Positive Birth Stories
Reading other mum’s birth stories can be so very helpful when preparing for your own birth. What did they choose and why? How did they work with changes or problems? What worked and what did not? How did it affect the birth using Hypnobirthing skills? Most importantly though it allows you to see that birth can be a positive and life-affirming experience irrespective of the path that that birth took.
So, settle back, have a good read and enjoy.
Dimitra and James' home birth hypnobirth
I remember feeling "high" from my own endorphins, empowered and relaxed. I remember feeling strong and mighty, completely focused on birthing my baby and not caring about anything/anyone else in the room.
Charlotte's second positive home birth using hypnobirthing
In the end everything happened very quickly but calmly. I felt my first surge around 11pm and after relaxing on my ball and concentrating on my breathing, I let my husband Tom know and asked him to prepare our living room.
How learning enables a calm birth — Li Ee and Joe
Before we attended your course, we were both quite apprehensive about the birth, but after your course, we felt so much better, calmer and positive about it. I listened to your tracks almost everyday, and over the weeks grew in confidence of my ability to birth our baby and was no longer fearful of labour and birth.
Caroline's home birth: post-dates birth
Our son Phoenix was born at home the week before Christmas. As preparation for the birth, I did a hypnobirthing class and one free antenatal class, but we opted to not do all the antenatal classes that everyone seems to do. We wanted a home birth and felt that the hypnobirthing would be the most useful for us. I also did pregnancy yoga and read a small number of books
Hannah’s Birth — The power of visualisations for birth.
I had listened to the hypnobirthing recordings nearly every night, sometimes twice a day, since we first met, when I was 34 weeks pregnant.
Camilla's birth of Honor - with induction for Obstetric Cholestasis
After a fairly traumatic first birth, where I started with aromatherapy in the pool and, 36 hours later, ended up flat on my back in a brightly lit room with a load of midwives screaming at me to push, and then a very unwell baby, I turned to your hypnobirthing course in the hope it would help me feel a bit more in control for my second birth.
Zoe's birth of Isabelle - The Comfort of spending as much time labouring at home as possible.
After having period like pain on and off since the previous Saturday 16th and increased Braxton Hicks contractions, real surges started around 10pm on Sunday night. I was in bed and tried to carry on sleeping to get some rest. By 1am surges were too strong and I had to move around. Scott joined me in the lounge and I started using a tens machine.
Hamish’s textbook birth.
Thank you for the hypnobirthing sessions! Hamish was born a week early on 26th June following an absolute textbook birth! I went into labour at 9am and we hypnobirthed at home until 7pm with no problems! Then went to hospital as the surges were 4 in 10 and when we got there I was fully dilated!!!! Had a water birth In the Carmel suite and he came just before midnight! No stitches needed and the whole thing was just sooo amazing. We stayed over night in the carmen suite as no one was there! And left at 7am!
Rupert’s hypnobirth.
Just to let you know Rupert was born last Sunday. The hypnobirthing was a huge help and I am sure it was part of ensuring we had a great birth experience, alongside keeping active throughout my pregnancy.
My waters broke at 4am, contractions started at 1pm post a sweep in the morning at 9am. We managed to avoid any further intervention despite my waters having broken without labour starting and the hospital being keen to move things along. We also managed to labour at home (or with an ice cream in Battersea park from 3-4pm) by agreeing to pop into the hospital at lunch and then at 6.30pm. I used the recordings in the car on the way to and from the hospital as I found being in the car less relaxing. I used my up breathing through my contractions and a tens machine from about 5pm.
Kelly-Ann – when the birth plan goes out the window.
Hypnobirthing for me was a conscious decision to press the override button on all the regular chat about birth experiences. I wanted to breathe positivity into the experience, believing that's a better muscle relaxant than fear! Melanie's classes didn't disappoint and had a real present and lasting effect on my birth experience. A big reason for choosing hypnobirthing was so that my partner could be more involved, by the time we finished the classes the role he had to play was so much clearer and we were stronger for it.
Eliza’s surprise breech arrival.
I was in labour for 24 hours and went to hospital as the surges were 3 in 10, two midwives checked me and sent me home as I was only 1cm dilated and I was told the cervix was behind the head so I needed to try and manipulate it down.
After a lot of crawling and bouncing ball later I was having surges every 2 minutes, so we went to hospital and into birthing centre. The midwife checked me and asked why my baby was so small and she had some concerns about this.
Georgie’s birth – when things go against you at first.
We’ve had the baby! Now proud parents to a little boy called Tristan, born 04.57am on Thursday.I wanted to say thank you and share with you my birth story, of which I believe is solely down to doing hypnobirthing and all my work with you. First signs of labour were actually feeling my waters breaking, about 4.30pm on Wednesday followed by some mild surges about every 30mins or so. Owain came home and we cooked some pasta for dinner and I danced around to uplifting soul music to keep moving & positive. As the surges grew stronger we went to our bedroom and listened to the hypnobirthing music and did the partner’s script followed by a visualisation or two.
