In this podcast I’m joined by the wonderful Liz Stanford, owner of The Calm Birth School and we’re addressing the common question: Does hypnobirthing work for induction?
We also discussed feelings of passing and failing in birth, and the term ‘a hypnobirth’, and whether it’s helpful.
In this podcast we mentioned decision making using the acronym BRAIN, you can read more about them in our Decision Making blog post.
If you’d like to learn hypnobirthing specifically for induction check out our online hypnobirthing for induction course.
If you feel you’d like some one to one support for hypnobirthing for induction, you can book a 90min sessions with Jade.
Transcript (Note this is automatically generated so may contain some errors)
And this episode I’m joined by Liz Stanford, owner of the Calm Birth School to answer the important question con hypnobirthing work for induction. We looked at how you can adapt hypnobirthing for induction and the role of the different parts of hypnobirthing can plea. We also discuss feelings of passing and feeling, and the problem with the idea of a hypnobirth being something you can achieve. So guys,
comfy, as you can, and enjoy You’re listening to the positive induction podcast, a podcast for those who have chosen to have an induction of labor, or for those interested in how they can make induction a more positive experience. I’m your host, Jeff Gordon, clinical hypnotherapist hypnobirthing teacher, and positive induction coach. As always. I want to remind you positive breath means different things to different people.
For example, it may be feeling in control. It may be being able to use all your hypnobirthing tools. You’ve practiced. It may be respected or informed of making decisions that feel good to you. It does not mean perfect. My aim here is to bring you tips and inspiration and real life experience. So let’s get started. So welcome to Liz today.
Thank you for joining us. And yeah, we’re going to be talking all things, hypnobirthing and induction. And I thought this is a really important topic to talk about, partly because yes, I am bursting and stuff and hitting the right thing is close to my heart. But also one of the most common things I hear with induction is people dosing, whether or not hit Nebraska will work.
Oh, I’ve done hypnobirthing class, never having an induction. Like how am I going to cool. Can I even use hypnobirthing for induction? Yeah, it was a good place to start. How do you use hypnobirthing for induction? Oh, wow. Firstly, hello Jade. And thank you for having me on your wonderful podcast is a really, really interesting topic and one that people do have some misconceptions about.
So I’m really excited to discuss this and grateful for the opportunity to put my thoughts forward as well. Yes, you definitely can use hypnobirthing for an induction. And I think for me, this really harks back to what is hypnobirthing all about, and it varies from the values of hypnobirthing vary from method to method and brand to brand. Certainly I can speak from the combat skills perspective and say that hypnobirthing is very much something that we can apply to any type of birth experience.
I think maybe years and years ago, it may have been viewed as a type of birth itself if you like, you know, oh, I’ve had a Yeah, Exactly. We don’t hear that same much these days. And I think what that was doing was setting people up for maybe perhaps setting them up for a fall or those feelings of failure when they didn’t quite hit the benchmark.
It didn’t quite have the characteristics of your typical hypnobirth, which used to be that it was, you know, perfect pain-free birth experiences, vaginal birth, home birth, you know, it was all sort of lumped into, into one, but these days very much so with the new emerging brands and with the combat school as well, it’s very much about applying a mindset,
a set of tools and techniques, a philosophy to whatever birth experience, you know, whatever type of birth you find yourself in. So whether it’s a vaginal birth, a birth intervention birth is induction or home birth or a water bath or Eddy Eddy, you can apply hypnobirthing to it. So unequivocally yes, hypnobirthing plays a vital role in induction. And I would actually say it may be even becomes even more important.
That’s exactly why I say yes. The breath thing is amazing for induction. I actually think it’s even more important for induction than for spontaneous leaper, because all of what you see, all the philosophy, like understanding what’s happening in your body, knowing what’s going on, knowing how to make decisions, knowing what you can do to make your experience more positive are actually even more important in my opinion,
always, but yeah, an induction there’s more opportunity to really get your money’s worth out of hypnobirthing. Yeah, I like that. Definitely. Absolutely. You can get your money’s worth out of it. I think it becomes, like you said, it becomes even more important. And one of the reasons why I think it becomes even more important is because hypnobirthing is one of those things that we can use to reconnect ourselves with our bodies,
which is really great, you know, whatever birth that you are planning for when you introduce the chemicals that are involved in an induction. When you introduce that into a birth experience, you will distance even further from your own body’s wisdom, your own body’s intuition and from connecting with what you’re experiencing, because sometimes an induction birth can be more challenging than a birth that starts spontaneously.
