Caroline tells us about her positive hypnobirthing experience with her beautiful baby Noah last month... Congratulations and well done!

... To give some background... If mums are over 40 yrs, OBs typically offer induction around the baby's due date, because the risk of stillbirth might be increased (to 0.2%). However, other research suggests that if a mother has given birth before, there may actually be less increased risk (Hilder et al 2007)... As ever... the choice is always a mother's :)

"I was medically induced at 41 weeks due to being over 40; my consultant had wanted to induce labour at 39 weeks but I refused.

I was waiting for the induction to take effect for 24 hours, and was having gentle surges towards the end of this time.

Although in the couple of times I was distracted during a surge (like when there was someone fixing the TV next to me) and I didn't drop into a hypnotic state I could really feel the difference. If I wasn't practising hypnobirthing I can imagine those "gentle" surges would feel a lot more uncomfortable.

My waters were broken and things moved very fast and I gave birth in a standing position just 56 minutes later. The speed of the labour took all of us by surprise, the midwife hadn't even got a birth pack ready yet!

I definitely believe the ease of this birth is down to being so relaxed from using hypnobirthing; it was a joyful experience, not the traumatic experience people are led to believe. Many thanks for providing such a wonderful service."