Advantages of having a water birth – Amy’s story

Hypnobirthing and water births often go hand in hand as there are many advantages to birthing in the water.

Advantages of having a Water Birth

Some of the advantages of water birthing are:

  • Relax during your last hours of pregnancy.
  • Gentle motion in warm water can assist in the rotation of and descent of the baby’s head.
  • Warm water is relaxing especially for the woman’s uterus and vagina. You are able to stretch and accomodate the baby more easily. Along with hypnobirthings lack of pushing there is less pain, reducing chance of episiotomy.
  • Evidence shows being in warm water can lower the mother’s blood pressure during labor, helping to keep the baby out of distress.
  • Water is very calming and peaceful, ideal for hypnobirthing.
  • The perineal skin becomes softer and suppler, again reducing the chance of an episiotomy.
Amy Green, who blogs over at The Smallest Of Things gave birth in the water in 2014 and shares her story with us ….
I always knew I wanted to have a water birth from when I found out I was pregnant. With it being my first I didn’t really know what to expect but I’ve always found water soothing and often used to jump in the shower if I was in any sort of pain. I suffered with terrible SPD from quite early on and again water helped soothe it. Towards the end of my pregnancy my SPD made it uncomfortable to sit, lay or stand in certain positions! I’m so glad I chose a water birth!
So on the 1st March 2014 at about 2am I got my first contraction but then not another until about 4am so I thought nothing of it. I was due to be induced on the 2nd so I had kind of come round to the idea of never having my water birth I so badly wanted. But contractions got regular throughout the day and about 1am on the 2nd I headed to the hospital. Labour progressed quite quickly and by about 5:30am the pool was being run as I was fully dilated.
Getting into that pool was the most calming thing I’ve ever experienced. I was so warm and cosy and I just felt so at ease! I actually got so relaxed that my contractions stopped and I needed help to get them started again.
Unfortunately I can’t tell you that it took the pain away completely but I was so comfortable if that’s possible !

Fantastic Tech Items Every New Parent Will Love

Once you have gone through your amazing birth, there are a wealth of new gadgets and gizmos that will try and entice you to create an “easier” life for you and your new baby. Tech gadgets for parenting have reached incredible new heights this year. A decade ago the most high tech piece of kit a new parent could hope for was a cordless baby monitor but now there is a wealth of options on the market to address every parenting need.

Fantastic Tech Items Every New Parent Will Love

On-Demand TV

If you only buy one extra gadget to help you get to grips with being a new parent, make it a form of on-demand TV. Now you’re a parent your time is no longer your own, but on- demand TV will ensure you don’t miss your favourite shows (even if you are watching them during a 2am feed!) Just make sure that you get the best deal with a site such as Broadbandchoices who make finding the right package easy for you by simply inputting your postcode and it then informs you of the best deals on offer. This is a super handy tool for exhausted new parents as it does everything for you!

Thermometers

When you have children, one of the first indicators of illness is a rise in temperature, but trying to get an clear reading from an upset baby is anything but easy. Thankfully there are a number of excellent gadgets to help parents, like those that include a soother style thermometer, a standard body thermometer, and bath thermometer. Soother thermometers are available individually from pharmacies for around £5.

Baby Monitors

The award winning Owlet baby monitor blends the ease of a smartphone app with clever monitoring technology to give you an accurate update on your baby. it works via a monitor attached to a soft bootie, sending information via Bluetooth and WiFi and alerting parents immediately should their baby’s pulse change dramatically, or they stop breathing. The Motorola MBP36S retails for around £95, and consists of a very sensitive microphone and infrared camera that lets you zoom in to watch your sleeping child via a 2.4inch colour screen.

Educational Gadgets

Children learn more in their first 30 months than at any other stage of their lives. The Starling is a plastic clip which records the number of words a baby hears every day and reports back to parents via a smartphone app. At around £175 it isn’t cheap, but is great for parents to want to ensure their child has the best educational start in life.

Smartphone Apps

Baby Connect is an easy-to-use app which lets parents record and track all sorts of information about their baby, from how often the feed and how much milk they drink, to how long they sleep for, and even the number of nappy changes they need. It is ideal for quickly sharing information between parents and carers.

Baby Monitor 3G turns your phone, tablet, or laptop into a baby monitor, making it perfect for holidays, or when your baby sleeps over with grandparents who may not have a monitor of their own. White Noise (£1.49) will help your baby sleep soundly with a variety of calming sounds like waves crashing on the shore, or the pitter-patter of rain.

