging research into the impact of this on the baby’s future health. Something that is almost incomprehensible in its complexity of function in the body and possible future ramifications for long-term health, and that has been unwittingly tampered with by so many common practices in our culture during childbearing and the early postnatal period. At the same time it is amazingly simple: a mother gives birth and instinctively picks her baby up, cuddling her precious newborn against her skin and helping her baby find the way to the breast. When birth is undisturbed, the microbes take care of themselves.

There is a fantastically comprehensive summary of the research in this area by Midwife Thinking here, along with many useful practical suggestions for applying the findings of this emerging field during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.

What many of us watching the film were wondering afterwards, was how to take on board this information when we have experienced a less straightforward birth. My eldest child was born by caesarean a decade ago and I had never heard of the microbiome or the need to ‘seed’ the baby with the mother’s bacteria. There are several things I could and would have done to mitigate the effects of my daughter’s birth on her microbiome, had I known what I know now. Scientific discoveries advance constantly, and we never know when we may be faced with new information that calls into question decisions and choices made years earlier.

I am reminded of the quote by Maya Angelou – ‘I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.’ This is surely all that we can ask of ourselves. But it can be incredibly painful to confront the gap between our past knowledge, and our current knowledge. The pain of regret can cloud our vision, interfering with our ability to learn from experience and put our new knowledge to good use. When we are able to bring mindful awareness to our regrets, rather than avoiding or trying to suppress these feelings, we can hold them in clear-seeing and self-compassion. This allows us to move beyond the pain and sadness, able to respond more skilfully to use the wisdom we have gained.