hypnobirthing?

[capittm]

Anyone out there taking a hypnobirthing class? I just recently watched A Baby Story and they featured one of the mother's using this technique. She'd used it with both children and it seemed to work extremely well.
I wanted to see if anyone else out there had used it, and if so, how effective was it for you? What were the typical costs, etc. Also, I'm 34 weeks pregnant and wondering if this is still something I could consider. I'm not sure how long the classes take, or if there are just some relaxation tapes specific to this that I could purchase.

Thanks in advance!

[keem]

I have been doing it for months. I am doing it with tapes that I made from scripts I got for free from hypnobabies.com.
Ya can't beat FREE!!!!! :)

[capittm]

I just wanted to let anyone interested know that I got a birthing CD from www.drlarry.com. It is really great! I'm not sure if it will help deal with the pain/anxiety during delivery (i'm really hoping so), but it is very relaxing!! I wanted to let anyone who was interested in not necessarily "hypnobirthing", but getting totally relaxed mentally/physically for childbirth know about this drs tapes/CDs that are available.
I wish you all LUCK!!

[catkrazy99]

I used hypnobirthing for my dd's birth and plan to use it again for this child's birth. I labored 48 hours drug free with 18 of those hours being on pitocen. I can honestly say the birthing was painless b/c I was sooooooooo very relaxed that I was snoring when the dr thought I should be having an epidural.

I ended up with a c-section and the hypnobirthing techniques I learned were used to help me recover from the c-section with minimal pain meds.

My hypnobirth instructor was also my doula so we didn't need to study very hard. Also, I didn't know I was doing hypnobirthing till I was about 36 weeks and dd was born at 38 weeks.

[hedra]

I did HB combined with New Way Childbirth tapes. My first son was born using Bradley, which worked well, but I had an extended labor (80 hours) due in part to fetal position issues. I wanted a shorter labor (DUH!), so I looked around, and found that HB and NWC were both noted for having 4-6 hour FIRST labors.

So I got the NWC tapes (I didn't know if there was a HB class locally), and started using them. They're a bit new-agey, but worked well for first and second trimester issues (I kept using them the entire time, BTW). Then I found out that the birth center had HB classes. WOO-HOO! I signed up for the classes (they suggested starting at 26 weeks, but did work with women up to their due date on a one-on-one basis). Classes were $200 for I think 5 or 6 weeks? I loved the classes. I did have to alter the scripts (wrote a few, rewrote others), because some of the text missed things that were important to me (such as spirituality). But I ran my scripts past the teacher, she approved them, and off we went! You are welcome to my scripts if you want them. No charge, just leave my copyright info on them. email me if you do (anyoen else, too).

I also hired my teacher as a doula. In the end, that was probably the most useul part of it in my particular case, because of getting assigned a total nit of an OB when I got risked out of the Birth Center for polyhydramnios (she freaked out on me, basically, tried to scare me into a c-section, was CERTAIN I had a 10-lb-10-oz or larger baby and undiagnosed gestational diabetes, and wanted to use pitocin because my water had broken, even though I was having regular contractions already - she didn't trust the midwives to have done their job properly, nor did she trust my body to do its job at all, Ugh...). Anyway, because the staff kept doing amazingly rotten things (like telling me they would turn up the pitocin until I couldn't stand the pain anymore, and checking dilation through a contraction after just promising NOT to check during a contraction - talk about inspiring trust!), I needed extra help to get back into a relaxed state. If I'd had normal care (even for a hospital!), I'd have done fine with just DH. DH was very helpful anyway, in many ways (I'd have done worse without him). I didn't bother with the audio tapes for labor, though I had ones from both programs - I just didn't need them because DH had worked out how to do the scripts without making me either laugh or hit him (he started out trying to use a 'hypnotic' voice, but I finally convinced him that it was HIS voice I trusted, not some silly 'extra soft and convincing' version of his voice, ICK).

So, I ended up with a pain-free augmented labor (pitocin) despite staff who didn't act in a trustworthy fashion. My labor was 4.5 hours long (from first 'I have to pay attention to that' contraction - I'd actually been contracting for a few hours more than that, WITH progress, but they didn't feel like more than BH ctx). I pushed for about 30 minutes (with no 'effort' pushing - I just relaxed and let my body push!). I actually dilated from 4.5 to 10 cm in just about 40 minutes, and that's usually intense enough to freak women out. It was intense, but not painful - definitely pressure, but not pain. Also definitely took some mental effort to keep myself centered at times. But I only remember about 15 contractions, most of them the pushing ones. The rest were immaterial, and those ones I remember because they marked different stages in the process.

Wanna know the funniest part of my labor? I asked for an epidural. Why? Because I couldn't relax my back properly, I thought. As if relaxing your back (when the rest of you is so relaxed you are pretty much melted into the pillows) is critical to labor! And aren't epidurals generally regarded as PAIN management? Not relaxation support? LOL! I was just hitting transition, and didn't realize it, so that usual 'I can't do this alone' doubt reaction hit and I thought it couldn't possibly be transition, since I'd just been checked a few contractions ago and was at 4.5 cm! I didn't HURT, I just wanted an epidural so I could relax more. :rolleyes: at myself, LOL!

Oh, and my son was 9 lbs 6 oz, *not* nearly 11 lbs. And the nurses all changes 'sides' and were thrilled that I didn't get an epidural. Though they found my labor boring... LOL! Nothing for them to 'do'...

We're planning one more child. I wouldn't do it without HB, at this point. I did go into natural hypnotic states with Bradley, but I didn't know how to control or manage them. HB gave me tools to manage the natural process more effectively.

