Hypnobirthing has done so much for women and for birth since it breathed its way into our lives in the late 1980s. By combining birth education with tools and technique for coping with labour and getting the birthing partner involved, it has helped thousands, if not millions, of women claim their positive birth experience.
I personally am very grateful for the role that it played in my own birth journey. While it wasn’t able to support me the whole way, it got me onto a great start. It planted the seed that inspired the work I did in developing Fearless Birthing, my own approach to birth prep that focusses on fear-clearance and building emotional resilience.
So, I thought it was about time that I openly thanked and appreciated hypnobirthing*.
*If I had been exposed to other forms of birth prep like the Bradley Method or Lamaze, then I’m pretty confident this post would be about them. But the spirit of this post includes them for sure.
The real reason I’m writing this post is this…
Improving birth for everyone is important
Improving birth for everyone is a huge thing for me. I can get pretty evangelical about it. And one thing that I’ve learned in my Head Trash Clearance work is that if you have a lot of love and passion for something, it can also be your undoing, your Achilles heel. Instead of attracting more of it into your life, you end up attracting the very opposite. #ouch
I see this all the time in my mama CEO clients.
They love efficiency or being organised, and yet, on close inspection, they realise they are anything but efficient or organised. Not only do they have blind spots that elude them, but they tend to judge others for not being efficient or organised. Which tends to have the opposite effect in their lives. They end up being surrounded by inefficiency and disorganisation. #yikes
And it drives them nuts!
So what does that mean for those of us who LOVE the idea of hypnobirthing and positive birth?
Let me tell you.
It means that you might be creating the opposite of positive birth vibes. All subconsciously of course.
So how might you be doing that?
You might be ranty
Yup! You may be a bit ranty, but not in a good way. You might get ranty in the kind of way that might make people switch off. Hardly a good thing when you’re trying to spread a positive message.
You might be judgy
You might also get a bit judgy towards those who don’t agree with your view.
This is because when people don’t agree with you it triggers you emotionally. And it’s this emotional reaction that might include being judgy.
Again, not very useful in helping to bring people around to your way of thinking. Whether that’s someone seeing your emotional shackles rise up, or feeling that you’re judging them.
You might be a bit in-yer-face
I would imagine that right now there are zillions of mamas who have had great hypnobirths who are telling anyone who’ll listen to
“Just do hypnobirthing – it’s amazing!”
And there are also another zillion hypnobirthing practitioners saying the same.
Maybe…. Just maybe.. there’s a bit of “you MUST do this!” energy about it. Or an energy that just puts people off because it’s too in-your-face. This might actually be having the opposite effect and turn people off.
I hate being told what to do. And if someone appears to be telling me what to do, then I do the opposite; I DON’T do it. Yes, that’s my head trash but I’m not unique with this. A lot of us do this!
I’m not pointing any fingers here.
I’m saying that I might be guilty of this. And I don’t want to be. So I’m going to heal my love for all things positive birth and for me, hypnobirrhing is a huge part of that. As I was preparing to do this, I thought others might want to join me.
Imagine if every mama who had a great hypnobirth or if every hypnobirthing practitioner could speak about positive birth and that people listened.
Actually listened.
Not only would they listen to what you were saying, but that they truly heard. Imagine what that could do for birth outcomes.
Just imagine!
So that’s what this post is about.
5 reasons why I love hypnobirthing
So here are my 5 reasons why I love hypnobirthing (and all things positive birth). Finally!
1. It helps zillions of women every year to have incredible births.
You can’t argue with that. When I say zillions, I obvs have no idea exactly how much. But it’s a lot. And whether it’s a 1,000 or 1000,000+ I don’t care because even just one extra birth experience can have an incredible ripple effect.
It’s not not just the mama who benefits from her fab birth experience, but it’s the baby and partner too.
Here are just some of the benefits of a great birth experience;
- Mama feels emotionally stronger and more confident going into motherhood, at least compared to if she had a crazy experience
- She is more likely to succeed at breastfeeding, if that’s what she wants
- Bonding with baby will be easier
- The family unit is less likely to suffer from the emotional toll the comes from a difficult birth experience and so it makes them stronger
Any one of these on their own would be reason enough, but when you put them all together, it’s compelling.
