When statistics are thrown at you, or broad statements about risks of waiting versus induction for example, ask for the evidence and research. How your options are presented to you can often be biased and can influence your decisions.

When a health care provider says to you "if you go over 41 weeks the chance of stillbirth increases by 50%" what they aren't telling you is that increase in risk (or 'chance') goes up from 0.04% to 0.06%.

Navigating the facts can be really difficult when you are birthing in a system where they are looking after sick people, when you are not sick, birth is a normal physical function... and having someone impartial to help you navigate and to signpost you to research and reliable information is invaluable.

That’s where I can help. With my private or group hypnobirthing courses or birth coaching sessions you get my support, experience and knowledge from booking until birth. 

Debbie
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Research shows that when it comes to birth the more involved you are in the decision-making process, the more likely you are to be happy with the outcome of that decision EVEN if wasn’t what you initially planned for.

💜 When it comes to feeling more in control, learning how to ask questions is a really important part of the process.

💙 Asking questions comes with confidence and confidence is something we build, it takes time and practice so asking questions is something that I encourage you to chip away at. 

💚 Start with the small questions at your midwife check-ups. Especially if you feel bamboozled by medical terms or want more information on something.

Questions like:

What does this mean?
What are the implications of this for me and my baby?
Where can I get more information about this?
Can you explain that for me, please?
Is there another option?
Can you leave us for 10 minutes so that we can discuss this?

When it comes to the more challenging decisions that may crop up, I always refer to the BRAIN model, it is a fabulous tool, not just for birth but for lots of different decision making scenarios.

Debbie
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As some of you know, I love talking about pain in relation to labour and birth.. there is sooo much to talk about and so much we can do to help to reduce or get rid of any pain you may feel.

I mentioned this acronym during a coaching session the other day and wanted to share it with you all as it is so useful.

P is for Purposeful.

There is a reason we feel contractions and it isn't just because we don't use those uterus muscles very much.. we also feel the contractions because they are a communication system; often your body is communicating with you to breathe more deeply or to change position to help your baby to be born.

A is for Anticipation.

We know those contractions (that can be felt as pain) are coming and when they will happen, unlike much other pain we may feel. This also means you can prepare yourself to help cope/manage the contraction before it begins.

I is for Intermittent.

Contractions are intermittent, you will have a rest/break in between every one. In fact, for the duration of labour, you can expect to be having contractions for only about 30% of the time when you factor in the rest time between contractions. We don't use these muscles very often so our bodies give us this rest to help us.. so use that rest wisely.

N is for Normal.

The pain you may feel in normal, and it isn't a bad pain, keep reminding yourself of that. We know why we are feeling it and we can use hypnobirthing tools and techniques to help us cope with it or reduce that feeling.

👉 You can even decide to not use the word 'pain' or 'contraction'. Many decide to use 'surges', 'waves' or 'rushes' instead. This will help to change your perception of why the muscles are contracting and change your reaction to them.

Debbie
Better Birth & Baby
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More often than not the birth partner is overlooked at birth, but they have an important role. They need to support their birthing partner, be their advocate, help them get into that calm birthing zone, help them get back into the calm zone if they come out of it and relay any communications to the medical team, if required.  During my course we talk at length about the birth partners role and what they can do to help them and their partner have a positive birth experience.

Recently I have had a couple of birth partners talk to me about how grateful they were for attending my course, and after they had finished relaying why they were thanking me I said "please can you write that down for me?" 

So here is what they wrote - thank you Ben and Lloyd! 

  "Firstly, I will hold my hands up and say I was a little skeptical at first, I mean women have been giving birth for thousands and thousands of years and therefore considered that whilst it’s definitely “hard work” for mums it’s one of the most natural things to go through.

Well I am really happy to say that my skepticism was put to bed very quickly.

This is my third child and my partner, Lucy’s first so I felt that I had been there, seen it, done it etc. However it’s amazing what you forget in a decade!

