Hypnobirthing refresher for you second baby?

What does a private or refresher hypnobirthing course for your second baby look like?

I thought I’d take you through what a ‘typical’ one to one hypnobirthing session looks like for families expecting their second babies! I use the word ‘typical’ lightly; as no two sessions ever actually look the same! Usually people attend with their birth partner, but not always.

Where do we start?

Usually we make a cuppa, say hellos (if we don’t already know each other from first time!) and settle somewhere comfy! It’s a very informal and relaxed few hours, more of a conversation than a ‘lesson’. I’m pretty good at making people feel safe and comfortable quite quickly!

Then I’ll usually ask you to tell me about your first experience of birth. You might start with relevant aspects of your pregnancy, the choices you made, how birth unfolded and usually it becomes pretty clear how you feel about what happened. I might ask some gently probing questions to get a clear picture of how thing felt physically and emotionally and we can often start to unpack why things unfolded in the way they did (for better or worse).

This tends to lead naturally into a conversation about what you want this time around. What do you want to be different? What’s most important to you? What do you want to be the same? What are you biggest concerns this time? What do you feel totally ok about? This conversation is so unique to each family (and often develops over the next few hours/weeks). Sometimes people have NO IDEA what they want, and we use the session(s) to work this out!

Then what?

Depending on how long we are spending together (usually 1x3 hour session if we’ve worked together before.. 2x3 hours if not), I outline the topics I think we should discuss in detail, based on the chat we’ve just had! Since 1-1 sessions are completely bespoke, this might be anything including-

• Birth Place Options (Hospital, Birth Centre, Home)

• Comfort Measures/ Pain Relief

• Decision Making (How to make decisions/ discussing specific choices)

• Second labours/babies (how they differ to first time)

• Hormones/ Biology of Labour & Birth

• VBAC

• Caesarean Birth

• Induction of Labour

• Other Birth Choices (including vaginal examinations, birthing the placenta, monitoring etc).

I’ll check in that you’re happy with the plan, or if there are any other areas you’d like to include/recap before diving in! You ask questions as we go, I might pull up research or grab a prop or two to explain something, but basically we are chatting it all through. We find tangible references for things in your own life or previous experience of birth so you can really get to grips with how birth works and what choices might be right for you. The KEY thing here is that I’m led by you. I have no preconceived ideas of how you should be birthing, but I’m a great sounding board for you to work that our for yourself. It’s not uncommon even for these conversations to be weighing up a home birth vs a planned caesarean.

What about the hypnobirthing?

All our courses will include learning (or recapping) the hypnobirthing tools. If we’re only together for 1 session, we won’t necessarily do any deep relaxation/ relaxation scripts in the session (because there’s so much to chat about!), but I’ll set you up with everything to practice once I’ve gone (resources and MP3s). If you’ve not done hypnobirthing before, we will certainly aim to try out the tools during the sessions themselves. The hypnobirthing/relaxation/birthing tools include-

• Guided Relaxations (MP3s)

• Affirmations

• Anchors

• 2x Breathing Techniques

• Massage Teachniques

• Positions/Movement/Biomechanics

Once the session is finished…

I usually follow up with an email (often containing the multitude of articles, podcast episodes, evidence/research we have discussed during the sessions) with directions to access all the MP3s, birth plan template etc.

Working together privately means my inbox is always open if you have a wobble/ need more info/ plans or circumstances change and you need to check in! I will always aim to get back to you within 3 working days (but it’s usually much quicker!).

Ready to book your Hypnobirthing Refresher?

If you’d like to book our Hypnobirthing Mini Course or Refresher Session, find out more below or email me info@birth-ed.co.uk