Katharine's Hypnobirthing Blog

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.

A little while ago I worked with a mother to turn her breech baby, and the baby duly turned, as it does in 80% of the cases when you use hypnotherapy to turn a breech baby.

Yesterday a mother who has just booked up to the HypnoBirthing class in July emailed me to say she was feeling nervous about the birth and asking me if I would send the course CD to her so she could listen to it in advance and relax. By chance (?), it just so happened that she lived in the same street as my son, daughter-in-law, and their HypnoBirthing son who I was visiting at the time. It also just so happened that I had the CD she wanted with me. Within 10 minutes of receiving her email, I had walked down the road, and dropped the CD in to her. HypnoBirthing really does work!

I read a really funny article just now about HypnoBirthing. It said:
HypnoBirthing - for decreasing birth discomfort.
Why not be positive and put: HypnoBirthing - for increasing birth comfort.
Or, better still: HypnoBirthing - for allowing birth to be comfortable as nature intended.

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

The HypnoBirthing course which started at Triyoga in Primrose Hill yesterday holds a record. Five doctors attended the class, so news of the effectiveness of HypnoBirthing has definitely penetrated to the medical profession, showing a truly open-minded approach. It was a great class, held on a beautifully sunny day.

Next week we plan to have a picnic on Primrose Hill.

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

I love teaching HypnoBirthing. That's why I spend so much of my life doing it. I love knowing what a difference it has made to people's lives.

However, I don't love the night before a course. The floor is covered with folders being made up. The photocopier is red hot with duplicating handouts. I've loaded the car with folding chairs, TV, cushions and boxes of books. And usually there's a lot of midnight oil being burnt.

Today's HypnoBirthing class had an added bonus. It was a private class for a mother whose baby is due in two weeks' time, and it was the most beautiful sunny day, so at lunch time we took a break and sat outside at a pavement cafe in Primrose Hill enjoying the sunshine.

I've had two more lovely HypnoBirthing birth reports in the last couple of days, so I'll either add them to the website or post them on the blog (or both) in the next few days. It gives me such delight to hear the birth reports from mothers I've taught, and I know couples who are thinking of doing the course enjoy reading them.

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

Most of my life is spent looking at what makes a healthy and gentle birth through HypnoBirthing. On Friday I spent the day taking a slightly different view of health by attending the 'Energy 4 Exmoor' symposium run by the Exmoor Trust at Ralegh's Cross. It was a fascinating day, with lots of useful information on the viability of various forms of generating energy. There was an excellent presentation by Mukti Mitchell on reducing your carbon footprint while still maintaining your lifestyle, and a fascinating talk by Prof Sir Ghillian Prance, former director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, on conservation.

At the beginning of April the field behind my cottage was full of ewes in lamb. They were about to be moved to another field as the grass was getting very low, when one night the first one lambed. It was a freezing cold night, and when I awoke in the morning the flock was at the far end of the field where the farmer fed them every morning, and the one ewe that had lambed was at the end near my cottage right up by the hedge, far away from the rest of the flock, with little twin lambs huddled underneath her to keep warm. She had quietly separated herself from the flock during the night, and given birth at a time when sheep, being diurnal animals, are not normally active.