Debbie was fantastic, she took each of our respective concerns and bearing in mind this was a pandemic pregnancy with the real worry that I wouldn’t be able to attend the birth, there were a few, and broke them down and helped to massively alleviate them.

She provided really effective techniques to make the birth more manageable mentally and helped to provide a calm that perhaps had been lacking previously. She also provided me with several different tools, to help Lucy get through the labour even though for the majority of it, as suspected, we were kept apart.

We did the course over video call, as again the pandemic thwarted our plans of face to face sessions and after each of them we felt better equipped to deal with whatever was thrown at us.

I think the biggest gain from the sessions, was the confidence it provided Lucy to deliver our daughter Mia under any set of circumstances, but also for me as a partner who couldn’t be there for arguably the most important landmark of our relationship.

Lucy was amazing and adopted many of the techniques she had learned and practiced from our hypnotherapy sessions for the several hours until I was called in to the hospital and 1 hour and 45mins after I arrived she delivered our perfect little bundle of joy Mia.

I would highly recommend Debbie’s hypnobirthing course for both parents...we found it invaluable especially in these testing times."  
 - Ben, January 2021


“As a first time father-to-be, I came into this experience about as ill prepared as I’m sure many first time fathers are. Combined with a global pandemic which has stopped many pregnancy and NCT type classes, I was not confident in my knowledge or my ability to help my partner. 

Debbie was fantastic at communicating with us throughout the pregnancy, she established exactly what our concerns and issues were, structured her course to our wants, needs and fears, and really helped both of us believe in ourselves and our ability to have this baby, and find a sense of confidence neither of us had before.

Working with Debbie over Zoom during the pandemic has been smooth and easy, and whilst face to face contact is always nice, I don’t think either myself or my partner felt anything was missing from the experience. 

Debbie is clearly incredibly knowledgeable about all aspects of childbirth. She was the most comprehensive and best source of information I found during the whole pregnancy. She had the time and patience to talk us through things even our midwife didn’t have time for.

I would unequivocally endorse and recommend Debbie to anyone I knew who might be expecting a baby, I really cannot emphasize enough what a help she’s been!”

- Lloyd, February 2021

Women have given birth for thousands of years, since our time on earth began. Birth was viewed as an empowering, enlightening, powerful and natural event… so how have we got to this place where THE most normal and natural event in the world has become one of the things that many women fear the most?

It is not because your body was designed badly, or that your baby is not perfect for your body. It has more to do with how the events over the last few hundred years have shaped our beliefs and experiences of birth.

This timeline overview helps to put that in context of how this fear has built up over the years:

1. Natural world.  Before Christianity (and still in non-Christian parts of the world), birth was a wonderful celebration, a connection with mother earth, a pagan ritual, birthing women were adored, revered, birth was magical, wonderful.

2. Christianity.  With the development of Christianity in the middle-ages, giving birth became connected with sex and as sex was considered carnal sin, the position of women began to be demeaned.

3. Witches.  Between the 14th and 17th century, early midwives, or women who were the helpers of women during birth were considered witches, heretics and helpers of evil – millions of these women were executed. As a result, the inherent knowledge of supporting birth women began to disappear and so complications began to arise, sometimes leading to death, therefore women became more fearful of birth. Women were often left alone to birth or had a religious man to attend them.

4. Male Doctors.  The rise of medicine, lack of knowledgeable women and the dominant male role put an end to a great deal of women centered birthing. So much of the medical model, terminology and procedures were created by men who were coming at birth from a medical perspective.  The invention of forceps and then other medical interventions led to women birthing on their backs which in itself caused many problems so making birthing more painful and dangerous.

5. Hospitals.  The creation of hospitals in the 17th century represented a huge shift in the location of where women gave birth. These early hospitals were rife with disease and poor hygiene. More women died from child-bed fever due to poor hygiene conditions than any other cause… fueling the fear of birth even more.

6. Urbanisation.  During the industrial revolution, as urbanisation and cramped living conditions increased, women’s health deteriorated rapidly, they were no longer as fit, healthy and well-nourished and so their failing health led to complications during pregnancy and birth.

