Wouldn't it be good if childbirth could mean joy and achievement instead of fear or pain?

Welcome to confident child birthing! I was looking for some form of holistic approach prior to the birth of my daughter in my first pregnancy. I had heard about giving birth holistically but never really knew what that meant, yet I was surprised to know many hospitals in Oxfordshire offer many holistic services for women who want to give birth without using medical interventions when giving birth because of the health advantages this held for the mother and baby. The confident childbirth approach was developed with these key components in mind.

Confident Childbirth offers a friendly and effective approach to labour and delivery to help you feel calm and in control before, during and after the birth of your baby.
By attending a short course of four individual one-hour sessions, you can feel thoroughly prepared both mentally and emotionally so that you can look forward to childbirth in a much more relaxed way than before.

Confident Childbirth uses a range of highly effective tools: cognitive hypnotherapy, self-hypnosis, positive visualisations and pain management techniques so that mothers (and their partners) can have the best possible experience of birth.

Research demonstrates effectiveness of hypnosis for labour
An article in The Independent in 2007 summarised some research in Australia:
Research at the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, where hypnosis is used for women in labour, shows it is highly effective. A study showed that women taught self-hypnosis reduced their need for analgesia by half, epidurals by 70 per cent, and were more than twice as likely to be satisfied with their pain management in labour compared with other women.
Some other research:

In Toronto, a city-wide retrospective survey compared low risk first-time mothers, who had had four 2.5-hour hypnosis sessions, with similar mothers (controls) who hadn't prepared in this way. Variations per hospital noted for the controls.

• epidural rates : 40-95% (depending on hospital) for those with no hypnosis training compared with 18% for hypnotised group
• Caesarean rates: 20-25% of the mothers who hadn't prepared with hypnosis had a Caesarean, compared with 6.7% of the hypnosis Mums.
• Average length of labour for non-hypnotised women having first baby=12 hours. Hypnosis women averaged 5.5 hours.

My purpose is to guide you towards the birth that you'd like - we work together towards your goals and sessions are tailored to meet your needs and wishes. You can come along as early or as late in your pregnancy as you like. Please contact me to make a booking or for more information.

the benefits