Episode 156 - Hypnobirthing! Can it really help?
Mel:
[0:00] Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Melanie Jackson. I'm a clinical and research midwife with my PhD, and each episode, I cast a critical eye over current maternity care practice by grappling with research and historical knowledge to help you get the best out of your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey. Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. Today I'm looking into the hypnobirthing technique and some of you may have already heard about this and for the rest of you let me introduce you to hypnobirthing. Although I have seen hypnobirthing in action as a midwife, I've witnessed some of my own clients using this method for their births. But I've invited doula, childbirth educator and hypnobirthing practitioner, Poppy Child, to the podcast to have a conversation with me about hypnobirthing. We spoke about what it is, how it works, how to do it. She gives us a little example in there for us all to try. But before we dive in, true to form, I wanted to make sure that there was some actual research behind this method before I went ahead and endorsed this as a labour strategy for you all to use. And it turns out that there is plenty.
Mel:
[1:21] Enough that I feel comfortable offering up hypnobirthing as a tool that women might choose to practice and use during their labour and birth. Labour itself can be described as a separate state of consciousness. It's characterized by an increased focus on the body and concentration. And this state of being in labor, in this separate state of consciousness, sometimes we call it the birthing bubble or labor land or being in the zone, however you want to describe it. We go to another place when we're in labor. And the use of self-hypnosis techniques can make it easier to achieve this state, to slip into that state, especially if there are lots of external distractions and things that are drawing you away from focusing on labor. So the hypnobirthing techniques are designed to equip women to handle the unpredictable nature of childbirth. And hypnobirth is mental preparation for childbirth. And I've always said that labor is just as much a mental game as it is a physical game.
Mel:
[2:28] Women can practice the hypnobirthing techniques during pregnancy and this self-hypnosis is a form of breathing and relaxation technique, visualizations and positive affirmations. They're designed to be a coping strategy during labor, but as we'll hear Poppy talk about, these techniques can be applied during pregnancy,
Mel:
[2:51] Breastfeeding and afterwards when we're parenting our children. I'm not going to go through each of the research papers in a lot of detail, but all the research papers that I looked at are in the resource folder for this podcast. And if you are new to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast, welcome firstly, but you might not know yet that this podcast is evidence-based and we provide you with all the resources that I use to create every single podcast episode. The way to access it is to join the mailing list because I send you out a link which gives you access to not only the resources from this episode but all the previous episodes too. I don't want you to just take my word for it on these things. If you want to go deeper into each of the topics you can have a look at the resource folder and read them for yourself. You can get access to this resource folder by signing up to the podcast mailing
Mel:
[3:46] list at melanethemidwife.com and we will email you that access link. It's in the show notes so don't worry just go in there click on it and it'll take you right through to where you need to go. Let's get into it.
Mel:
[3:59] Welcome everybody to today's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host Dr. Melanie Jackson and today I have invited a guest who is going to talk to us about hypnobirthing. Now, this is particularly of interest to me because there have been some circumstances where I've been with clients of mine in labor, I'm a home birth midwife,
Mel:
[4:23] And I've been trying to work out, are they in labor? What's even going on? I couldn't work out where they were up to in their labor because they were so calm, so chilled out, managing so well with their contractions. And when I reflect back on those particular clients, one thing they all had in common was that they had done hypnobirthing. So I've invited Poppy Child today to the podcast. She is the boss lady at Pop That Mama. She's a doula, hypnobirth practitioner
Mel:
[5:00] and childbirth educator, and she is going to talk all about hypnobirthing today. Poppy, welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion.
Poppy:
[5:08] Hello, Melanie. It is wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.
Mel:
[5:12] We are just going to jump straight in today because I want to extract as much information out of you about hypnobirthing as I possibly can. What exactly is hypnobirthing? Because not even I am completely aware.
