Bababoom Blog

As promised here is the first of many amazing birth stories from our Hypnobirthing Mums. “My labour started on the Wednesday night. About 12 midnight I started getting twinges, I didn’t think too much of them but they were defiantly tightening in my stomach area. For some time I was able to doze in and out of sleep, then they started to get more regular and interrupt my sleep. For most of the early morning I felt I needed to keep moving so I decided to use the birthing ball. It really helped to take the pressure off my pelvis, by moving around on the ball. Perhaps it may have been the movement taking my mind off the tightenings, I don’t know but it seemed to work.

After some time, the tiredness set in and the contractions calmed down a little, so I was able to get some sleep, contractions started properly the next morning on the Thursday. All morning the contractions seemed to be more intense, they came and went in a regular pattern.

I had been on a Hypnobirthing course with BirthSense at Bababoom in Loughton, Essex, so I knew that I wanted the birth to be as natural as possible, I was even aiming for a home birth. The course taught us (Husband and I) the natural techniques linked to childbirth and labour. These included various breathing techniques, light touch massage, movement in labour, birthing options, and hypnosis.

Before the course began my husband was not that impressed with the content, wondering how such natural methods could work, as soon as anyone mentions the words hypnosis I think you do automatically think it’s some new age fad, especially when nationally this course is not spoken about openly with other birthing parents or friends that have had babies! However compared to our “normal” ante natal class, the Hypnobirthing course offered us so many more options to our birth, that it actually gave us back some confidence in having our baby.

Birth to me has always been such a scary thing to do, not just that I had never been into hospital before, but generally all of the stories you hear from friends are very negative and the “norm” is how much pain they felt, how many stitches they had, how much it hurt to push the baby out, how horrendous labour was! To me the ante natal classes that the NHS provides are mainly to inform you of the options you have for pain relief and birth and what the process of birthing is. However the Hypnobirthing course offered us so much more.

Now we had the facts from the NHS classes we knew what would be likely to happen in a hospital, the process that they need to follow, however the Hypnobirthing course gives you natural options that you can use in the same situation.

I didn’t realise that I didn’t have to have a stretch and sweep if I didn’t want, or that I didn’t have to be measured throughout the monitoring process. As long as you confirm your birth plan when you arrive at your birthing location with the midwives, as long as the baby or mother is not in danger, then there should be no problem looking at the more natural alternative ways of birthing and monitoring. The last thing I wanted was to be hooked up to a machine being monitored which would limit my movement during my labour!

By the time I was in labour and when we had finished the Hypnobirthing course both my husband and I felt confident that our birthing and labour choices were correct for us. The course was not about Hypnosis alone, but merely offered you and insight into what could work during the birthing process.

 I am not a very visual person so I really didn’t want to use the hypnosis during my labour, there was no way my husband could read a script and for me to relax, I would more likely to laugh at him. The course also enabled us to change the medical words used in pregnancy. The course teaches you to change the words to create a positive impact, for example, contractions become surges or tightening, birth canal is birth path, in Hypnobirthing you don’t use the term “pushing”, use the words nudging, all of these things really do help in the birthing process and should be something that is included in your birth plan so you can inform the midwives what you would prefer.

We decided to use the light touch massage and breathing techniques to get us through the labour as well as referring to the positive language.

Most of Thursday morning, I managed to breathe through the surges, my husband had really changed his attitude towards the course by the end of it and found it really wasn’t negative, it actually informed us more about the choices we could make about our baby’s birth. It also helped us both understand more about the birthing process and what was actually happening during labour.

One main benefit of doing the course was that we felt empowered to have the birth we wanted, to feel positive about birthing our baby and not to feel scared. Childbirth is a natural process that women have been doing for hundreds of years, something you easily forget when all your friends talk about how good their epidurals were!

I kept moving, I can remember thinking I could create a race course of my laps walking around the sofa, I found the birthing ball still a great help as well as rocking my upper body on the sofa, anything to keep moving and active. I didn’t really want anything to slow the labour down.

