Hi
I did the calmbirth course and practiced the techniques during my labour and homebirth. I concentrated on breathing slowly all the time and it was really helpful. My midwife brought a tens machine and i gave it a go when the contractions were getting quite intense as I wanted to put off getting in to the pool until I really needed to. I didn't find it helped with the pain at all but i suppose it was a bit of a distraction and it passed a bit of time fiddling about with it. It was easy to get back into my breathing again so that wasn't an issue. I automatically carried on 'calm' breathing anyway. A lot of people find them helpful, even though I didn't, so probably worth getting just to arm yourself with another options (and ways to bombard the senses). I floated around in a huge paddling pool of hot water for ages and it was bliss! Highly recommend that.