Hello & Congratulations on your pregnancy! 

I’m Charlie. I’m a hypnobirthing practitioner & Positive Birth Movement facilitator. 

I’m also an ex-advertising director and a mother of three.

I am NOT a birth junkie.

I AM determined to provide couples with an honest & realistic information about what a positive birth experience can look like for them, and to support them as they meet the biggest transformation of their lives with focus, confidence & ease.

Enterprising. Determined. Strong willed. Energetic. Resourceful. Aspiring.

Goal-oriented. Industrious. Purposeful. Self-starting. Sharp. A complete control freak.

These characteristics were what made me successful in my career. They were also the things that fuelled my complete terror of birth. Like many women, when I became pregnant for the first time my initial delight was soon surpassed by abject fear. Having had to discount an elective caesarean due to my fear of needles, I settled on  hypnobirthing as the birth preparation for me. It sounded like the perfect get-out-jail-free card. I’d just hit myself up with some trance state, and Whoop!, I’d have my baby.

In reality though, hypnobirthing is not as simple as that.

What I now know, having followed the Mongan Method while pregnant, trained & taught the Wise Hippo method since January 2014, and now teaching The Calm Birth Method, is that a Good Birth experience is not about candles & sandles, whale music or visualising opening lotus flowers. I now know that all those words up there / / are what hypnobirthing is about.

It’s about resilience, determination, practise, control, focus & knowledge.

It’s about helping women and their partners understand why they feel vulnerable and out of control. It’s about building a realistic and completely personal framework for what Good Birth means. It’s about supporting couples to manage this massive transformation as themselves – whether they’ll be welcoming a first child or a fifth.

Now I have three children, two boys & a girl. When my youngest was 2, I felt it was time for me to go ‘back to work’ in marketing, in London. So that’s what I did. After freelancing for 4 months I was increasingly frustrated by how maligned & marginalised motherhood is. It’s so often seen as something that diminishes women. Something to be packed away quietly in its appropriate place. Something niche. And that, for me is a large part of the problem women face.

82% of women become mothers, and 100% of us come from mothers, and yet pregnancy, birth & motherhood continues to be seen as a niche issue. Women are led to expect pain, trauma & suffering from birth. Birth is the transformative moment in most women’s lives. It heralds their new identity as Mother. It shifts the dynamics of their most intimate relationships, as well as the world at large. And yet. Despite #metoo. Despite #timesup. Despite a vibrant discussion on the dynamics of women & power, women are still led to anticipate that transformation accompanied by anxiety & fear.

Well, I’m here to tell you that despite the prevailing wisdom, it is possible to have a positive birth experience. There are no limits to the type of woman who walks away from birth feeling empowered, exhilarated & proud. You have a right to expect & create a Good Birth experience.