Positive Water Birth Using Hypnobirthing at St James’s Hospital Leeds

“Thank you so much for helping me to get the birth that I wanted and it was what I wanted, it was just amazing, thank you.”

Jess and Will attended an online, group hypnobirthing course with me this year (2021). Jess told me before the course started that she was feeling anxious about the birth (as are most people) and Will was honest that he wasn’t sure what he had signed up for doing a hypnobirthing course. However, once the course had finished, they both felt fully prepared for birth and Jess has kindly shared her birth story with us (just 2 days after she gave birth.) Thank you so much for sharing your empowering birth with us. This story just goes to show that if you do the hypnobirthing practise, listen to your body and trust the process, birth can be truly amazing. Here is the birth story of Anya Maeve:

Hi, my lovely, I thought I would just send you a little voice note, I just wanted to let you know how the birth went. If I envisioned what I wanted, it would have been a quick birth, a water birth with no pain relief. I managed, with the help of your hypnosis tracks to get to 6cm before I even went into hospital. Totally manageable, listening to the affirmations over and over again on the way there. But, I did have to laugh because one of the affirmations says something like “you are in a safe place and you are exactly where you need to be” but we were on the M1 in the pouring down snow and we couldn’t see anything in front of us and I was saying “Hannah, this is not safe babe.” 

 “Can someone check on Jess? she is very quiet”

 It was so dramatic, but I was so calm in my room before we left. I had the sweep on the Friday and I was getting strong contractions that evening. I went to bed, put all the candles on, listened to the fear release MP3 track and the birth rehearsal MP3 track and then I could feel one strong contraction which woke me up. I got up and just sat in bed listening to the tracks, I didn’t walk around or do anything, I was just super chilled, Will couldn’t believe how chilled I was. 

“I was so proud of myself”

Then when we got to St James’s hospital, I heard one of the midwives say ‘can someone check on Jess she is very quiet”, they came in to ask if I was alright, I was breathing through a contraction. They asked if it was ok to check me and I said “yes.” They told me I was 6cm dilated, I was like “nice one.” There was a lady at the side of me in agony and she was 2cm, I’m not comparing as everyone is different, but I was so proud of myself that I had got to 6cm. They took me straight through to the birthing pool, in inverted commas as it just looked like a bath, like if you go into a residential home, it looked a little bit like that, it wasn’t the proper birthing suite but it was fine. I didn’t even get my birth plan out because it was so quick, Will had left the bags in the car because we thought it would take a long time. 

“Wow that was epic”

So, they took me down to the birthing suite without even looking at my birth plan, but it was as if they knew everything that I needed. The only thing that was different was that I had put in my birth plan that I didn’t want a student, well I’m so glad that they didn’t see that as we had a midwife who only qualified in September and she was just an absolute angel, I get emotional thinking about it, she was incredible and so good, she did everything, she put my music on, dimmed the lights (well brought a lamp in as the lights didn’t dim.) I had my summer solstice playlist on at this point, I was breathing too. 

“It was the weirdest feeling, my body just wanted to push, I wasn’t pushing”

I’m not going to lie when I got to the transition period, wow that was epic, things did change from there, I’m not going to lie but I was still doing the breathing and counting. She was 8lb 5 but they never once tried to coach me to push, they just let me get on with it and do what I thought I needed to do. I don’t know where the surges came from, the midwife kept asking if I had the urge to push and I kept saying that I’m not pushing, my body is doing it. It was the weirdest sensation as it completely took over everything, my body just wanted to push, her head wasn’t quite there but I was obviously bearing her down. And then I got the point where I said, “I’m done now, I want everything, I want an epidural, I want everything, whatever you have got.” The midwife said “well everyone is in surgery, but you can come out of the bath if you want and we can talk about it on the bed” but I knew that if I did that it would hurt more on the bed as I was using the water right now to help. So, I stood up to get out of the bath, felt another contraction come on, so I sat back down and within 3 pushes she was out. I roared her out and because I listened to my body I didn’t need any stitches. Oh my god, it was just weirdest feeling, by the end I could feel everything, I can’t even explain it but the next moment she was here and the release of her coming out was so bizarre. 

 I did accept gas and air, which I am convinced is a placebo as I don’t think it really did anything, I used it towards the end but not all the way through, it was just in the last half an hour. Will was amazing, he didn’t say much but that was fine as I didn’t want much saying, he was stroking my arm, I just kept looking at him, he didn’t need to say anything if that makes sense.

“It was amazing”

It was incredible, absolutely incredible. The more I think about it all, the more euphoric I feel, I’m still so high on oxytocin. Thank you so much for helping me to get the birth that I wanted, and it was what I wanted, it was just amazing, thank you. Feel free to share this as people need to know about positive birth. 

Jess and Will, Leeds (2021)