Positive births can change the world.
Of course we want more women to experience them.
2. It’s empowering
Not only do birthing peeps feel empowered through adopting hypnobirthing (or other birth prep methods) but their partners do too. It provides structure and focus to birth preparation where some couples could easily feel a little bit lost and overwhelmed.
Through hypnobirthing classes and books couples are able to learn about birth and take control of the key decisions that are facing them during their pregnancy and birthing journey. This helps couples to feel more in control of the birth experience which in turn helps them to feel empowered.
3. It helps partners to feel involved
It can be easy for birth partners to feel like a spare part during pregnancy and birth. The process isn’t happening to them and on the surface there might not be anything obvious for them to do. But of course there is.
You and I probably have an understanding of this, but many couples new to birth might not. And so for them this is brilliant. It guides them and shows how birth partners can support the birthing person and get involved. This can make such a difference to how they feel during the pregnancy and birth and ultimately will have such an impact on the birthing person.
It also sets the tone for parenting.
4. It educates
Birth education is sadly lacking in most school systems around the world. The result of this is that couples face pregnancy with a huge lack of knowledge as to what to experience. This creates fear.
The reason for that is because this gulping gap ends up being filled by things we’re exposed to culturally. So films, tv shows, social media, headlines and stories from friends and families. None of these are a match for good birth education.
So whether people attend a class, read a book or do an online course, the chances are that these will all include an element of birth education.
And that’s important.
5. If provides tools for life
Hypnobirthing teaches some great mindset tools that can be used well beyond the birth. And boy will we need it??
As a mindset coach I LOVE this! Mindset is one area that we can ALL benefit from being better at. It can make such a difference to all aspects of your life, parenting included.
Hypnobirthing introduces people to these tools and it’s possible that they wouldn’t have come across them otherwise. It switches peeps onto what’s possible with the mind.
This is such a great thing.
Any one of these 5 reasons are epic reasons why hypnobirthing (and other birth prep methods, mine included) is brilliant, but together, they really do explain why I love hypnobirthing.
But, let me get back to what I’m doing here. My intention is to heal my shit around positive birth.
And this means also acknowledging the reasons why I hate it.
Some people might find this hard to do. The harder you find it the more emotional crap you’ve got going on. But if you’re a birth worker or someone who supports expectant families in preparing for pregnancy and birth, then would urge you to give it a go.
What is this mindset exercise?
The mindset exercise I’m sharing with you is something I call Logical Lists.
Essentially, it involves writing a list of the reasons why you love the things you hate, and hate the things you love. The idea behind this is that it helps you to think differently and to balance the emotional energy.
Writing a list of reasons you love something that you actually love isn’t hard (but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t acknowledge them). But doing the opposite is. And in doing so it can help you change your mindset and energy around something.
You can listen to my podcast episode 30 reasons why I love being pregnant which I recorded at a time when I was DONE with my pregnancy. I was so fed up with it! But I need to shift my mindset because I still had weeks to go. It really helped.
It’s a powerful exercise.
I’ve had mamas tell me that doing this exercise healed their fear of pain around childbirth. So, you see, it’s pretty powerful.
Try it.
- Write out 30 reasons why you love the idea of crappy births
- Write out 30 reasons why you hate positive birth / hypnobirthing or the Bradley method or whatever birth prep approach you love
I’ll be sharing the reasons I hate hypnobirthing soon so look out for that!
Alexia supports families planning pregnancy and birth. She helps them to overcome their fears and feel calm and confident about birth and pregnancy.
Alexia also trains birth professionals in the Fearless Birthing, a unique approach to birth preparation that is ideal for those who have fears around birth.
- Erin’s Tokophobia Healing Journey - 6th March 2024
- How Unhealed Tokophobia Can Affect You In Unexpected Ways - 27th February 2024
- Overcoming Birth Trauma: Heather’s Journey to Positive Birth - 14th December 2023