The whole process involved me breathing through the surges, my husband really helped me with this, I didn’t have to think about any timings between contractions, we didn’t even mention these, I didn’t want to know how fast or how many there were per hour as I knew if it wasn’t what I expected then I would be disappointed with the progress. He knew from the sound of my breathing when I was having a surge so he could take all the timings without me even knowing.  I needed to concentrate on just breathing through and moving as much as I could.

I had planned for a home birth, but throughout Thursday morning, I was feeling a little nervous too, this being my first baby, so much so I wanted to just go into the hospital to get checked over and for them to tell me how dilated I was, our plan had been not to find this out as again I didn’t want to be disappointed, as finding out that you are only 2cm after 12 hours of labour can be really disheartening, but for some reason I just wanted then to tell me, so that in my head I knew I could go back home to do the rest at home, however I rang the hospital many times and explained how frequent my contractions were, every time I called, they said I really didn’t sound like I was labouring enough or didn’t sound like I was contracting that much. So I was told to call back in a few hours time.

During this time I did take paracetomol every 4 hours to help with the pain that did start to get worse, every time I took in water or fluid I was sick, and my appetite had completely gone, I couldn’t eat anything as when I did I was sick again. The contractions seemed to be closer together and I kept calling the hospital to see when I could go there to get checked, again they said I really didn’t sound like I was in advance stages or labour as I was able to speak to them throughout the conversation.

My labour went on for most of Thursday, at about 5pm I managed to fall asleep, or in and out of sleep as I could still remember breathing through my surges! About 7pm something seemed to change, I could feel something at the bottom of my bum, but again I called the hospital and they said to call back in a while as I could still fully speak to them without it being seen that I was in too much pain.

From 7-8pm the movement of the surges felt different to me, I could no longer move around as much and bouncing on the ball was no longer an option, all I could find myself doing was rocking myself on the sofa, forward and back, I couldn’t walk about so much, and my legs suddenly felt like they needed to be wide apart, so walking wasn’t really that great. I knew something had changed as I could feel myself start to push. Up to now my waters had still not broken.

I think we all assume that, like all the tv programmes and most of our friends stories, that the water will break first then you go into full labour, but this simply was not the case with me.

I called the hospital again at 8pm and explained that I could feel like I wanted to push, I knew I had eaten nothing so wasn’t sure what I was pushing out, I had kind of convinced myself it wasn’t the baby yet as I knew if I really thought it was that then I would put myself into a panic! Panic was the last thing I wanted to do knowing I had been so calm for the day!

Finally the midwife at the hospital told us to call an ambulance, which was the last thing I wanted to do, it was also far too late for my homebirth, so we drove to the hospital, all the time me still breathing through the grunts I was making.

When we arrived at the hospital there was a midwife arriving on shift in the car park, she took one look at me, the way I was walking and hearing my grunts and immediately said we need to get to a room as soon as possible.

As I was being wheeled to the birthing room, I can remember telling the midwife about what we wanted to do which was in our birth plan, how we had wanted to sex the baby ourselves, that I didn’t really want any drugs except gas and air if I had needed, that we wanted the cord to stop pulsating naturally etc.

Once we were in the room, I was told I needed to be assessed, although when I was getting undressed the midwife said that I wouldn’t have time for an assessment as she could see the membranes bulging and with the next surge my baby would be on its way!

I couldn’t believe it, I had managed to do all my labouring at home, I got onto the bed and with my next grunt the midwife popped the membrane and the baby’s head was out! Another grunt and the body was out and I had my baby sitting on my belly!

There was no time for notes or anything as these were still in the car with the bags, so I am pleased I told the midwives what we wanted as I was being wheeled into the room. It was important to us to still have our chosen birthing options.

It was so nice for my husband to be able to sex the baby and tell me that we had a little boy!

Our baby didn’t cry that much at first but during the course it was noted that if you had been quite calm in labour that a baby doesn’t always come out screaming, so this was nothing that was alarming to me. Once he was settled he did make noise which was fantastic to hear. He did generally seem calm and not distressed. All of us were calm and chilled out, it was just an amazing natural expereice.