Poppy:
[5:26] The best way to describe hypnobirthing is that we are changing the way that we think about birth and therefore changing how we feel towards birth. We've all been conditioned to view birth in a negative light. And if we view it that way, we're going to have fear, we're going to have anxiety. We might even be terrified of childbirth. And if we take those fears and anxieties into our birth, we're going to be a lot more tense and we're going to find things harder because our bodies react to the way that we think, right? Thoughts create feelings. And so hypnobirthing is about rewiring your thoughts around birth and therefore changing how you feel. So what you described at the start about your clients, that's the deep work that's gone on in the subconscious mind, the rewiring that's enabled them to drop into their calm and let their body do what it's designed to do without that tension in our bodies. So that's kind of the short answer. And believe you me, it's taken me a few years to kind of really articulate what hypnobirthing is because it's quite confusing. And a lot of people think hypnobirthing is about, you know, dangling the pendulum or getting hypnotized. And it's that word that kind of people are a bit weary of. I don't want to be
Poppy:
[6:45] hypnotized. But it's not that. It's actually just changing the way that you think about birth and therefore changing the feelings you have around births.
Poppy:
[6:54] And how that's done is through education, learning how the body works, learning about the hormones that govern birth, learning the whole process so that you feel calmer, you understand more. But then the deep work actually takes part in your subconscious mind. So that's the kind of 95%. So if we imagine your mind like an iceberg, at the tip of the iceberg is the 5%. So that's our rational brain. That's the kind of, you know, the brain that's doing this talking, the neocortex, the kind of, we spend a lot of time in this brain, right? Especially as modern women.
Poppy:
[7:31] Beneath that is the 95%. And that is your powerhouse. That's what causes, you know, your heart to continue to beat, all of the subconscious work. And when we have been learning about birth through the film and the media that obviously show us a very dramatic side women screaming lots of fear and doctors and nurses are panicked we just quietly absorb those messages which then instill you know go deeper into that subconscious mind which then create the fear so when we find out we're pregnant you can actually ask yourself what am I scared of and you at that moment might not be able to even articulate it because it's been deep conditioning over time so when we do the meditation and positive affirmation we work with that 95 and then you feel that cellular confidence that is undeniable and you can't even articulate where the confidence came from because it's happening without you knowing it it's penetrating that deep subconscious mind and that that is where i would say the magic of hypnobirthing is And that's what you have been witnessing is that deep work that's taking place.
Mel:
[8:37] And so it's not like something you can just, okay, I went and did hypnobirthing and learnt the hypnobirthing technique. So now I'm good and I've got all the strategies I need for birth. How much practice do you need to be able to properly apply it?
Poppy:
[8:55] Yeah, a lot. So this is the thing. So in the course that I teach, Birthbox, we have a practice schedule. So you practice your breathing techniques every single night.
Poppy:
[9:05] So they become second nature. You're doing the positive affirmations every single day. And you play these tracks in the background. So, for example, I've got a track called The Oxytocin Bubble, which has got a bit viral. And you play that in the background and you hear all of these amazing things your body's designed for birth what built for it and that's where it starts to then change your brain and change your thoughts so throughout your pregnancy you practice the tools and the most amazing thing is that you actually start to feel really calm over your pregnancy and they are life skills so i use hypnobirthing every day before i joined you at atm this morning i was doing my breathing to find that sense of calm. So you can use it for parenting, because obviously we know parenting can be stressful. So it's a wonderful life skill. But I do just want to say that not all hypnobirthing is the same. So there are different types of approaches. There is the traditional hypnobirthing, which I've actually got the book right here. So this is the founder of hypnobirthing. It's called The Mungin Method by Marie Mungin. And the ideas are very, very different, actually. So Marie Mungin...
Poppy:
[10:18] Talks about how birth can be comfortable. So it says here, a natural approach to safe, easier, comfortable birthing. And the whole idea, the kind of premise is that if we have fear in our mind,
Poppy:
[10:32] we have muscular tension and that muscular tension is what causes pain.
