Top Tips For A Great Birth

These are my top tips for preparing for a great birth. A birth that leaves you feeling empowered and strong.

1. Learn about all of your choices
   Understanding your options not only helps reduce fear about what you are going into, but also gives you and your birth partner the time to learn about what all of those options are so that you can make informed decisions with the space to think. This helps you to write top notch birth preferences and will give you confidence that you are making the right decisions for yourselves in the event of complications. This is your baby, your birth, your choice.

2. Release any fear of negative expectation you have
   A lot of people these days have only really witnessed birth on tv, myself included, and we forget that tv is made to entertain and that it isn’t really as it would have happened. We hear the stories on the news of the lady that died during childbirth, but not the stories of the heaps of women that had their babies with no complications. We hear the bad, but not a lot of the good. We need to tip the scales, actively seek out the positive birth stories, believe that you can have a calm, enjoyable birth experience. Think about the fears you have, challenge them, where have they come from, are they legitimate concerns, what can you do about it? Work through your thoughts and feed them with even more good stuff too!

3. Practice relaxation techniques
   The more that you practice the relaxation techniques from the course, the more powerful they will be when you come to use them. The fantastic thing about hypnobirthing, is that a lot of what you learn can be applied in situations outside of childbirth too. Got a dentist appointment or a scary exam? Feeling nervous? Take a moment, focus on your breathing techniques or listen to a track, stop the spiral.

4. Learn about what to expect from the birth process
   Understanding what is happening in your body removes most of the fear of the unknown. Rather than feeling discomfort, immediately thinking something is seriously wrong and panicking, your first thought instead would be remembering this topic on the hypnobirthing course, knowing that everything is happening as nature intended, visualising the waves of movement as baby wiggles its way down. Instead of fear, you will trust your body’s ability to birth your baby.

5. Write a birth plan with your birth partner
   It’s so important to make sure that you note down your birth preferences in advance, this allows you to get into your birth zone in your head and communicates your desires without you needing to. Your birth partner needs to be part of this process as it helps them to know how they can help you to feel comfortable, what you want / don’t want and they can advocate for you as needed.
   

Hypnobirthing totally stacks the odds of having a positive birth experience in your favour. Your course with me will go through all of these tips in much more detail as well as much much more!