Surrey HypnoBirthing

“The breakthrough approach to safer, easier, comfortable birthing” – Marie Mongan.

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How much exercise can I do now I’m pregnant?

As I dragged myself off to my class at the gym today, I wondered why I was doing it. I felt sluggish and it felt like a chore I didn’t want to do. I went, I started the class and I still couldn’t get myself into it. So I slowed right down and took it easy. I finished the session but I wasn’t the beetroot red sweaty mess that I usually am when I’ve finished my work out. And I felt great! 

I had listened to my body. For whatever reason, today wasn’t a day for full on exertion.

This was something I found tricky to get my head around when I was pregnant. Having always been a really active physical person, the fact that exercise didn’t suit me as a pregnant woman came as a bit of a shock. I had sworn it wouldn’t stop me. But it did. It floored me. Plenty of women are able to continue their exercise regime well into and throughout pregnancy – but I wasn’t one of them!

The advice given by doctors is that you shouldn’t up the intensity of your regular exercise when you become pregnant as your body is already doing enough in growing your baby. But if exercise has always been a part of your regime and you feel good doing it, there’s no reason pregnancy should stop you (within reason of course!). It’s down to you to calculate the risk of any potential consequences of anything you might do – for both you and your baby – but otherwise, if it feels good, go ahead!

We’re all different. Some women can run a marathon whilst carrying a baby but for others SPD can make walking just to even the toilet feel like that marathon! Generally, if you listen to your body you will know and both you and your baby will be fine. It has an innate intelligence and it always knows best. My years of training as a yoga teacher – as well as personal experience of ignoring the messages from my body and suffering the consequences – have taught me to trust. 

Trust your body. It will tell you how much you can do.  

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Be response-able – choose to enjoy your pregnancy

One of the key things about being human that differentiates us from the animal kingdom is the fact that we are responsible or, perhaps more accurately, response-able for ourselves, meaning that we are able to choose our own responses and have a choice about how we react in any situation. Cast your mind to a time when your attitude made a single situation worse or, on the flipside, your positive reaction to something made it easier for you, and maybe even others, to deal with. When you become aware of the power of the thoughts on your mind and body and thereby your overall experience, you can begin to notice the language you’re using in your thoughts that will be very different when you’re enjoying, or rather not, any situation in which you find yourself.

When you first find out you are pregnant is no exception. You will most likely span the entire range of emotions from delight and excitement to fear and trepidation. But if, for you, the sense of overwhelm outweighs a joyful anticipation, that’s OK. It’s difficult and probably feels very lonely but you are certainly not the first woman to feel like that. Pregnancy is an amazing event that occurs within the body and results in the birth of a whole new human being. But, whilst that sounds amazing and is easy to say, the reality of pregnancy can be very far from the romantic event (or drunken fling!) that initiated it. Not every woman glows throughout and welcomes the changing shape and feel of her body. It can feel daunting and overwhelming, unattractive and slow.

There is a physical reality of what is occurring and that is that the body is creating a whole new person, so is there any wonder that energy levels will feel depleted and maybe your mind isn’t quite as sharp as it usually is. But in being a response-able human being, you can work with your thoughts to make the experience as positive and enjoyable as possible.  

Taking time to enjoy life being calmer, both in body and mind is an invaluable means by which you can nourish both yours and your baby’s soul. Although you may not be able to exercise with quite the same energy and vigour as you did prior to falling pregnant, there are wonderful forms of exercise and activity that are lovely for engaging with the pregnant body. Yoga, swimming, walking, meditation, reading, baking, cooking and gardening are all things that you may have been too busy to slow down and do before but, with less booze fuelled parties (maybe that was just me!) and more restorative early nights, taking time to enjoy the simpler things can make pregnancy a really special time for you to connect with yourself and the growing baby inside you.

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There’s A Reason It Takes Nine Months

The 9 (or nearly 10) months for which we women are pregnant can feel like a very long time. I know for some women it is a time of real joy, excitement and happiness as they eagerly await the arrival of their new baby. But for others, that isn’t the case. And I think most women experience a very mixed combination of the good bits and the not so good.

A combination of sickness, hormones, weight gain, restrictions on what you can and can’t eat as well as a growing concern about the way the baby will eventually find its way out into the world can make pregnancy feel like quite an endurance test. Also, it’s not just the birth that can feel daunting in prospect; the fact that once the baby is born you will then be a parent with full responsibility for a tiny, totally dependent, new little person.