Poppy:
[10:38] Now, here's where it gets a little bit complicated because that's only part of the story. It's not the full picture because how many women report birth to be painful? The majority. So it's not the fact that those women are fearful and more tense. No, I'm calling BS on that. So if you look further into the original ideas behind this book, it's actually Dr. Grant Lee Dick Reed, who was a English obstetrician in the 20th century. And he observed one of his clients giving birth and she said she didn't feel any pain but she was calm she had an undisturbed birth and so that then led him to do further research and he is the one that came up with this original theory of the fear tension pain cycle if you have fears you have muscular tension that causes pain but i think it's actually really damaging to suggest that that's the whole picture because obviously if you do then feel pain whose fault is that yours for not being calm and we know that that's not true it really depends on the kind of hypnobirthing that we're talking about if you're looking at the mainstream I do believe it can be quite toxic because of these ideas so you know for your listeners be careful not all hypnobirthing is the same I think anyone who promises you birth can be pain-free.
Poppy:
[11:59] Be careful. My philosophy really is about working with the intensity and working with the pain. And if you just so happen to be that woman that doesn't experience pain, let it be a pleasant surprise. Wonderful. But rather prepare for that intensity. You and I know we've been in neighboring rooms. There is intensity.
Mel:
[12:17] It's probably going to be painful. But there are strategies that we can employ to manage that pain and work with that pain and work through that pain. And also as women we're so capable
Poppy:
[12:30] Yeah and there's no shame in asking for help too so if you have a long labor or you're just finding it to be really difficult you can ask for help and there is no shame in that and that's something I'm so passionate about because as a doula I've been with my clients side by side four day long labors of back labor and then she has that epidural, and it's a godsend and so I don't think we should demonize the epidural which again if you look at kind of more traditional approaches just by the way of you know in your in your in your class you'll be shown a woman who is having a very particular kind of quiet controlled birth serene and then that kind of instills this idea of that's the gold standard and the danger with that is that if you have a birth that deviates from that in any way you could see that as a failure and I think that, that's really sad. Most women will have twists and turns in their births. So I think there is a danger that we hold on to these ideal birthing scenarios.
Mel:
[13:31] In terms of being trained as a hypnobirth practitioner, is there some kind of standardized training that every hypnobirthing practitioner will go through or is there some variation? So if women are seeking out a hypnobirthing practitioner can they expect the same from each practitioner or is there a really vast range
Poppy:
[13:53] Vast range and that's a really good question and something to be aware of for your listeners is you know i would ask where where did you train and then go and find the origin but the method and the ideas and check that they resonate and they're the right philosophical match i know you talk about that a lot but check in with that because not all hypnobirthing is the same and But, yes, we absolutely need to be qualified. I took a course that lasted about three months. So, yes, most hypnobirthing teachers will be qualified.
Mel:
[14:25] So then is it not heavily regulated? Because we have another, you might not have it as big there in the UK, but here in Australia we have another technique called calm, another sort of class that's called calm birth. And I know that those practitioners are trained in a specific way to deliver
Mel:
[14:43] particular information and they kind of have to stick to the script is my understanding. It doesn't sound like that's the case with hypnobirth. How do they regulate practitioners?
Poppy:
[14:53] As I understand it, it's not regulated properly.
Mel:
[14:57] Well, I'm just thinking if it's, you know, if it's something that you're trained in, is there an experience? You know, I guess it makes it hard for women is what I'm saying because they don't know what to expect then from a hypnobirthing practitioner. They might think they're getting one thing, but then they actually get another thing. So I just think it's good for women to know that they need to be very cautious with scoping out what clinician they engage with for that
Poppy:
[15:23] Kind of thing. Absolutely, and that's two questions. Where did you train? Do a bit of research on where they trained what's your birthing philosophy that will give you a snapshot of the kind of ideas your.
Mel:
[15:33] Idea is that you know be super careful if they're talking about pain-free birth then possibly you know it's a little bit less of a realistic
Poppy:
[15:44] I think anything that promises a certain outcome you know we can't promise women that there's going to be a certain outcome. I think that in itself is, you know, possibly misleading. So that's just a quick website check. You know, if you look at the kind of more mainstream approaches, you will see on the website, they say things like comfortable birth, you know, easier.