What was amazing was that I had recently seen the breast crawl DVD and to my amazement our baby did exactly that, he found his own way to the breast which was an even more rewarding prize for us.

This birth felt like the most natural way I could have ever wished my first birth to be. Although I don’t think I would have only allowed 6 minutes from the hospital car park to giving birth to my baby! I think that I did cut it a bit fine there!

Looking back now and speaking with the midwife the next day there is one big thing that next time I would change, firstly I would be more comfortable with defiantly having a home birth, although with the Hypnobirthing course my fear of going into hospital has lifted a lot. The main thing I would do next time is to shout from the roof tops that I have done the Hypnobirthing course.

This is the one thing I didn’t do this time, as I explained to the midwife the next day and told her I had done a Hypnobirthing course, she told me that I should have told the midwives on the phone as this would have explained why I was handling the labour and contractions so well.  I really did think that Hypnobirthing is still not that well talked about, so didn’t want to say I did a Hypnobirthing course and then fall apart at the last hurdle.

What really should have happened is that I shouldn’t have cared about what people may think, especially if I did change my mind about any of the options I had chosen in my birthing process. I should have been more confident that I knew my body would naturally do what was needed of it and with the help of the Hypnobirth techniques this would help the natural process the body has to undertake during birthing.

I would sincerely recommend the Hypnobirthing course, from my husband going in as a sceptic and myself not being sure it would work for my birthing process, to coming out at the end of the course feeling liberated and being able to feel confident with the birthing decisions we had made, I would really recommend people to give the course a go. Even for just using one of the techniques through your birth process, it is well worth it.

Since the birth of our baby Leo, I have been asked to share my birth story with friends and family, I have spoken of my labour and birth with such positivity, all down to the techniques we used from the course that I have friends that can’t wait to try the Hypnobirthing course next time they are pregnant! 

It’s really not often that after hearing someone’s birth story another person actually can’t wait to have another baby! That really is how good the Hypnobirthing course is! A truly amazing birthing experience both my husband and I had and one we won’t forget in a hurry.”

What an amazing story, and one very typical of a Hypnobirthing mum, really girls, what are you waiting for? Book your place now as they go like hot cakes. http://www.bababoom.co.uk/Hypnobirthing_Natural_Childbirth_Active_Birth

Breastfeeding to me has to be not only one of the most natural things on this earth but an amazing bonding experience between mother and baby and one I am sad I will never again experience. For many women though breastfeeding is hard, demanding, painful, relentless and makes them not only miserable but really has an impact on their emotional well being.

This post is written for you!

We are all aware of the wealth of evidence that shows us all that ‘breast is best’. You hear it in the media, in parenting magazines, at child birth classes and from your midwives so by the time your little one arrives you have all but decided that ‘of course I’ll be breastfeeding’. The idea of breastfeeding, and certainly the public image of yummy mummy’s in coffee shops happily feeding away can give an unrealistic perception of the early days of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is a skill that not only you but your baby needs to master and whilst it is true that only approximately 1% of women truely can’t breastfeed the statistics for breastfeeding uptake and retention are no way near 99% and we need to ensure that those that want to feed their babies are given the support to do so. I believe that education is the key. Research shows that not only women that were breastfed but guys that were breastfed are more likely to go on to have a breastfed  baby so we need to break this cycle and get more women feeding BUT with support.

Sore,cracked, bleeding nipples are not a normal aspect of breastfeeding and something you just have to grin and bear, however in reality this is what many women experience. Early support with breastfeeding, helping with positioning and attachment, understanding the breast anatomy and how our hormones and diet impact on our ability to feed are all key to ensuring positive breastfeeding experiences. Yes we know that babies are born with a crawling reflex and given the time would find the breast and latch on unaided but this is rarely done as we are all eager to hold our babies and meet this new member of our family. So we need the advice and here is where it often gets really confusing. Much the same as we are all taught to drive the same way according to the Highway Code, in reality we all drive very differently. As long as we arrive at our destinations safely and without causing any accidents along the way then how we reached our goal doesn’t really matter. It can be frustrating though when one person tells you to do it one way and the next another. In addition much like learning to ride a bicycle, some of you will get it really easily and others will fall countless times before finally grasping it. There is a wealth of ‘how to breastfeed’ information on the market, much of it free for you to obtain via the web such as Medela, NHS and You Tube. Most communities have breastfeeding support groups, lactation consultants or midwives that will support you with these early days but if you don’t ask they wont know you need the help.

