The Royal College of Midwives conference 2019 was, as ever, the biggest gathering of midwives of the year.  This year it was in Manchester.  I wondered why there were ten police vans parked outside and police on rooves, down manholes, everywhere.  Surely midwives are not so very likely to be the object of a terror attack?  Then I realised it was in preparation for the Conservative Party Conference in the same conference centre the following week!

The KGHypnobirthing stand in the exhibition was inundated with attention. 

Our trainer and KGHypnobirthing teacher, Nancy Keen from Birth Right Hypnobirthing, has a go-to biscuit recipe which she can whip up quickly and is always popular with parents attending her course.  Nancy says making these biscuits is quicker than going to the shops to buy some! Here is Nancy's recipe. Enjoy!

For Father’s Day this year, we want to highlight the wonderful and important role of fathers and partners during the pregnancy and birth of their baby. Most fathers nowadays wish to play an active part in every stage of the growth of their baby and support their partners however they can – practically, emotionally and researching options together. Gone are the days when the father stayed outside the birth room or went to the pub with his friends to await the news of the new arrival.

Make the most of our resources for fathers and partners and the new articles and videos we have added to our website for you.

Having just returned from this year’s MaMa conference, I am reflecting on having met so many wonderful, hardworking birth professionals. It is inspiring to see their commitment to supporting women and their partners during the life-changing stages of pregnancy and birth.

I would like to congratulate Sarah Scarlett again on winning the Student Midwife of the Year award, which I presented to her on Saturday evening. In this interview with Sarah below, she explains the value of support networks, what motivates her and how the KGHypnobirthing teacher training course has helped her.

Huge congratulations to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the birth of their baby boy at 5.26am today!

A clearly ecstatic Harry announced the news outside the couples home on the Windsor estate - Frogmore Cottage - suggesting that they had a home birth.  The name and full details of the birth are yet to be revealed.

Although The Duchess of Sussex did not reveal her plans for birthing her baby whilst pregnant, she was often pictured cradling her growing tummy in a very loving and maternal way. As I stated back in December, Meghan was practicing responsive natural parenting and touching. 

As we recognise midwives on the International Day of the Midwife on 5 May 2019, I remember a wonderful day spent with Mary Cronk MBE asking her questions about her eminent career. This is particularly poignant as Mary sadly passed away in February this year, aged 86.

Having trained as a nurse at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Mary moved to London to train as a midwife at Queen Charlotte’s in London. After practising as an NHS community midwife for decades, where she challenged obstetricians and supported colleagues with wisdom and compassion to ensure women received the best care, she became an independent midwife in 1991.

Very happy to share KGHypnobirthing with the gurus of healthy living and eating Ella and Matt. There is so much you can do when you focus on a healthy approach to life - in diet, exercise and of course birth. It's a pleasure to support them as they focus on the normality of birth.

in our first session we covered the evidence behind KGHypnobirthing, as well as the breathing and techniques to achieve the best possible birth. On the second day we go deeper into how to apply this knowledge when you actually give birth, how to work with your medical caregivers, and why this is the very best start in life for your baby. 

It’s not long until this year’s MaMa conference and we are busy preparing to go to Scotland to meet NHS and independent birth professionals. The conference is being held in Glasgow on 3-4 May and is the largest independent annual midwifery and maternity healthcare conference in the UK.  We are looking forward to discussing various aspects of pregnancy, birth and hypnobirthing with the people who visit our stand, giving away copies of The Hypnobirthing Book and encouraging them to enter the MaMa raffle to receive a free place on the KGHypnobirthing teacher training course.

As I look back at how hypnobirthing has grown over the past decade or so, it’s rather like the three trimesters in pregnancy – waiting for the big event, the culmination of a vast amount of work, growing a baby or for me, KGHypnobirthing. Of course, it doesn’t happen all at once, but in stages.

Informative & Interactive Hypnobirthing Content

In the build up to World Hypnobirthing Day we are going to share some fabulous and interactive content for all mums-to-be to support them on their journey. Our first article is all about the initial stages, The First Trimester of Pregnancy.  

The second “World Hypnobirthing Day” takes place on Saturday 21st March 2020.

Celebrating the immense impact that Hypnobirthing has had on so many women, their birth partners and of course their babies! And how this has changed the lives of birth professionals as they care for these parents-to-be.

History and Growth of Hypnobirthing

From its infancy with research from Dr. Grantly Dick Reid, work from Ina May and Michelle Leclaire O'Neill, hypnobirthing has come on in leaps and bounds.  The graph below shows the growth in interest in the worldwide searches of hypnobirthing (from Google trends).  The middle spike shows when Prince George was born in 2014 (with the world's media speculating if Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, had used hypnobirthing techniques) and the far right spike recently in 2020 is when Kate actually confirmed in a podcast that she had used hypnobirthing for all three of her royal births. On top of this, the rise of high profile celebrities sharing their own hypnobirthing stories, have lead to the steady rise in people in people talking about it and knowing what it actually is!