Clearly the main reason that pregnancy takes as long as it takes is to allow the baby to develop sufficiently so that will be able to survive outside of the womb. However, it really is such a personal journey for each woman who goes through it that, it seems to me, nature is kind in giving us 9 months in order that we can adjust to it, mentally and emotionally preparing for the change that will take over our lives.

From the moment you were born your parents responded to your every need.  With any level of discomfort, you cried and your needs were tended to.  As you grew your parents continued to meet your needs until you grew in independence to such a point that you became able to function entirely independently.  As much as you might behave altruistically in certain situations, ultimately we’re all responsible for ourselves, our own behaviour and its consequences.  On a very simple level, even having that second or third glass of wine is a decision we take for ourselves and we will suffer the consequences should we choose to overindulge.  Sure, it might end with a sore head in the morning but we know that that’s the price we pay and thus we make our choice.

Then suddenly, in that glamorous moment when you’re sitting on the throne with your knickers round your ankles and you get the positive sign on the stick, your world changes.  I remember a conversation with my husband as we walked home with the as yet unused pregnancy test in my bag.  I said “if I’m not pregnant, I’m going to drink a whole bottle of wine”, his response was “if you are pregnant, I’m going to drink a whole bottle of wine!” The result was positive. He went ahead as he’d said in jest and I realised in that moment that I couldn’t. My choices were no longer just about me.    

All of a sudden, there’s someone more important than you whose entire existence depends on you making decisions with its best interests at heart.  You know it’s there because the stick told you so.  That combined with the constant feeling of nausea.  Yet it can take a while before you feel connected with the baby. You know your choices are now about that new little person; make the wrong ones and you’ll be wracked with guilt, everyone will judge you for it and you could potentially harm your baby.

I found this a difficult adjustment but it’s an important one that needs to be made in order to prepare us for parenthood. Every decision that I ever make from now on will have my children at its centre. As a pregnant woman, these choices can range from simple things like whether to have that glass of champagne at a friend’s wedding or to indulge in a slice of brie (it’s good enough for the French, right!?)

But, ultimately, being forced to ‘grow up’ and accept responsibility for that new life inside you is a privilege. Even if it can be difficult to reconcile at the time. This thinking and learning to make decisions with your baby’s best interests at the centre is a great warm up for parenthood when these choices get bigger. Do I return to work? Part time or full time? What school do I send my child to? Where do we live?

All these choices made as a parent do not just have the parents’ personal desires at their core. Whilst they do, to a large part, they also have to meet the needs and interests of the child. In each family, the factors that influence these choices are weighted in different measures and so the decisions will end up unique in each case.

Having spent nine months carrying your baby and developing that relationship right from the very start prepares us to be parents and sets us up the shifts in the focus of your personal choices. Parenthood is a journey and it can feel like a long one. But it starts with pregnancy and those 9 months are crucial to get you prepared for what’s in store.

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And which drugs would mum like today?

It is my experience that many antenatal classes approach the use of drugs on offer to mum during labour as a menu from which mum can choose  “and in what would madam be interested today, maybe a little pethodin, perhaps a little epidurual….?” I don’t know why, but I hear this as a French waiter would deliver the options on a menu in a high class restaurant. This set of choices is presented during classes in such a way that assumes a high level of pain as a given and that mum will inevitably be in need of and making a selection between the different medications on offer.

In HypnoBirthing, however, the teaching and the whole approach to birth is different. We believe that pain is not an inevitable part of childbirth and that, when a labouring mother has been well educated and empowered with the understanding of the functionality of her body and that of her baby during childbirth, the fear she feels about the birth is greatly reduced. An absence of fear means that she is able to allow both her body and her baby to work together in a way in which pain and hence, pain relief, are not necessary. Understanding the anatomy and physiology of what is happening during childbirth and having to hand a tool box of techniques that she can use to help her manage the process of labour and to work with her birthing body is far more powerful as a prevention of pain.

One of the things I think it’s really important to understand, is the effect of the medications on both mum and her baby and the implications that taking them can have on those all so precious early moments and days of the baby’s life. Drugs cross the placenta during labour and have a much stronger effect on the baby than they do on mum. So while pethodin, for example, makes mum feel groggy and takes her away from the experience, it also has the same but amplified effect on the baby. Babies who have been birthed by a mum who opted for a selection of the drugs on offer are often born more lethargic and less eager to feed than their clear-headed counterparts.  