Good luck! All the other women in my class also had good experiences, barring the one who had a sunny-side-up baby (and she managed very well for a while, then couldn't maintain her focus anymore, but only needed one half-shot of nubain to handle it). Another's husband stopped doing the scripts because he felt they were not a natural action for him, and he just wanted to hold her hand and BE with her - which left her hanging, because her tape player was on the fritz. She ended up taking Nubain, too, and said that the HB scripts worked as well as the meds... too bad her DH thought his preferences counted more than hers! (for some reason she wasn't mad at him, though - go figure) (This is also a reminder to make sure your tape player is working, and has fresh batteries and a power cord before you go in!)

[Amykins]

I bought the hypnobirthing tapes, book, and scripts when I was about 6 months pregnant with DS2. I listened to the Rainbow Relaxation tape and practiced most of the exercises, including slow breathing, almost every day. I also bought 2 additional Steven Halpern CDs (that's the background music on the HB tapes and I loved it! Still use it now to relax.) I did not take the HB classes.

I would say HB worked fairly well for me. I did not have a pain-free labor, though. Maybe this was because I didn't take the classes. My labor was very long. Before I went into "active" labor, I had been up for the previous two nights with "surges" that were low-level but enough to keep me awake. So, I was pretty tired by the time the "pay attention" contractions started. HB worked well during the early stages and for the first 8-10 hours of active labor. But then I found that I was having trouble going totally loose, totally limp. So, I switched to yoga techniques because my body really wanted some active movement. I spent most of the rest of labor rocking through contractions in the "cat" position and using yoga "sounding." That was more effective for me.

By the time I got to the hospital, labor had stalled and I was at 7 cm. It took LOTS of pitocin and several more hours for me to fully dilate. But I had no pain medication, which was my goal. I brought the Steve Halpern CDs and CD player to the hospital, and they were GREAT. So was DH, and so was my midwife. In retrospect, I think HB would have worked better for me if labor had been shorter (or, maybe labor would have been shorter if HB had worked better . . .? Who knows).

In sum, I say definitely check out HB. It can only help. I can't remember how much I paid for the materials, but I ordered them from the hypnobirthing website, and I'm sure they have that info. there. I continue to use the relaxation techniques that I learned to help me chill out and deal calmly with my 3 y.o. ;)

[Amykins]

Also wanted to add: my baby was "sunny side up," so I had a lot of back labor. That may have been another reason why the HB techniques stopped working for me during labor.

[hedra]

Amy - I read an article by a HB instructor that said that for 70% of the women she teaches, it works completely (though some get the ring of fire as their only pain sensation). For 20%, they didn't practice, and got only partial releif. And for 10% complications such as posterior position interfered, and while it helped, it didn't do enough to manage everything.

Sounds like you fell in that last 10%. You can do hypnosis deeply enough that surgery is possible (my dad had hand surgery with only hypnosis as pain management!), but you also tend to lose ALL sensation if you do. HB is done at an in-between level, so you are present and participant, not utterly numb. It also takes a lot more work (intensive sessions) to get to the numb-enough-for-surgery state. I think you'd have to go to closer to that level of hypnosis to counter posterior position plus pitocin.

BTW, Harvard Medical School released a study saying that hypnotherapy should be offered at all surgical centers because the patients needed less anesthesia (even with general anesthesia!), had fewer side effects from meds, reported less post-op pain, used fewer post-op meds, and recovered faster. And that's for surgery! Kinda cool, that.

[Amykins]

Hedra -- very interesting. I don't think I'd want to try surgery without pain meds. (in fact, I had an emergency appendectomy last month and was grateful for the general anesthesia!), but I do think I probably could have handled labor pain better if I'd been more deeply "under." One of the things that I found so interesting about HB was the idea that if you just relax, your body will do the work. You don't have to try to push hard. Your uterus does it all, and in fact does it better if you get out of the way. So even though a deeper state of hypnosis would preclude active "participation" in birth, maybe you don't need to actively participate in the first place. Just musing.

[gamergal]

I used HB as well. I came to it late, and had one face to face lesson with the instructor. I did not practice with the tapes the way I should have (I had to have my H record them in his voice after I re-wrote the scripts). It worked for the first 2/3 of the labor, I'd say, even with pitocin. Then I got discouraged and was real tired and asked for some demerol so I could sleep. It was a big mistake because the staff kept bothering me so I could not sleep, but I was too groggy to concentrate on the scripts or visualizations. So we jettisoned the scripts. I used a combination relaxation chant and breathing technique instead, and that got me through the rest of the labor along with an epidural that sort of worked. But there was a fair amount of pain.

[maureenb]

Are there any HB materials out there that are effective both don't cost hundreds of dollars? I don't think there are any HB classes offered here in my area, but I'd like to kind of check it out before committing the $$. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[hedra]

Try hypnobabies or New Way Childbirth are farily cheap. The tapes for NWC are about $100 for the whole set, I think. HypnoBabies lets you download scripts (not tapes) for free - or that's what someone said (here?).

Just tape yourself reading the scripts, with relaxing background music, and you have tapes. You may have to tape them a few times, reading them and taking notes, until you get the timing right, but it is just a time investment, nothing more.

The Birth Kit is also another method - they use visualization 'cards' that have a picture on one side, and a script on the other. The scripts are pretty decent, too, though I don't keep my eyes open so the pictures are fairly useless to me. :) Not strictly HB type approach, there, though, but similar.

[Carolyn]

I just ordered the cd of the www.drlarry.com website...I will let you know when I get them how it feels.