Better Birth Blog
Information on hypnobirthing, pregnancy and birth
Optimal Foetal Positioning: How to Help Your Baby Get into the Best Position for Birth
Your baby's position in the womb refers to how they are lying in relation to your pelvis. The most significant aspect for birth is the position of the back of their head — the occiput — in relation to the front or back of your pelvis.
The Fourth Trimester: What Nobody Tells You About the Weeks After Birth
This is one of the most important things I say to new mothers, and one of the most liberating once it is truly understood. The pressure to 'bounce back' and to return to your pre-pregnancy body, your pre-pregnancy life, your pre-pregnancy self is not only unrealistic but based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what birth is.
Anxiety in Pregnancy: Why It Happens and What a Clinical Hypnotherapist Recommends
A previous difficult, frightening or traumatic birth experience either your own, or one that you witnessed or were told about, can leave a deep imprint in your unconscious mind. The body remembers.
VBAC: Can Hypnobirthing Help You Achieve a Vaginal Birth After Caesarean?
When a clinician tells you that attempting a VBAC increases your risk of uterine rupture, they are telling you something true. What they are often not telling you is how small that risk is in real numbers and clearly that distinction matters enormously.
The Hypnobirthing Hospital Bag Checklist: Everything That Creates a Calmer Birth
Pack with complete clarity. Your birth partner or doula will need to be able to find things quickly and easily, ideally without having to ask you while you are labouring. If they are rummaging around in a jumbled bag trying to find your eye mask, you will feel it. This disruption to your environment matters.
The Stages of Labour Explained: What's Really Happening in Your Body (and How to Work With It)
Although your maternity team will speak about your labour in clearly defined stages, early labour, active labour, transition, second stage, third stage, you almost certainly won't be able to notice most of these distinctions while you are living through them.
What Is a Birth Plan and Does It Actually Matter? A Doula's Honest Answer
Think about that for a moment. These are the people who will be with you at one of the most significant moments of your life — and in many cases, they will know nothing about you when you walk through the door. Your birth plan is the document that changes that.
Signs of Labour: How to Know You're Really in Labour — From a Doula Who's Been in the Room
This piece is the answer I give every woman I work with. Not the clinical checklist version — the real, honest, from-the-room version that will actually help you recognise what's happening in your body and know what to do about it.
How to Manage Labour Pain Without an Epidural: A Hypnotherapist & Birth Doula’s Guide
If you're pregnant, terrified of labour pain, and wondering whether you'll be able to cope without an epidural — then this article is for you. I'm going to tell you something I want you to really hear: you can do this. And I'm not simply saying that to be kind.
10 Tips For a Natural Birth: How to stack the odds in your favour
We are, of course, all different and a natural birth is not for everyone and there are many nuances to birth and changes that can happen along the way. But are there things that we can actually be doing to stack the odds in our favour for this?
Dear Press & Media,
You are failing to report on our lack of midwives, you are failing to report on midwives working insanely long hours with no breaks and you are failing to report on the damage being caused by care providers not listening to women.
When to Go to Hospital in Labour: How to Know You're Ready.
When should you be transferring to hospital or when should you be calling your home birth team to come and support you?
Induction of Labour: 6 Things You Need to Know Before Yours.
Just because your friend, Aunt, work colleague or random person online chose induction - doesn’t mean that it will be the best choice for you or that you have to!
The UK Birth Trauma Inquiry
When the fish rots from the head down how can you fix things for the end user? How do we remind the entire service that birth is a normal physiological event and the more you try to make it work like a machine the more damage you will incur.
THOUGHTS ON ULTRA-RUNNING AND BIRTH
Knowledge. Training. Self-belief. Kindness. Encouragement. Can do.
Cheering teams and ‘not long now’.
GIFTS FROM THE BABY :)
There basically needs to be a trade-off. A gift. A toy. Something special to make this new, rather dull person worthwhile.
You Don't Have to Justify Your Birth Choices to Anyone.
You can choose to do whatever you wish to do without having to create a powerpoint presentation, without arriving with the latest research or without beating them over the head with your Dr Sara Wickham book.
THE COME DOWN⠀
Do you remember those days in January… when it’s cold and wet and the Christmas chocolates are finished and the sparkly lights all turned off?
What Is a Stretch and Sweep? Everything You Need to Know Before Yours.
A stretch and sweep is a form of Induction of Labour, therefore it is offered to stimulate the uterus and bring on labour earlier than it might otherwise spontaneously start.
Do You Have to Push in Labour? What Nobody Tells You About the Pushing Stage
We as mammals require exactly what every other mammal requires to give birth. Calm, dim lighting, no distractions, no unwanted observers and no questions.