Lucilla’s birth – the importance of the birth partner.
I thought I'd email now and give you the details of how our beautiful daughter Isabella arrived in the world last Sunday. I went into labour on Friday morning and first forgot all my hypnobirthing and fought each one. My husband, who attended the course too, gently showed me the breathing, reminded me of my birth plan and put on a recording. From then on the waves came and went for 48 hours and although they became more powerful I was able to actively work through them and stay calm and focused. 48 hours was a very long time and even when I became tired I was able to stay calm and relaxed and visualise our daughter making her way down.
Delphine’s second birth — how to heal a traumatic birth.
I wanted to let you know that I gave birth to our little girl, Leïla, on the 7th of June! Thank you so much for the hypnobirthing class... we had an amazing experience.
I have to admit that I was not completely convinced of the "hypnobirthing power", especially after the birth of my son, which was a bit traumatic, 18 months ago... I was really wondering how I could keep control during painful surges. I listened to the MP3’s nearly every night since the class in February, but I did not finish reading the book and I felt that I did not practice the breathing and visualisation exercises enough...
The labour started on the 6th of June around 10pm, and the first surges were quite intense. I was a bit worried about our toddler as I wanted to ensure that our friends could come home before we had to go to the hospital, so I did not manage to focus on my breathing and visualisation at first... Once I knew they were on their way, I put down all the lights in our flat, lighted up a candle and started working on my breathing with the MP3’s you sent to us.
Tamsin’s joyous birth using hypnobirthing techniques.
We just wanted to let you know that last night I gave birth to our second little girl, Tamsin, at Chelsea & Westminster.
The birth couldn't have been better - I needed to be monitored so we were on the ward rather than birth center - but we had practised all you had taught us and I used all the visualisations and plugged myself into the tracks that I'd downloaded onto my phone. I listened to these for hours with George giving brilliant support when needed. My waters broke at about 8:30pm and they needed to transfer me downstairs. Despite it being a chaotic time in the middle of a shift change, we kept calm, I buried my head in a load of pillows and shut my eyes, concentrating on the tracks on my phone helping me breathe through each surge as the midwives wheeled us in the nick of time to the labour ward.
Nicola’s first birth.
I wanted to let you know our amazing news - our little angel arrived 8 days early on Sunday evening at 10.20pm.
I wanted to share our story as I know you love to hear them and also in case you want to share with other couples.
On Thursday and Friday nights last week whilst in bed I felt what I can only describe as a ‘burrowing’ feeling and I felt like the baby was trying to move down. I had only had my 38 week check 3 days earlier when I was told that his head was down but no fully engaged (I was fine with that as still had near enough 2 weeks to my ‘due’ date). I started to feel slightly uncomfortable towards that end of the week and I had a “conversation” with the baby on the Saturday and told him that I was ready to meet him when he was ready too.
Sure enough on Sunday morning when I got up to make a cup of tea, my waters broke. I called St George’s as was advised if waters break to let them know.
Niamh’s physiological, speedy birth.
Olly and I wanted to send you a note to thank you so much and say how wonderfully helpful we found your course. It was the first baby related course we did and didn’t realise it at the time but it was head and shoulders above anything else we would do (NCT, hospital courses etc). We completely loved the positive mindset attitude and the whole hypnobirthing ethos, and we practiced!
Lara’s birth induction with preeclampsia
Lara was born on 8th December. Unfortunately we didn’t get to use the Birthing suite as planned. I was diagnosed with Preeclampsia at my 40 week check up. I was induced and she arrived via a ventouse delivery after I had an epidural. It all went really well considering and she’s amazing! We are very much in love. I was listening to Hypnobirthing every night before going to bed and I definitely think it helped me keep calm throughout the entire birthing process.
Kate’s vaginal birth after Caesarean (VBAC) with hypnobirthing
I just wanted to let you know how it all went after you helped me so much with my birth preparation. So I had resigned myself to having my waters broken today and it was with much whooping when they broke on their own on Saturday night around 9pm and immediately I could feel a lot of pressure in my back and pelvis. We went into hospital at their request at 11pm and they left us in a nice dark quiet triage ward where I could just walk and bounce to get things going. By 1am I was surging every 4-6 minutes. I listened to my hypno recordings the whole time (thank you!) and had a little ritual for each surge that involved kneeling on my pillow with my face in another one with Dave applying pressure to my lower back and breathing through them.
Katie’s healing and swift second birth.
Honestly we can't thank you enough for your help and teaching - as you may remember my first birthing experience was endlessly medicalised - induction, labouring in a 4-bedded bay, giving birth on my back under bright lights.
This time round everything was different, and a lot of that was thanks to hypnobirthing. I knew my birth would be fast, so as soon as the surges started we headed to the midwife-led unit. Thanks to the visualisations and the sense of empowerment they gave us, there was no panic, no sense of impending doom. Max got our stuff ready and organised transport, while I headed into the dimly lit living room and surged in peace. Once we were at the hospital the calm continued.