Positive Birth Story: #birthedonlockdown
Positive Birth Story, Caesarean Birth of 2nd Baby, During Lockdown
At the time of positing, we are currently on lock down as the COVID-19 Pandemic sweeps the world. This has meant we have seen some changes to the way our maternity systems are operating, and natural it’s left lots of women feeling a little anxious and unsure of what to expect. But here’s the thing, the way we give birth still works in exactly the same way! And the opportunity for truly positive birth experiences is still there.
Our new campaign #birthedonlockdown aims to share these stories with you so you go forward into your birth feeling reassured, confident and ready to have the positive experience you deserve.
Over to Jo who shares her story (And Jo even made the papers for giving birth to the very FIRST baby born on lockdown!)
Hypnobirthing for a positive birth
I went into labour most evenings for about 4 days prior to Winnie making an appearance. Each night is run a bath, listen to my relaxation MP3 and deeply relax to the sounds of your voice.
We had followed Hypnobirthing with our first child and found that second time round it was even more important - it helped me to carve time out to focus on being pregnant and growing me new little one. This pregnancy was harder on my body than the first and my blood pressure didn’t really behave so it meant lots of hospital visits and monitoring - each time I felt my Hypnobirthing relaxation came into play as I was able to stay calm.
Right back to our birth, the weekend before lock down we were due( 22nd March) all the news reports and radio news bulletins were getting too much and I knew that baby would not make an appearance if I didn’t take action to create a calm safe space.... so off when my phone( expect for MP3) , the radio and TV - we had no idea what was going on outside our little family unit.
I spent the weekend surrounded by my family , love and in a calm relaxed environment- so our little one started to make moves .....
Saturday 21st my plug went and unknown to me so did my waters..... Sunday things started to ramp up but each time I was calm and just kept breathing and enjoying the sun.
The early hours of Monday morning I knew things had started to become more established and we ran the hospital- who advised to come in...... again I kept calm and listened to my mp3 - packed up our things, nanny came to look after no.1 ...... then my labour stopped....... what! I couldn’t believe it..... but hey I went back to bed and slept..... the hospital called as I was supposed to have my routine blood pressure check and said come in anyway.....but this point we were happy to just have a check..... when we arrived my bp was too high so we needed some more medication , then the doctor came to assess me .... all of which we were calm and just took each bit in our stride.... even when baby decided to Poo in our assessment we remained calm- as it was then very calmly decided to have a unplanned csection - this was fine, we were fine, and you know what - our baby was coming.
We chose our playlist , gave each other the biggest cuddle and giggles slightly that soon we’d have our new little one.
Positive Hypnobirthing Caesarean
Our section was calm, happy, they dropped the curtain, we say our little baby coming out.... and Winnie was born at 8.40pm on 23rd literally 10minutes after Boris Locked the country down.... not that we knew this until we phoned the grand parents - she was born to the happy tunes of Phil colins and our hearts were full.
Thank you Megan for all your help with our Hypnobirthing experience , the advise you kept offering during our pregnancy and all the helpful resources that helped us make informed and clam decisions.
Having a lock down baby has been fun, but the care and support from all angles of the NHS have been super- I applaud all those that work at the Royal surrey especially our consultant Dr Karen Marton and those based in the community midwifery unit for their care and help in bring Winnie into this world - thank you