“We did Hypnobirthing training with Janet for our eldest daughter’s birth four years ago and it worked a treat creating a calm, easy and fast birth at home as planned. Janet was the first “on call” midwife, and so was present at our first birth.
For our second baby we spent an afternoon in Janet’s lovely pod to “refresh” ourselves (on Hypnobirthing), chat through any concerns, download the scripts, eat biscuits and get the updated version of the hypnobirthing book.
We started practicing again and the pregnancy marched on fine with no complications. We rented an awesome pool from a lovely lady locally and got organised for another home birth. Because our eldest had been so quick (three hours in established labour) we were told often that our second is likely to be even quicker and to be prepared.
I started getting surges five days before our baby was born, each day I was convinced she would be arriving that evening but then they kept switching off by time I went to bed – I now know why.
At some point between my 38wk midwife appointment and due date, our baby had turned into a breech position. I didn’t feel it or notice any changes in the shape of my bump. The days of surges without progression we think were because of the difference in pressure between head and bum ie the head creates more and helps to open up the cervix in a way the bum can’t replicate! Had she been the right way round I’m convinced she’d have been with us on the first day of surges.
The night of her birth I had a small show around 11ish, we phoned the midwives at 12.30 and they were here by 1.30am. We asked for an examination to work out if I should get in the pool or not. The examination was a bit painful so even though I asked not to be told how dilated I was, when my partner told me it wasn’t quite time to get in the pool yet I knew I wasn’t ‘progressing’ as quickly as expected.
The surges continued and every time my mind started down the line of ‘what’s going on? This didn’t happen last time, something must be wrong etc etc’ the hypnobirthing practice somehow stopped these unhelpful thoughts in their tracks and returned me to my breath and visualisations to create a calmer mind.
When I did get into the pool (kept lovely and warm via dedicated kettle filling from the brilliant midwives) a couple of hours later, I had a major wobble just before my waters broke. Half convinced I couldn’t do it anymore I cried and looked to my partner who told me I was already doing it and gave me all the reassurances I needed to keep going.
Half an hour after my waters broke, our daughters BUM made its appearance at 6.30am. The midwives kept their cool and simply told me, with confidence & experience, to stand up which enabled the rest of our baby to come out with her hands above her head punching the air in celebration.
We had cuddles in the pool and waited for the cord to stop pulsing, we cut it when it was white and after five minutes on the sofa, big sister and Granny appeared having slept through the whole thing just as I had imagined.
I’m so grateful we had Janet to teach us the hypnobirthing skills to make this experience a positive one. Without it I probably would have been stressed and anxious during the previous days of surges instead of enjoying the sunshine with my family. The stress may have led to the breech position being discovered and we would have faced some difficult decisions and/or a c-section.
By continuing to trust my body and my baby, we created another home birth where we were comfortable, relaxed and gently supported from the sidelines by two brilliant midwives to bring our baby into this world in her own way.
We’ll never know why our baby turned but there must have been a reason that only she will ever know. I’m already mega proud of her and trust she’ll continue to follow her instincts and do her own thing for the rest of her life ❤👶🏻❤”
Janet’s words: All midwives and doctors are trained to support vaginal breech birth. As only 3-4% of babies are breech at the end of pregnancy, we don’t see that many these days as most are born by caesarean. Years ago, of the small % many of those babies were born vaginally until the massively flawed Hannah Breech Trial!!!
Breech is a normal but different presentation. Hypnobirthing aims to give the mother and her birth partner relaxation tools and techniques to help support birth, whatever is going on, and especially so when there is an unexpected turn in the journey to birth.