Katharine's Hypnobirthing Blog

Celebrating Hypnobirthing at Christmas

Since 2008, hypnobirthing has seen a 75% growth* in interest in the United Kingdom from expectant mothers choosing a natural childbirth

I am a mother.  I have spent my life searching for recalcitrant football boots and making sure that teenagers with hollow legs have enough food.

There's so much happening at the moment. I often get calls and emails from parents who have done a Hypnobirthing class with me a year or so ago and who are now expecting their second baby.  Lots of them feel they would like to have a refresher session to remind them of everything they practised before to make their first birth successful. I've had so many of these requests that I'm setting up a class especially for parents who are expecting their second (or third, or fourth.....) baby and who feel that a reminder of the work we did before would help them on their way.

Just to let everyone know that we've announced an extra hypnobirthing course in March, to be held at katharine's home in Fosbury.  The village is midway between Andover and marlborough (more details on the main site), and the course will be over 4 evenings (Monday and Tuesday on successive weeks). These course are more intimate than the London ones, with katharine's house being quite small, so we only have a few couples at each one.  Please feel free to contact Katharine through the site for details.

I taught a Hypnobirthing class near the Southbank to a delightful group this weekend.  There were lots of good questions and I was impressed by the mother who was expecting twins and had decided to have them at home attended by an independent midwife. One part of the course that I particularly enjoy is sharing lunch together on the second day.  It gives everyone a chance to get to know each other and maybe make friendships that will last after the babies are born which can be a great support in early motherhood.

If your baby hasn't arrived on the 'due date', an induction is generally proposed quite soon afterwards.

Let's look at this for a moment. For nine months your baby has grown undisturbed inside you.  There have been checks to make sure all is well but, in general, everyone has trusted this miraculous process.  Suddenly this date arrives on which such store has been placed and everything changes. Now the presumption is that the baby no longer knows best and that nature may have got it wrong.

This weekend I'm not teaching HypnoBirthing - yes, really! Today's a very important day. It's a celebration of the arrival of my hypnobirthing grandson last October. Family and friends are gathering for a picnic. The sun's shining, and I'm looking forward to a wonderful day. He's a true hypnobirthing baby. His mother was fully dilated when she arrived at hospital and he was born half an hour later. Since then he has been very calm and cheerful, as are so many hypnobirthing babies.

Katharine Graves is the teacher at The HypnoBirthing Centre, where she runs HypnoBirthing Courses in London and Southern England for expectant couples.

I was reminded today how much HypnoBirthing (quite rightly) is about mothers and the needs of fathers can be overlooked. Of course fathers have an important role in the HypnoBirthing method, but what about their needs? It was brought home to me a little while back when I was talking to a father who had ME and who was deeply distressed that he was unable to provide for his wife and new baby.

HypnoBirthing is wonderful, and it is enormously satisfying to see the difference it makes to mothers, but last weekend I had a different sort of satisfaction. I took a weekend off to be with my family and played with my hypnobirthing granddaughter as well as my three year old grandson (born in New Zealand so I wasn't able to teach his mother hypnobirthing). There's a lot to be said for playing on a sandy beach with small children.

Katharine Graves is the teacher at The HypnoBirthing Centre, where she runs HypnoBirthing Courses in London and Southern England for expectant couples.