Mel:
[16:06] If I'm summarizing everything we've just kind of covered, hypnobirthing is a technique that you can use and practice through your pregnancy that becomes a pain management tool, but stress management tool not only through your pregnancy but also through birth and then it sounds like you can carry that same technique on through your parenting journey and your life but it is a skill that you need to practice and there seems to be some tools so you talked about the breath and some of the meditation tracks in music Are those the two fundamental key elements?
Poppy:
[16:47] Yeah. So a big one is breathing. So we know that breathing immediately can calm the nervous system and put us in that rest and digest state. You know, obviously, for most of us, we are designed to give birth. Every cell, every fiber wants to do it, wants to do it well for us. And so hypnobirthing enables us to drop into that calm state. So we're not feeling stressed, not feeling tense. and the body loves it because it can get on with what it's designed to do and so that's really the goal with hypnobirthing and breathing is one fundamental way to get there and but it's not the only way but what i would actually love to to teach you one of the tools and what this is going to do hopefully for your your listeners is is get them to feel it so.
Mel:
[17:35] Is that okay
Poppy:
[17:36] Oh let's let's.
Mel:
[17:38] So we're going to do a practice of the hypnobirthing technique of the up breath so get comfortable see if you're in a you know if you're driving or running just listening very carefully not you know stay focused but if you have the opportunity so we need to be in a relaxed state I imagine lying down or
Poppy:
[17:57] Yes yes let's try absolutely if you can take a moment to stop what you're doing if you're able to do that. This is important. This is preparing for the birth of your baby. How amazing. So I'm going to show you how to do the hypnobirthing up breath, which is an inhale through the nose for four. And we're going to exhale through our mouth very slowly for six. Now, usually we would go to eight, but that takes practice. So I don't want to make you, you know, be out of breath and find it hard too soon. But usually you would go to eight. And this is a lovely technique for early labor. And you stop using this technique when your body tells you to. So when it kind of starts to feel like it's not working. And I'll talk about that in a moment. Okay, so find that calm, find that comfortable position if you're able to. And I'm going to count you in for four through your nose and out for six through your mouth.
Poppy:
[19:10] We'll do three rounds. In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, five, six.
Poppy:
[19:25] In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, five, six. In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, five, six, and just pause and I want you to check in with your body. How is it feeling?
Poppy:
[20:00] Are you feeling the beginnings of relaxation? We only did three rounds so hopefully what you're going to feel is just that that start of calm but imagine you were doing this for hours you will drop into a calm state just like what melanie was saying at the start with her clients that's the power it's when you do it over a long duration. But hopefully, Melanie, your listeners would have just got a taste for it. But it was only three rounds. So imagine hours and hours and hours of that. Goodbye, you're going to be in labor land.
Mel:
[20:40] And is that the idea? Is it just like that through each contraction and then in the rest, are you breathing normally? Or is the idea to keep that rhythm the whole time?
Poppy:
[20:54] I love that question. Now we're getting deeper. Okay, so usually you want to continue that breathing because that is what really gets you to drop into calm. But it depends on the woman. So I know for my labor, in between, I just wanted to be there and just catch a breath and just not be focused on a kind of count. And I found it helpful to bring back during the contractions. But the important thing that I'm going to say now is that this works usually up until a point.
Poppy:
[21:30] So you've attended many, many births, a lot more than I have. You'll you will of course know that there tends to become this point where things become overwhelming you know you might call it transition it might hit sooner than that and to try and maintain a calm slow breathing technique is actually nearly impossible because there's a build-up of hormones and huge contractions coming in fast and so then we need to switch things up and that's where i teach the sonic breath which is releasing with sound and that's something very instinctive, but the beauty of the sonic breath is you're still making sure that you're getting those deep inhales. So of course, lots of women will naturally make sounds, but sometimes we can actually end up making so much sounds that we're forgetting to breathe. Have you ever seen that where it kind of, have you seen that, Melanie?