But with the tools that you learned from hypnobirthing, you can more easily tune back into your body and into, into the moment and still experience something that is incredibly positive. So I would say that that’s where, you know, actually absolutely becomes vital when we’re preparing and being induced. Yeah, definitely. And I think the mindset aspect is so important. You mentioned different hair and bracing brands and options,
and it is about finding a teacher that has a good fit for you. Of course. And in my experience, it’s actually from 10 years ago, so it’s from a while ago, but I have to say that I am a very aware of this mindset aspect and the different options out there for hair and breasts. And I share this with my clients.
Sometimes hypnobirthing actually made me terrified of induction. I know that’s not the case in the Columbus school, but then what you see, like in the days when we talked about having our hypnobirth a certain ideas of what breast should look like to be a hypnobirth. The focus was very much on the risks of induction and the fact that there are too many inductions unnecessarily going on.
And well, that is undoubtedly true that there are, there is like a whole argument over an induction numbers. And whether when people should be offered induction and things that there’s enough coercion and all of those topics, we need to have a space for people who choose to have an induction for personal reasons, because of medical reasons, whatever. And if you are in that mindset,
like I was in all of this is going to be awful because induction is always terrible. It’s not very helpful with, Oh goodness, no you’re already going in with that fight or flight being triggered and feeling so tense and nervous. So yeah, you’re on the back foot already, and it’s not the role of a hypnobirthing instructor to, to do that,
to make you feel frightened of, you know, of, of, of the choices that you might have to make in your pregnancy. It’s the role of a hypnobirthing instructor to inform, to educate, to sign posts and ultimately to support and build your confidence up in, in whatever your choices are. And that’s what is really important. And I like the way you differentiated when you were talking about induction there,
because yeah, sometimes people choose to be induced. Sometimes people are coerced into it or they didn’t realize it was a choice, but actually some people choose to be in jail because that, that it’s available to them and they want it. And we should have no judgment over that. If that’s what they want to do as hypnobirthing instructors, we should just be preparing them to have the most positive experience that they possibly can because everything we will have taught them throughout the course still applies in that possibly new situation that they found themselves in.
So yeah, It’s like a balance because of course we can’t always see the induction is just the same as slavery. And we can see that, you know, this is no different. You may as well be just or anything like that because it’s not too induction is different. We have our own sets of challenges. We’re talking about induction. If you are in a position where you have done Hypnoparenting and you feel like your teacher is almost anti induction to the point that you’re not getting support,
there are other places you can reach out and get support and you can adapt your tools. Right? All that you see everything that you learned in the course, it’s important. What would you say to people who maybe are just feeling like, oh, this is going to be awful. Could even start getting kind of back on track with remain set. Yeah.
So I would say if someone has made the decision to be induced and is their decision and they feel comfortable with that, then I would say from, from that moment that you know that you’re going to be induced, that you can start preparing for that induction from that point, knowing that any prep that you do with your body and your mind then will really pay off with the induction.
So that means really just now just changing your, the way that you’re viewing birth, just ever so slightly to now look at it differently. Like, okay, I’m going to be induced. So what do I need to use more of? What do I need to practice more of? Where do I need to dig deep in terms of the mindset and the tools and the techniques that are,
that I’ve learned, how are they going to help me and empower me? And I always encourage people to bank that oxytocin prior to going for their induction. And that’s actually the same, whether you’re getting close to the end of your pregnancy and, you know, you’re, you, haven’t got a planned induction, just do things that make you feel really,
really good and spend time with loved ones and go for walks and watch things that make you laugh and do anything that helps to encourage oxytocin reflexology or any massage, any kind of treatments that are relaxing, build up those oxytocin reserves. And then when you go into hospital for your planned induction, then have the, have a plan around that as well. Like what do you do when you get there?
Where will you go first off? Is it an induction ward? Is it straight to a delivery suite type room? And what will you have to manage when you’re there? And what have you learned that you can apply to that situation? So, I mean, I’m a planner. I do think that it pays off and it helps you to feel calmer.
