I want to talk to you about the idea that women can feel amazing even if they end up having interventions during their birth. I think it’s fair to say that probably at least 85 if not 90% of the women that come through the Calm Birth School are there because they want to have natural, intervention-free births. I make no bones about saying that when a woman understands the tools and methods that we use within the programme she is much more likely to enjoy the kind of calm, confident, positive, intervention-free birth that she desires.
Here is more about it.
However, right throughout all of my teachings, I really hammer it home in the Calm Birth School book, I stress that birth is an unpredictable event and things can change very, very quickly and sometimes we need to have a little bit of help from our medical care team either for our sakes or for our baby’s sakes or for both of our sakes. In the past, hypnobirthing especially I feel, has got it wrong when the focus has been purely on having a natural birth experience. Because, when it doesn’t happen women then feel like their bodies have let them down, that they’ve been lied to, that it wasn’t possible, or that they’ve done something wrong. Whichever way you slice and dice that, no woman wants to be feeling like that when she meets her baby for the first time. I think that even now it’s still why many women don’t want to write birth preferences and are hesitant about stepping into and taking up the full Calm Birth School programme or other hypnobirthing programmes, because they’re worried about what happens if it doesn’t work.
This is one of the things that I am really, really passionate about when it comes to the information that I’ve shared in the course and how the Calm Birth School teaching team on the ground in the UK share what we teach with their clients.
The main thing that we are focused on is having a positive birth experience, and positive does not mean perfect.
It does not necessarily mean natural, it does not mean sitting quietly humming out your baby. It can sometimes mean roaring and loud and wild and crazy and sometimes it can mean medical intervention. I think that there is a massive difference between reading a book which often has an unrealistic textbook version of the way that birth plays out, versus reading the Calm Birth School book where I tried to really convey this message throughout the whole book.
Experiencing the course where I’m talking to you, or working with one of the Calm Birth School team, is very different to other antenatal courses. You have somebody who really understands the importance of being able to walk you through a range of different birth scenarios and how to make decisions that feel really empowering – if you are faced with having to discuss whether you go for a c-section or not, or whether you should have forceps or not, you will be able to make those decisions from a place of power, and that’s what makes a positive birth experience, being empowered.
Feeling really positive and expecting the best possible outcome for your birth doesn’t have so much to do with whether your baby is delivered vaginally or without any intervention at the end of the day. I think that that is one of the things that makes the Calm Birth School course special and is what so many women take away with them when they go through the programme.
As somebody who has had three natural home births, there is no doubt that I absolutely fundamentally believe and know to be true, we are designed to give birth and we are designed to do that in the most comfortable and enjoyable way. However, there is a huge spectrum and it is very much a subjective experience and it’s our job here to help you know and recognise how you can navigate your unique journey and feel great about it regardless of how your baby enters into the world.
If you are holding back on taking the next step because you are worried that it might not work, you’re worried that your pain threshold is too low and that you’re not going to be able to do it, then you’re missing the point. This is about guiding you through a positive birth experience and knowing that this can and will look different for every single person, because we are all unique human beings.
Get into the space of positives.
Leave perfect behind and get involved, come and join the party because we’re having fun over here.
If you want to give it a test and see what I’m talking about in more detail, please check out https://www.thecalmbirthschool.com/freehypnobirthing.