Mel:
[22:22] Absolutely. And your instinct as a clinician is to go, okay, okay, we're going to take a big breath in yes it's like they you know they forget it everything's exhale and and they kind of trying to escape out of their body or escape out of the birth room in some way and you're like we're gonna bring it back take a breath and then it's like they look at you and go oh yeah
Poppy:
[22:48] Yes. Yes. So the key with the sonic breath that I teach, and this is the kind of unique methods, one of the unique methods I have, is that you are allowed to do the, you know, all of that stuff, whatever your labor sound is. But the key is get that breath in. And then whatever you do on the exhale, have a party.
Mel:
[23:07] I do believe in the power of the scream.
Poppy:
[23:09] There's other practitioners that don't think it's right. But I think that there is a specific kind of sound that gets that baby out. And usually, you know, it can be a, ah, there's nothing wrong with that, you know. I really am against this idea that we need to maintain our poised, controlled self. I think that in itself, if you're in labor trying to maintain your poised persona, that's going to cause you some troubles. Let rip. Be instinctive. Trust your body. If something feels right, if it feels right to scream and be really loud.
Mel:
[23:47] Do that. That was actually one of my concerns with these techniques. Sometimes I feel like women have to be so cognitively involved in the labour process to be applying and remembering these techniques that maybe they forget to fully immerse in the labor process and go completely into their body because they're so stuck in their mind. But then as I think about it, and as I think about these women who did hypnobirthing, I think it does become that subconscious thing that you were talking about, whereas actually we don't have to sort of academically or logically think about, oh, now it's time to do my hypnobirthing breathing. Our brain just starts.
Poppy:
[24:36] You've raised a really good point. And I think, yes, that is a danger with, you know, the way that we learn about birth now, which is kind of on the internet. We're not watching the neighbor give birth or sisters or, you know, relatives. We're not kind of seeing birth hearing birth we're not we don't have that kind of visceral connection with birth anymore so we learn often on the internet um through online courses and books and that does keep us in our heads so the one thing i'll repeat over my online course again is you have to trust your body ultimately these tools are here to kind of fall back on they're not they're not the kind of primary thing that you go to you go inwards and you trust your body and you work with your body and the tools are there in the background rather than something that you're just going to immediately start doing. So also everyone labors differently, everyone's go-to tool is going to be different. So if you trust your body first and foremost, the tools are going to be there, but they may look different for your labor. So I think it's really important for women to have that trust in themselves first.
Mel:
[25:39] Yes, I think we can definitely trust our bodies to instinctually labor and function. The challenge is in this birthing climate women are up against so much resistance against so what I'm trying to say is I guess there's a lot that women have to overcome in order to be able to fully trust their body and feel safe in the birth space that we've almost had to make birth preparation a cognitive thing because there's so much to overcome like I feel like all of this education and all of these tools are sort of a product of trying to reverse the challenges that women are presented with in birth yeah it's
Poppy:
[26:21] A combination of the conditioning around birth that fear but also the system and the fears around birthing in the system so yeah you're right it has become a more cognitive experience over pregnancy which of course we have the risk that We're going to stay cognitive in birth, which we know we don't want that. We want to drop into that primal state of our being. And the only thing I would say to that is that's where the meditation can really help. So you listen to the tracks during pregnancy and then you find that calm and then you revisit the same tracks during labor. And then you also will find your body remembers you can really find that calm again.