I really don’t want to sound sanctimonious. For those mothers who experience pain in childbirth it is real. It is a horrible and intense experience and absolutely no judgement can be held on those mums who choose to alleviate their pain with the options available. However, this does make me sad as I truly believe it needn’t be so. It is the changing history of women through time that has led to this reality, to this deep-rooted belief that childbirth is something to be feared. We can’t do anything about the past that led us here, but I do strongly believe we can change the future. Through the education of one woman at a time, one birth at a time, we can change the perception of childbirth and the experience of it for many into something which can be one of the most empowering and galvanising life experiences a woman can have. And that babies can have their first experiences of the world outside of the womb as alert, joyful beings. Those first days together as a family are so important and so fleeting, let’s work together to make them special.

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Being Mum

As we’ve just passed Mother’s Day and only a couple of weeks before that it was International Woman’s Day, I got to thinking about what it actually means to be a mother and, with that, to some degree, also to be a woman.  You don’t have to have carried a child in your womb for 9 months for you to be just as much a mother. There are many of us who find ourselves nurturing, loving, caring for and cherishing those for whom we were not the carriers through pregnancy and this in no way diminishes the role that is played.

To make choices that put the needs of those you care for before your own, or to make decisions that work for you that incorporate the needs of others as well as your own, is certainly something that we as mums do as soon as we find ourselves responsible for the well-being of another person.

Considering those women who make the difficult decision to go back to work and resume their career, finding alternative childcare arrangements for their children at home. To succeed in a professional world that is often predominantly male, whilst also often being the main person responsible for the home and family life takes a great level of strength and resolve – not to mention energy! It’s not easy to fit in the school plays, sick days and other commitments that draw you away from your paid work.

And on the flip side, those women who choose to stay at home and make their family their job or to find alternative part time work or build their own business from scratch. That’s certainly not easy either and demands significant bravery to go out there on your own without the security of remaining in paid employment and enter into the world of the unknown.

There are so many aspects in which that women and mothers tailor their lives to work around their families. Probably as many aspects as there are women. It’s not possible to describe the multitude of ways in which mums make sacrifices in order to support and encourage the development of their children but without them the world would be a much poorer place.

We Mums can’t do it on our own. We rely on own mums, other family members, not to mention friends and carers who support us in our efforts and all of whom who contribute to the successful function of a mother. Arguably the most important and most challenging job in the world. I’m not trying to detract from the efforts of Dads and men, especially those who find themselves assuming the role of both mum and dad, but with it being Mother’s Day, I think it’s important that we take a moment to acknowledge all of the wonderful women around us who do all the little things that make the big things seem OK.

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Every Pregnant Woman Should Know This

Having taught HypnoBirthing for a while now and to a range of expecting couples, I’ve noticed a recurring theme in a question that comes up once the key teachings of the course are understood. “Why is this HypnoBIrthing course necessary?” One of my mums said to me, “I feel sad when I see someone who’s pregnant who hasn’t done this course; surely every pregnant woman should know this” And the answer is that it’s a sad fact that I have a job at all as a HypnoBirthing teacher. It shouldn’t be necessary for women to be so fearful of birth that teachers like me have a job to do, instilling the belief and confidence that they have everything they need to be able to birth their baby comfortably and without severe discomfort or pain. Ideally, women would instinctively trust that their body is perfectly designed to birth their baby. The knowledgeand understanding of how muscles, hormones and breath work harmoniously together when unimpeded by fear shouldn’t need to be taught. Learning the history of women through the ages that shows how the fear of birth does not stem from birth itself should not be necessary.

When we breathe, we don’t need to understand how we breathe, or when we walk or go about other normal healthy physical activities, we don’t need to know how our muscles work in conjunction with our hormones to allow this to happen and there’s no fear that stops anything working as it should. We just have the trust that our body will do whatever function it is designed to do and we let it get on with it.

The fact that there is a role in our modern society for a HypnoBirthing teacher is a sad reflection on how birth is generally viewed and misunderstood. However, the unnecessary fear of birth is so ingrained in our psyche that we really do have to take the teaching back to the beginning. To share the knowledge about what it is really that women are afraid of, and to show them that they needn’t be and how they can understand, learn to trust their body and approach the birth of their baby with a greater sense of excitement and belief that they can do it is sadly something that is needed in today’s world.

But, that the HypnoBirthing course is available to women gives me hope for the future. As new parents start to believe and have easy joyful births and spread the word to their friends and families, while simultaneously hospitals are seeking to fulfil an increasing appetite for natural births through more birthing centres and birthing pools, hopefully over time, pregnancy by pregnancy, birth by birth, we can begin to bring our relationship with the birthof our children back to the simple joyous occasion that mother nature designed it to be.