My final word on this is that however ‘natural’ breastfeeding is, in reality it can be tough going in the first 2 weeks if you aren’t receiving enough support to ask for help and hang in there. Once you’ve both cracked it then the feeling is exhilarating and if you don’t crack it or you decide that breastfeeding is not for you then all we can ask is that you make this decision as an informed choice and not because of lack of support. Every women deserves the right to breastfeed her child if she so chooses and we as a society, her peers, her family, her health care workers need to ensure she receives the information and support to enable her to do so.

B x

With this glorious British weather, as changable as it is, I have decided that Thermoregulation is my next myth to discuss and dispell! Thermoregulation in normal speak is your temperature and for babies this is vitaly important. As mums you have done an incredible job of regulating your babies temperature for the last nine months but now that you’re little’un is here it’s over to them. As this is a new job for them it takes them a day or two to work out how to do this correctly which is why all maternity wards are so hot, please don’t try to recreate this environment at home. One of the most common problems I encounter as a community midwife is baby’s being over heated by too many layers, homes too warm and hats. Cot death prevention guidelines suggest the optimum room temperature for a baby is 16-20 degrees. Babys hands, feet and even noses can feel cooler which is fine, the more reliable way of assessing their temperature is by placing the back of your hand on their chest, there shouldn’t be much of a temperature change so if they o feel too warm you need to take off some layers. Remember if you have folded a blanket 4 times to fit into the moses basket then that counts as 4 layers! As for hats, these are never needed in doors and should only be used outside during cold weather, once in doors, in a car or other warm environment the hat should be removed as if too hot the babies need to be able to expel their excess heat through their head. Having windows open to allow fresh air to circulate in your home and cool the environment is perfect providing babies are not directly in a draft, similarly radiators are fine to warm your home in the winter but babies shouldn’t be placed next to the radiator. For full details on cot death prevention visit the link below, I will be posting an article on cot death prevention in my Top Tips section soon.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_096299.pdf

I have so many women telling me about things they’ve heard that I have decided to run a series of articles entitled my top ten myths! Today I’ve just read yet another article in a pregnancy book telling women that they’re baby’s movements will slow down the later they are in their pregnancy as the baby is running out of space! This has to be one of the most frustrating ‘myths’ surrounding pregnancy in my opinion. Yes it stands to reason that the movemnets may not be as pronounced and become more or a nudge than a full blown kick but monitoring your baby’s movements in one of the most important things you mums to be can do. If a baby gets into difficulties it’s movements slow down then stop, by being in tune with your baby you’ll know what a normal pattern is for your baby and will then recognise if the movements slow down. Local guidelines encourage women who notice a reduction in their babies movements to lay down in a quite room on your left side for an hour or two and really tune into your baby, quite often our lives are so busy that we haven’t noticed the movements whilst rushing around and this alone can reassure us that all is well, however if you are in any doubt at all I urge you to call your local maternity unit who will be able to arrange for you to attend for a monitoring of the baby’s heart and movements. Here’s to safe arrivals of all your bumps!

So this is where it all begins!

Midwifery is my love, my vocation and since the launch of bababoom is my life! At 35 I decided to take the plunge and launch a business creating a Pregnancy Therapy centre in the beautiful town of Loughton, Essex with a baby boutique full of adorable gifts as well as practical support.

Having written guest blogs for other companies, product endorsements and articles I thought it was about time I started a blog where I can share any pearls of wisdom or amuse you with ‘tales of the unexpected.’

Hope to see you back here soon.

B x