Mel:
[26:59] A lot of women, they'll do their kind of birth preparation courses towards the end of their pregnancy. They think, right, pregnancy is nearly over. I'll do my birth prep course so that I'm all ready to go for the birth. It doesn't sound like hypnobirthing is that kind of thing. So is there an optimal time to... Sort of engage with hypnobirthing you know like if you get to 36 weeks and you think it's time to start my hypnobirthing is there a point where it's too late
Poppy:
[27:27] Absolutely not no so it's never too late ideally you want to start as soon as possible because you'll feel your confidence grow and then naturally you have a nice enjoyable pregnancy you're not kind of looking at that due date or the end of your pregnancy is something scary at the end you actually start to look forward to it And that's a really joyous thing to experience during pregnancy. But for example, with my clients, I've had many clients come through in the third trimester, some even, you know, 40 weeks, like binge it in a couple of days. So it really, it can work quite quickly. And I wouldn't want anyone to get put off. Lots of women put their birth prep off until the last minute. That's a very, very common thing, often because of fear, but also because they're busy, they're focusing on other things, they're possibly working. So absolutely do not worry, start as soon as you can and you will feel a shift. And that's the most important thing is you will build that confidence. So yes, as soon as possible, but it's never too late.
Mel:
[28:33] As I said, I'm a home birth midwife. And so my clients know from the get go that there's actually no option for pharmaceutical pain relief. We don't give medicine to relieve pain during labor. So they know that they need to be completely prepared for what might come in labor, their sensations, contractions, if it's painful, if it goes on for a little while. So I kind of encourage them to have this, what I call like the contraction toolkit, where they have multiple different tools that they can choose from and use all through the labor, depending on what they need. So, you know, the basics of a heat pack and a Tenza machine and a birth ball so they can get comfortable and maybe a birth sling. We have the birth pool there. You know, some of them choose music. Essential oils, a whole range of things that we can apply.
Mel:
[29:29] And I feel like hypnobirthing is something that you would have in your toolkit. Is that how you would, is that like an accurate representation of where hypnobirthing fits into the labor management strategy?
Poppy:
[29:44] What I would say to that is it depends on the kind of hypnobirthing you do. So if you're listening, ask your practitioner what is your philosophy to pain in labor and that will reveal a lot to you so the way that i teach and i do think this is quite distinct this is not mainstream this is not how i was taught in hypnobirthing but my approach is about working with pain and i call it pain i call it intensity you know i don't sugarcoat but the affirmation that really underpins what I teach is the contractions can't harm me.
Poppy:
[30:21] The most powerful way you can prepare for pain and labor is using your mind. Change the way that you think about pain, change the way you feel in labor. So if you know that the contractions can't harm you, you're going to be able to drop into that state of calm far easier than if you think of it like a pathology, like a kind of, you know an injury pain and that's that's a really powerful reframe when it really lands it takes time but if you say to yourself these contractions can't harm me now that's not to say it's not going to be bloody painful because for most women it will be you know women will scream and find it the most intense and hard and painful experience possibly of their lives but if you wanted to work with that pain and you want the physiological birth then saying to yourself, this can't harm me, can be a powerful way and can help you to go further.
Poppy:
[31:17] And I've seen this work with mine, with my doula clients. And it's, you know, that's what's worked for me and my labors is really just acknowledging it's a healthy pain.
Mel:
[31:24] The majority of women are accepting of the fact that there's going to be pain in labor. What I don't think we realize is how incredible our capacity is to manage it and to cope with it and to sort of just work with it. We sort of go, well, yeah, it hurts, but I'm having a baby. What was I expecting?
Poppy:
[31:48] And also, this is another really important thing that I teach in my village community with the women I'm working with directly is you need to get clear on your why. What is your why? Why are you wanting this physiological birth? And let that kind of be the thing that you hold on to during labor is the kind of why. And I also want to say that there is nuance to the whole healthy pain philosophy.
Poppy:
[32:15] If you're being induced and those contractions aren't being created by your own body, you possibly don't have enough beta endorphins, which is the kind of nature's narcotic, the natural pain relieving hormone that we have in our bodies. Then actually saying to women, this is healthy pain, it's not going to harm you, could be really damaging because actually it can be really painful and we know that faster contractions less frequent space also that the uterus muscle in a physiological birth usually has time to relax so it is different so there is nuance to this stuff and that's why like I said in the beginning it's okay to ask for help at any stage of your labor and there's no shame in asking for help so it's interesting these ideas are really positive and encouraging but they could possibly come with a bit of a sting if not really understood with all of those nuances do you know what I mean.
