I did Calmbirthing when I was pregnant with DS. I highly recommend it. I'm lucky enough to live in a town near the creator of Calmbirth and he is still doing the courses. He's amazing but I'm pretty sure he trains all the other Calmbirth trainers himself.
I wanted a drug-free labor and birth and for 12 hours that is what I got. I used the Calmbirthing techniques and I can honestly say I loved my labor. Then after 12 hours it ended in an emergency C-Section but the Calmbirthing techniques were useful for that too.
It's definately something worth looking into. If you Google it you will find Peter Jackson's website with alot of information.
Sure it helped and love the practices, theories etc behind it. Recommend it.
I have only been able to read the book as we dont live anywhere near a course but still so worth it.
I have friend who did it and they had had birth trauma last time round, she was really scared so did the course and only had alittle gas for her next baby. She was so happy with the out come, says that if she hadnt done it she suspect she would have had another traumatic birth. Both her and her hubby felt calm, in control and bonded. Even if things do go abit off your plan, you can stil use the things you have learned
Calmbirthing and HypnoBirthing are not the same programme/thing.
I used HypnoBirthing and highly recommend it. I think you need to start very early and for it to be successful you and your DH or birth support need to be in it together and practice the techniques through out your pregnancy. It also works better if you are in a non-clinical environment and/or lower risk. I used ot for a VBAC in a hospital and there were more obstacles than I was prepared for.
I highly recommend hypnobirth! But I made one mistake. I was in a midwife group program, so I got to know my midwife before the big day. But somehow I never seemed to have a chance to tell her my birth preferences, or even that I was doing hypnobirthing...
My story...
On the day DS was born, I woke up to contractions at 3am, stayed in bed and breathed through them as per hypnobirthing. At 5am they were down to every 5 minutes, so I called my midwife. She said I had hours to go so I should take a panadol and go back to bed. There was no way I could sleep through the contractions, and at 8am they were every 1-2 minutes apart. Still my midwife (over the phone) insisted I wasn't close and should make sure I emptied my bladder regularly so it didn't get bruised. That's when I realized I hadn't even needed to pee all morning, which is highly unusual for me, especially pregnant! This was also the time she told me contractions were more painful lying down. So the next four hours were spent going to the toilet to try to wee, without success, breathing through each contraction and trying to micro nap while sitting on a chair or the exercise ball in the minute or two between contractions. Then I started to feel the urge to push, which started out with sufficiently low intensity for me to wonder whether I just needed to do a poo (sorry TMI!), but it got stronger and stronger the next couple of hours and I was really fighting my body to not push. I'd called the midwife several times during this time but she was still adamant that I was too calm to bother coming in. Argh! I still hadn't peed and she told me to have a bath, have a shower, put a warm washer on my tummy while sitting on the toilet, none of which helped. At 3pm I was on the toilet doing this when there was a "pop!" and I thought my waters must have broken but there wasn't much there. I called my midwife, obviously sounding a bit panicked by now and she said in exasperation, "Do you want to come in now?". Yes! In my head I was clear but I was so timid telling her. Such an idiot! While getting dressed, my waters broke properly and there was a green tinge to them.
The car trip took about 40 minutes. I handled being in the car far better than I thought I would. That had been the thing I was worried about all day given the intensity of my contractions.
We got to the hospital at about 4pm. I waited in the reception area of the labour assessment lounge for 10 minutes before anyone would even look at me. One of the nurses then came over to tell me there were other people ahead of me and I'd have to wait a while. Luckily I had the sense to tell her I thought there was merconium in the waters, and she had a look at the maternity pad and said I'd be taken to a room immediately and have to be induced. !!!!!!!
My midwife turned up soon after I got into the labour room, while another nurse was hooking me up to monitor bub's heartbeat. After they checked out the heart rate for a while, my midwife checked how dilated I was. DH and I were NOT surprised to hear I was fully dilated but everyone else was. So no, there wasn't time for DH to move the car and the notes I had about my birth preferences never got looked over. But the crappy thing is, my contractions had really faded and I barely noticed them anymore. There was no more urge to push. I pushed a few times when I noticed tightenings, but nothing was happening and I reminded my midwife I still hadn't peed, so she inserted a catheter to extract 300ml of urine and then I started trying again. Instead of being able to breathe my baby down, I pushed him into the world because there were no contractions to work with anymore. It took an hour and a half or more of pushing to birth DS. I birthed standing up, DS was posterior and I got 2nd degree tears. She didn't place him on my chest, even though he was perfectly fine when he came out. The cord was cut when I didn't want it to be. I didn't deliver the placenta naturally like I had planned. I still feel upset when I think about these things, and I initially feel mad at the midwife but then I realize I'm the only one I have to blame for not being more assertive!!!
All in all, I won't say the contractions weren't uncomfortable but they were't scarily uncomfortable until I was fighting my body when I needed to push. But if I'd been able to follow the hypnobirthing method all the way along I'm almost certain I would have birthed DS about 5 hours earlier by working with my body's urge to push and doing the birthing breathing I'd practised (when doing a poo, sorry TMI again!). I suspect he turned in those last hours so he wouldn't have been posterior either.
I hope you're interested to hear this and it wasn't just a self-indulgent rant.
By the way, if there's a next time for us I'm very much intending to try for a home birth with a midwife experienced in hypnobirth!!! Have you considered this?
I have done both hypnobirthing and calmbirthing, and they are both pretty similar so I would go with whichever one is most accessible to you. I found them both excellent, all my births have been drug free and close to painless. My twins birth story is in my sig if you would like a quick overview of how I birth
BellyBelly Member
Let's talk Hypnobirthing
So the next four hours were spent going to the toilet to try to wee, without success, breathing through each contraction and trying to micro nap while sitting on a chair or the exercise ball in the minute or two between contractions. Then I started to feel the urge to push, which started out with sufficiently low intensity for me to wonder whether I just needed to do a poo (sorry TMI!), but it got stronger and stronger the next couple of hours and I was really fighting my body to not push. I'd called the midwife several times during this time but she was still adamant that I was too calm to bother coming in. Argh! I still hadn't peed and she told me to have a bath, have a shower, put a warm washer on my tummy while sitting on the toilet, none of which helped. At 3pm I was on the toilet doing this when there was a "pop!" and I thought my waters must have broken but there wasn't much there. I called my midwife, obviously sounding a bit panicked by now and she said in exasperation, "Do you want to come in now?". Yes! In my head I was clear but I was so timid telling her. Such an idiot! While getting dressed, my waters broke properly and there was a green tinge to them.
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