Happy New Year to all of you.
New Year is a time of reflection. I’ve spent many years helping people prepare for birth, and I almost can’t see the wood for the trees at the moment. So, I’m going to try and summarise all that I have learnt and all that I teach, by bringing it all together for the year ahead. Here are my top 10 tips for pregnancy and birth. Which would you add? Leave your suggestions below.
1. Explore the option of home birth, and take the possibility very seriously before deciding what is and isn’t right for you.
2. Take a HypnoBirthing course. I still think it is amazing, and really wish I had had the opportunity for my first birth. It would have been so different!
3. Hire a birth doula. Money and words can’t justify the benefits, but I just feel it when I am doulaing.
4. Take your birth preparation seriously. You wouldn’t hold a wedding or run a marathon without preparing. Don’t try to have a baby without preparing.
5. If you attend a birth preparation course that makes you feel more nervous than when you started, stop going.
6. If you come away from an antenatal appointment nervous or upset, seek a second opinion.
7. Believe – really believe it – when people tell you that their birth was the most amazing day of their life.
8. Do not go into your birth expecting to scream, or sweat, or be “active”. Go into your birth expecting to surrender to the feelings your body creates.
9. Focus on your baby. During pregnancy, during birth, and, of course, after birth.
10. And finally – (this comes from a fellow HypnoBirthing/birth doulaing mum) – get an Epi-no!