Mel:
[33:09] Well, and you mentioned at the first that the priority is your own intuitive and individual experience. Focus on that first. This is an additional technique that you shouldn't use instead of listening to your intuition because there is pathological pain that can result in childbirth, you know, in the unusual situation of a uterine rupture or malposition of a baby. Sometimes pain is a message to our body that something is wrong. And if you're not listening to your intuition and thinking, no, no, I'm working with it with my hypnobirthing breath and this pain can't hurt me. It's like, and your body's going, actually, this one is a pathological pain and we need you to pay attention.
Mel:
[33:53] But it also made me just think, as you explained the techniques is that I don't think this would just be helpful in an unmedicated vaginal birth. I actually think that if a woman is having a cesarean that she wasn't planning or even that she was planning, that that experience can be really stark and dramatic on our nervous system. It's bright, it's cold, it's unexpected. You might feel frightened by the amount of activity and how incapacitated you are in that scenario, that this seems like a technique that women could still use during a cesarean section as a relaxation technique if they're having an epidural, that it doesn't seem isolated to just dealing with the pain of labor, but maybe the stress of labor.
Poppy:
[34:45] Yeah, absolutely. So what I teach in my birth box course is the rescue breath. So if you're about to enter a possible stressful scenario or something's changed in your neighbor, you're going in a, you use that breathing technique. So they change, you know, and that's the technique is one that hits, you know, within the first three seconds, it gives you that calm. So absolutely, these are tools for cesarean birth, for any stressful scenario in birth, but also, as I said, for life, for postpartum as well, for breastfeeding, nipple pain, you know, it really is a toolkit forever. So I want to ask you actually, so do you find that the majority of your clients are doing hypnobirthing or is there another approach in Australia that is more dominant? And how do you see your clients in labour managing pain?
Mel:
[35:35] Well, I think I'm in a unique position because a lot of my clients come to me already with a philosophy that birth is not a, doesn't need to be a medicalised scenario. They intend on, from the get-go, not having pharmaceutical pain relief because they do believe in their capacity to do labour without pain relief. And then they're at home with a trusted care provider with usually a supportive partner. And all of these things are such important tools for managing the massive job of labour. And so some of them do do other things like hypnobirthing or calm birth or meditation or breath work. But I think even if they don't do it, all of that other scenario of having your known care provider and being in a comfortable space and having freedom of movement, they actually have a lot of tools to help manage labor.
Poppy:
[36:32] So do you think the most fundamental thing is the belief in yourself and in the process?
Mel:
[36:38] I do. I actually think labor is predominantly a mind game and not a physical game. Their body is capable of labouring. There's obviously a caveat there that not everybody can have a vaginal birth and there are some women who we are very thankful for medicine for and surgeons that that's required. But the majority of our bodies can labor and birth. Our mind is what messes us up. I think we're capable, but we don't realize it. And the women who choose to hire me have already overcome that mindset of, I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can do it without pain relief.
Mel:
[37:19] They're choosing to have their babies at home. They already have overcome that hurdle. But the main thing that no one can crush your mind unless you allow it. And are you
Poppy:
[37:30] Seeing lots of physiological births?
Mel:
[37:33] Absolutely. So about 10% of my clients transfer. So I've got about 10% transfer rate to hospital. So 90% will have their babies at home. And that's not to say that the 10% won't have a vaginal birth. It's just the 10% something happens where we either need pain relief, help um you know some kind of there's potentially some kind of emergency so yeah the majority are not sort of lights and sirens and you know ambulances to hospital can
Poppy:
[38:09] We just have.
Mel:
[38:09] A little bit for that like
Poppy:
[38:11] Hello that that is like a real representation of what things should be like you're seeing a 90% vaginal birth at home without complications 10% transfer that to me sounds like what it should be what things should be when when women are supported by a midwife like yourself and the right tools we could record another podcast and with.