Protect Your Pushchair

It’s likely you have invested a lot of money in your travel system, so protect it with a lock like the Buggyguard. For £14.99 this retractable pram lock will give you peace of mind to turn your back on your buggy to do something like push your child on the swing, without your pram going missing.

There are lots of things that you don’t need for your baby but in our tech savvy world, some of the things above might just give you a little more peace of mind (and some great TV shows to catch up on)

Can hypnobirthing help with a Cesarean delivery? – Rebecca’s story

People often think hypnobirthing can only be beneficial for natural vaginal child birth but can it help with a Cesarean delivery too? We are delighted to share Rebecca’s story with you and the huge and positive impact that hypnobirthing had on her baby’s delivery and her future plans.

Can hypnobirthing help with a Cesarean delivery-

Rebecca’s Story

I attended a Mindful Mama workshop in Nottingham when I was about 32 weeks pregnant.  Prior to the workshop I had read the book and had been listening to the hypnobirthing track every day from about 24 weeks.  I was also doing active birthing classes and tried to remain relatively healthy during my pregnancy and was still at the gym 3-4 times a week up to 40 weeks in the hope that this would help make labour a bit easier.

What I loved about the course was that it wasn’t at all how hypnobirthing is often portrayed.  A lot of people think hypnobirthing is only for those who want a home birth or that those who do it are all hippies, this wasn’t the case at all.  The tools and skills I acquired from Mindful Mamma can be utilised at any type of birth, it didn’t just promote undisturbed birth it also encouraged the use of hypnosis for birth alongside mindfulness techniques for medicalised births, such as inductions and caesareans.  This was fortunate as I soon discovered that my birth wasn’t going to go to plan.

One of my birth preferences was that I would do as much as the labour as I could at home and then go to the tranquillity of the Sanctuary Midwife Led Unit at QMC, Nottingham, where I would have a drug free water birth and intervention would be kept to a minimum.

I soon found out that baby my baby had other ideas.  Week 40 came and went as did week 41.  I was listening to my hypnosis tracks, using my birthing ball, side stepping up hills and stairs, walking and reciting my affirmations, you name it I was doing it.  Whilst on the one hand I was feeling extremely calm, relaxed and even excited about giving birth I was also aware that time was ticking before talk of induction would be raised.

I delayed induction and was monitored but after discussions with my husband and using the questions we had been taught on the course we made the decision to proceed with the induction process.

With the induction underway my husband and I did lots of walking and I started getting tightening’s.  They seemed quite intense and were coming every three of four minutes for about 5 hours.  I stayed overnight at the hospital and used a TENS machine and listened to my hypnobirthing tracks to help me relax enough to get some sleep.  When monitoring me and baby the midwives kept commenting on how well I was handling the discomfort and the fact that the baby was remaining extremely calm.

The tightening’s were intensifying but my cervix wasn’t opening I continued use breathing techniques to help,  repeated my affirmations, took a bath and my husband was brilliant talking me through my breathing and reading through the relaxations for me.

Unfortunately there was still no sign of baby and after some discussion with my husband and medical staff I decided that a C-section would be the best option.  Although this had been the last thing I thought I wanted Mindful Mama ensured I  had the knowledge and confidence to ask the questions I needed answered and enabled me to make an informed choice that I felt was right for me and my baby.

I remained focused and calm throughout the surgery.  The theatre team even commented on this, as I chatted away.  Otis Vincent Slater made his very chilled arrival into the world on Wednesday 25th November at 4:22pm weighing 7lb 14oz.  Nearly six months on one of the main things people comment on is how content and calm he seems.  I think Mindful Mama has played a big part in this as it helped me relax and stay calm not only during the birth but also throughout the pregnancy which I feel Otis benefited from.

I was so impressed by my birth experience that I have since trained as a Mindful Mamma hypnobirthing practitioner.  I think that many people feel that they have had a negative birth experience because they see birth as something that has happened to them rather than something that they have had a say in and control over.  I became a Mindful Mamma practitioner as I want more women and their birth partners to feel empowered by birth and this can be achieved by helping with creating positive mind-set through a variety of hypnobirthing and mindfulness techniques and also by giving them the tools they need to feel confident enough to ask questions that will help them make the decisions that are right for them and their baby.

I will be holding classes once a month at Acorn Natural Health Centre and also offer private classes in the comfort of your own home. To find out more visit http://www.mindfulmamma.co.uk/rebecca-slater-ilkeston-heanor-and-surrounding-areas/