About being in control of your own birth

It isn't about how you birth...whether you do so vaginally or via c-section or whether you decide to use an epidural or gas and air. Or even who you choose to be your support during your labour. Your birth partner, your doula, your mother, friend or midwife.

Control and taking control is all about you, what you know, what you don't know and what your decision is going to be.

It seems odd that taking control over the births of our children also requires relinquishing control. Accepting that baby and body know best and then following that flow. Travelling through the labour to the birth and absorbing the fast parts, the slow parts the moments when you laugh as well as the moments you want to cry.A women who is able to ask what is happening and why things are happening is a women in control.

Hypnobirthing does not reject epidurals or c-sections, many of those who have learnt to birth using hypnobirthing may not choose or need either of those but they will have the skills to ask for relief should they need it. Without guilt or confusion. And they will be able to discuss birth interventions clearly and with the support of their birth partners make the right decisions for them and their babies. There is no magic to what a mother may consider to be their positive birth story. It is mindset and a belief that they were in control of all the other factors surrounding their labour and birth, whilst acknowledging that baby knows best...or indeed sometimes doesn't but as there is no one way to birth a baby they will be ultimately flexible with the path their labour takes.

So, the answer to a positive birth experience is remaining in control. Not having that taken away. Not being bullied. Understanding decisions, propositions and options.

This is why I teach hypnobirthing and why I know that it works. A strong, confident mind can achieve the most amazing things....and the birth of a baby is an amazing thing.

About the author:

Melanie is a mother to 3 young children and lives in Wands worth, London. She is a graduate of the ICH Clinical Hypnosis training and regularly sees clients for hypnobirthing and fertility work.