Mel:
[38:34] I know I mean yeah so you know I feel like I don't get to see the impacts of the hypnobirthing techniques that you're talking about so much because I feel like a lot of my clientele have a lot of what you were already explaining before they even apply a technique to that.
Poppy:
[38:54] What makes the women that you're supporting kind of different than in your view? Are they the women that are naturally kind of seeking out the information and wanting to learn? Like what if you were trying to distill the kind of mindset or characteristics of those women, what would it be? Do you see commonalities?
Mel:
[39:14] Well, definitely they certainly believe that childbirth is not always a medical event, that most of the time it's going to unfold in the way it's supposed to. There's a confidence that their body can do that. Some of them come to it because they look at the option of going to hospital and they think, oh, that does not feel right. Even if they don't feel confident in their bodies, if they've got a fear of hospital, they will sometimes choose to give birth at home.
Mel:
[39:44] The others have a full understanding of the value of midwifery and some of them, particularly here in Australia, it might be different in the UK, cannot access a continuity of care midwife unless they intentionally pay for a private one. And some of them are just, I want a midwife and the only way for me to get one is to hire one, such as myself, so I'm a private midwife. Some women are risked out of midwifery care programs in hospital, but they still want the care of a midwife even though they have risk factors. And so there's this, I mean, it's a complex interplay, but they do fundamentally give birth at home because they believe they can. So it's a complex question, I think, but fundamentally, they believe they can
Mel:
[40:30] do it and they trust that birth is not trying to harm them and their babies. I feel like we've gotten a beautiful understanding of what hypnobirthing can offer women.
Mel:
[40:42] I can see massive value in so many different birth scenarios. I've certainly seen it work clinically right in front of my eyes where I've literally said to one woman, can you let me know when you're going to push your baby out? Because I literally, even as an experienced midwife, cannot work out where you're up to. And she definitely talked about it from being the hypnobirthing techniques Poppy where can we find you for women who are listening and they want to go deeper where can they find you I
Poppy:
[41:17] Am on Instagram and TikTok as popthatmama, And I have an online digital program called Birthbox, which has the oxytocin bubble birthing track in it. It's a wonderful track that helps you to stay in your calm zone in labor. And I also have the village community, which is a membership for mums, pregnant women and women in the postpartum. So we invite experts in every single month to provide that continuity of care and kind of support the learning that you would have done in the digital course, Birthbox. And yeah, I've got quite a lot of people come to me from Australia as well.
Poppy:
[41:57] So it's nice to do this collaboration. And yeah, so it has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you for having me.
Mel:
[42:04] Thanks for being here. I've certainly learned something new and I'm sure you have too. This has been this week's episode of The Great Birth Rebellion, and we were talking all about hypnobirthing. Before you go, I have one really exciting thing to tell you about. I want to offer you a free live online masterclass. You will literally be with me in the virtual room live and giving you my tips for how to prepare for a great birth. The things I'm going to tell you will give you strategies that you can apply that will increase your chance of experiencing a great birth. Now, remember, a great birth is not always about a vaginal birth. It's not even always about a birth that goes exactly to plan, but there are lots of things you can do to make yourself resilient in labor and birth so that at the end, you experience what you describe as a great birth the experience. These strategies are unique. Something that I'd love to share with you in person, the session is going to be interactive. So you'll also get a chance to ask me questions. I have never done that before. Register for the event in the show notes below.
Mel:
[43:19] If you register for the event and you can't get there, totally fine. Just the fact that you registered means that you'll get a recording after the event. So if you can't make it live, if you already know you can't make it live. Register anyway. You'll get the recording and you can listen to it in your own time. Join me at the Great Birth Masterclass. Sign up at the link in the show notes. To get access to the resources for each podcast episode, join the mailing list at melaniethemidwife.com. And to support the work of this podcast, wear the rebellion in the form of clothing and other merch at thegreatbirthrebellion.com. Follow me, Mel, @MelanietheMidwife on socials and the show @TheGreatBirthRebellion. All the details are in the show notes.
This transcript was produced by ai technology and may contain errors.
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