“You’ll be begging for an epidural”

“Take all the pain relief”

“I can’t handle more than 3 gins, let alone a dose of diamorphine or pethidine”

I remember back in 2016, it was 11pm and I was in a Popworld, type of bar in the middle of Leeds (classy I know). I had drunk far too many cocktails and 1 too many shots.

I was sitting on the loo and everything was spinning, I couldn’t even process what my friend was saying to me, there were about 4 of her and all I kept thinking was ‘remember to breathe Hannah’.

It was awful, I was crying whilst being sick, I was completely out of control, I couldn’t even see properly and I was really scared.

That was the worst I have ever been on a night out before. Even though I was blackout drunk, I still remember how I felt that night, it was enough to make sure that I have never done it since.

I’m not against pain relief during labour whatsoever but…

For me that feeling of being spaced out and not really being aware of what is going on scares me more than actually being in pain.

I’ve never taken drugs before and I clearly don’t respond well to too much alcohol so how would I respond to heroin (essentially what pethidine is that’s used as pain relief during labour)? I was open to potentially trying gas and air but I hate being sick and I knew that a side effect of gas and air was potential sickness so I planned to avoid this too if I could.

My thoughts on pain during labour were…

Pain during labour would be coming from within me, it wasn’t an external force causing pain (such as something falling on me and breaking a bone) so that led to me having the belief that I could potentially still be in control, even if giving birth was painful, it was pain from within.

The affirmation “my surges cannot be stronger than me because they are me” was one that I repeated to myself throughout labour, you can find out what other birth affirmations I used here.

I also wanted to protect my unborn daughter as much as possible

So, I made the decision that I would try and avoid the stronger forms of pain relief during labour, especially since I had found out that my girl had issues with her heart, I didn’t want anything strong in either of our systems. I wasn’t sure how her little heart would respond to strong forms of pain relief either, the reasons for declining pain relief were for myself and for my daughter’s benefit.

Now, I wasn’t naïve, I knew that labour could be painful.

So I equipped myself with as many calming, relaxing and pain-relieving techniques as possible during pregnancy, here are a few of the things that I did in preparation for a drug-free birth, the last one was crucial:

• Learned lots about natural pain-relieving hormones that I already had within my body and how to increase them in my system

• Practised 2 x breathing techniques to help me focus during labour

• Found out about every single natural pain relief method going

• Watched women giving birth in upright positions as movement can help to minimise pain

• Made sure that my husband was fully aware of how to support me (I dragged him to our hypnobirthing course)

• Put on my birth plan for midwives not to offer me pain relief

• Requested a water birth to help manage pain

• Practised self-hypnosis to allow me to enter a calm state of mind, which in turn would allow the muscles of my uterus to relax and do what they needed to do – you can find out more about how this can help with pain here.

• Found plenty of distraction techniques to take my mind off things in early labour

• Planned to stay at home for as long as possible (I arrived at the birth centre at 9cm dilated, I had hypnobirthed up until this point)

• Made sure that I felt comfortable in my environment

• Made sure that I built up trust and confidence in my body during pregnancy (using positive affirmations, knowledge of birth, listening to my hypnosis tracks)

• Made sure that I understood the process of labour and knew what to expect for birth– for example, there is a stage of labour where adrenaline hits the body and can send you into a state of panic. I understood why this would happen, when it would happen and how to manage during this phase of labour.

You might disagree with what my husband did during labour but I am so grateful he did it…

I remember at one point, asking for some gas and air and you might think this was a bad move on behalf of my husband but he said to me ‘you don’t need it, you are doing so well, you can do this’. He then used a hypnobirthing technique to help me through the next contraction and a few contractions later, Lucy was born.

My husband knew exactly what I wanted during labour

He did this because we had previously spoken about what to do in this situation, we were on the exact same page for when it came to me giving birth (something I would argue is crucial for any type of birth).

I had told him during pregnancy that if I asked for pain relief during labour to first try and distract me and if it didn’t work and I asked a second time then he would know that I did genuinely need it. He was doing exactly what I asked him to do.

I also gave birth in secret, which massively helped me, no-one other than my husband and midwife knew that I was in labour, you can read about that here.

You might be wondering how I managed to do all of the preparation for a drug-free birth, it seems like a lot:

All the preparation that I did came from what I had learnt in my hypnobirthing course. I had learnt all of it within the 8 hours of the hypnobirthing class, of course, I practised it all after the class ended too but it wasn’t a case of me Googling and trying to piece together bits of birth knowledge and calming techniques here and there on my own, it was all given to me during my course.

Guaranteeing a drug-free labour 

Now, I am in no way saying that if you do a hypnobirthing course you will be guaranteed a drug-free birth (we can never guarantee anything during labour) and you might not even want a pain relief-free birth (which is absolutely fine too) but if you fully prepare yourself and your birth partner for labour, you are stacking the odds in your favour of having a positive birth, whether that be with or without pain relief.

Whatever your thoughts are on pain relief, remember this…

There will be a time during labour when you don’t have access to stronger forms of pain relief such as gas and air, diamorphine, pethidine etc so equipping yourself for a drug-free birth can only be beneficial.

You might use all of the techniques taught to you on a hypnobirthing course whilst you are at home and then you might take the pain relief once you reach your place of birth but it will have helped you get to that point.

Or, you might find that you can go the whole labour without any drugs but having all of these techniques will really help you to do this.

Please remember that it’s not a case of the drugs or Hypnobirthing, you can Hypnobirth alongside pain relief just like Emily did in her labour here.

There is no downside to preparing yourself and your birth partner for labour.

To find out more about how Hypnobirthing can help you during labour, watch my free 25-minute introduction to hypnobirthing video here:

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