7. Use of Drugs.  By the 18th century many women had become so fearful and traumatised that the introduction of chloroform and other drugs seemed a welcome move, however it made women even more immobile and disempowered. Queen Victoria had chloroform administered when she delivered her eighth and ninth children. The queen’s experiences helped popularize the use of anesthesia among London’s upper classes.

8. Litigation.  More recently in history there has been a growing fear of the medical profession getting things wrong and the suing culture has grown so that fear has crossed the barriers to the medical team who are now often more fearful of litigation than they are of feeling confident in the woman’s ability to birth her baby.
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9. Antenatal care.  In our society today, from the moment a woman becomes pregnant, she is treated as high risk - constantly focusing on what ‘could’ go wrong. She needs scans, blood tests, urine tests, blood pressure monitored etc.   So from the very first appointment, there is an element of fear. What if the tests come back negative, what if my blood pressure is too high? She is bombarded with all the things that could damage the foetus, all the things she MUST not do, what to eat, what not to eat, how to sleep, how to exercise and so on.

During the 1940s through to the 1960s Grantly Dick-Read drew attention to culturally induced, or a ‘learned’ fear of childbirth in our society, in which stories relating to pain and endurance are handed down from mother to daughter and from older women to young girls, stories which find a place in our literature, films, TV and more recently, social media.

Fear of childbirth and fear of the pain in childbirth in particular, is a collective belief in society, built up over time, rather than an absolute or given truth. Although the women’s body has not changed since prehistoric times, the fears surrounding birth have.

Generations of women have gone into labour feeling and being frightened and scared. Even though there are no wild animals in their birthing space and, according to the powers that be, hospital is considered the ‘safest’ place to have a baby, women’s bodies have still responded physically to their fears.
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In essence, women are now faced with mental and emotional fears of what might happen, rather than real physical threats or danger (from wild animals).   Remember that your nervous system does not know the difference between real or imagined danger and fear and so your body will respond in the same way to both – your body will experience real physical responses to a fear created in your mind.

By learning and practising hypnobirthing techniques you can release this fear, let go of those negative beliefs and build up the trust in your body to grow and birth a healthy child.

I have been busy in January writing my new FREE guide to help you to understand WHY WE FEEL PAIN in labour and some simple ways YOU can help reduce it. 💜

Pain is not something you want to talk about when you are pregnant, and yet everyone you meet can’t wait to tell you all about how very excruciatingly painful birth is, right?!

Well, I too want to talk about it (sorry!) BUT I want to share some of my knowledge of why we experience pain during birth and offer you some simple ideas that you can do to help reduce it.

My free guide is 4 pages long with lots of really important information about why you may feel pain and TEN bits of useful and practical advice on what could help you fell less pain during your labour and birth.

Click on the link below and it will guide you through how to download it for FREE. 👇

It's January 2021 and the nation is back into lockdown.

But I am still here for you, on zoom or teams or whatever works the best way for you! 

Women are still pregnant, babies are still being born and mamas are still anxious, even more than ever. 

I would like to share a bit of a conversation that I had this morning with a pregnant mum that is booking onto a 1-to-1 hypnobirthing course with me.. we were discussing whether it should be in-person or live online...

These were my thoughts...

"I think the responsible thing to do is teach the course online via zoom or similar rather than in-person... because first of all, we can, it's as simple as that, and secondly, it is safer for all of us.  In response to your question of 'will we still get the same out of it?' ...well, what I have found so far from teaching live on zoom for the last 10 months of 2020 is that yes you most definitely do get the same out of it.. I even have evidence of this because I have had the most wonderful reviews and recommendations through over this time (have a look at my FB reviews and birth stories I've been sharing) and it has actually surprised me how much of a rapport you can get and how much you can actually teach and demonstrate effectively over something like zoom!

I would really love to meet you in person because I just love being with people, like we all do I suppose, but at the end of the day, and from what I have found, the birth outcomes from my course appear to be the same whether we are in-person or on zoom together "