Hypnobirthing - how to practice before birth!

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič - @specialdaddy on Unsplash

If you book onto one of my hypnobirthing courses, you’ll receive the course booklet, a box of positive affirmation cards and get access to my MP3s and scripts. I will also ask you to practice what you’ve been learning so that you are fully prepared for your labour.

What does practice look like? How often? When? It’s up to you, of course, but the more practice you put in the better able you will be to utilise all the techniques you have learned during your labour.

Basically, every day, have a quick look at the course booklet, which has been designed as a reminder of what you have been learning. At any time of the day, you can practice visiting your safe places in your mind and connecting to your anchors. You don’t need to listen to the MP3s to do this.

The positive affirmation cards can be carried around with you in your bag so you can look at these all the time. It’s a good idea, however, to pin these around the house - stick them on your kitchen cupboards, your fridge, in your bathroom, around your laptop: anywhere that you will see them regularly so that you can fill your subconscious with these positive thoughts.

Play the relaxation scripts every day - play them at night as they may well help you to fall asleep.

Practise your visualisations and your anchors - make sure you have fixed your anchor so that you can access calmness and positivity every time you recall it and have those visualisations at the forefront of your mind. The beach, the waves, the lush forest …..

Practice your breathing every day - it only needs to take a few minutes. Practice your abdominal breathing (up breathing) and your J-breathing (down breathing). Do this whilst you’re watching television!

If you’re going to use perineal massage, this is best practiced a couple of times a week from around 34-35 weeks of pregnancy.

We’ll go through your birth preferences during the course but make sure that you write these up and revisit them regularly so you and your partner are both very familiar with them.

Practice the different birthing positions: squatting, bouncing on a birth ball, leaning over a bed - practice these a couple of times a week whilst you’re listening to your MP3s because you’ll be moving around during labour.

They say that practice makes perfect - it really does, so the more that you practice during your pregnancy, the better prepared you are going to be for your birth.

Calm, confident and in control!