And it helps you to sort of stay in that calm place that you’ve already been in during your pregnancy, because you’ve been using hypnobirthing so effectively. I think one of the most important things for me in terms of picking breathing induction is fear release in terms of the preparation is fear release and those days before, because I think even if you’ve made that choice consciously been through your Breen acronym,
your benefits, it’s still tentative intuition and considering nothing. But even if you’ve been through all that, and you’ve made a decision, it’s very clearly the right choice for you and baby, given your medical circumstances that wherever there’s still is some level of fear anyway, for birth, there’s always an uncertainty level. Yeah. But there’s still with induction. I find there’s often a lot of fears or what else,
because we are changing our plan often and we are increasing rest of other interventions. If you’re giving me breath in a different place, like maybe get originally planned to give our someone else. Now you’re changing somewhere. There’s a lot of uncertainties. I think fear release has a huge place in those later days. Those last few days of pregnancy or the last few days before your induction.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely agree with that. And I think, you know, sitting, sitting down with your partner or if you prefer with your hypnobirthing instructor and like going through what your fears are and actually writing them down or articulating them and discussing them is a really powerful exercise to do. And then, you know, listening to your fear release at the combat school,
we have a specific MP3, which is a fair release MP3, which is really, really lovely to listen to and really relaxing and really, really helpful. So I absolutely would advise that. And I’d start thinking about visualization as well, and really zoning in on that scale until that, that you’ve learned during your hypnobirthing course and really, yeah. Focusing on things like thinking about your body changing and opening and expanding and visualizing and picturing meeting your baby and having your baby in your arms and the power of doing that and what it can do to your hormones and how you feel in the moment and what actually happens is so,
so powerful. So there’s lots of tools and techniques to lean on and to use. Definitely. And I think sometimes we need a slight adaptation of tools, but for many of them like breathing is just like so important. Like using our breathing technique, we’re just using the mercy would otherwise find with induction. Sometimes you have to more consciously use your Hypnoparenting tools and techniques.
Sometimes in spontaneous labor, people will say to me, oh, I forgot to do my hypnobirthing. I was just really relaxed in the zone. Yeah. You don’t have to use every tool in the toolkit with induction. I often find that people will say, oh yes, we use this. Then we use this. And then we, we felt like we had to change this and do this.
And then they’re much more consciously choosing to use tools and techniques to manage. Yeah. And how great that they have that at their disposal. I mean, imagine not having that when you’re being induced as well is for me, it just feels like an absolute, no brainer that it should be something that you have when you’re being in GS. Definitely. And the power of the breath should not be underestimated.
We often say that hypnobirthing is not just about breathing, but breathing is something that you really should invest time in and become. I was going to say like, become really good at breathing. Like obviously breathing naturally. But these specific breathing techniques that we teach on a hypnobirthing course practicing them. So they become like second nature and they become so effective in the moment then.
Yeah. Whether it’s a spontaneous labor or whether it is an induction, although I actually agree with an induction, you probably will be more focused on those breathing techniques rather than yeah. Sort of thinking like, oh, I didn’t actually use any of my techniques. I was so relaxed. You are definitely more, more focused on it. Yeah. And like,
you’re so right with the breathing. I always come back to the breath. If you ever feel like what I do coming back to your breathing, the one thing we can take control of, and that part of our nervous system we can control. Are they faster hearts bleaching, or are the chemicals being released in our body, the adrenaline, the course of what we can take conscious control of our breath.
And it’s the fastest way to go from that kind of panic. They breathing up high in your chest rapidly to feeling like you’re in control. And then once you have that, okay, now I’m breathing. What can I do to prolong this? Or what can I do to improve this? Yeah, definitely. And that’s what I was saying. Like at the beginning,
it’s reconnecting us with our body. The breath allows us to slow everything down mentally and physically as well to be able to reconnect with what’s going on in our body. And that allows us to feel more in control. And that’s one of the things that we often hear, isn’t it, when people are being induced is that they felt out of control, like their body was out of their control or they felt like they were under the control of the hospital or the medical system.
Well, just coming back to something so simple, like the breath can just help you to, to reassess, like you said, and just get back in control and gets very powerful. Definitely. Another thing that we’ve talked about previously, bores affirmations and dear aspect of mindset, are you a big affirmation fan? Do you love me enough information? I do.
I actually do. And I believe in the power of them. And I think, again, it’s not what hypnobirthing is. It’s just a tool and it’s part of what we teach. And yeah, I think sometimes the affirmations can be, sometimes they can be quite generic. And when we get to the point of induction, we really want to be looking at affirmations that are going to empower us through that process of induction.
So, so it might just be going back and looking at the affirmations that you’ve been listening to and that you’ve been leaning on and thinking, are they, are those still applicable to me in this situation? Which ones really make me feel powerful and really make me feel empowered as well. And, you know, leaning on those and choosing those to be the ones that support you in that time where you’re preparing for the induction and during the induction as well.
We often talk about the three PS of affirmation, positive, present tense and personal. Yeah. And often we forget the third one and your affirmation tracks are great with the love and affirmation, but it’s also nice to consider that personal aspect and what feels good to me because I mean, there’s an infinite number of affirmations either, and it’s finding something that really resonates with you.
So one of my favorites from my first breath was I feel confident. I feel safe, I feel secure. And that was a nice one because it took me to induction and everything else. And actually it’s really good as a parent too, I feel safe. I feel secure. And I remember using it when I went back to work when I was given some presentations and I was like,
oh, let’s see it in my head. And I was like, Ooh, where did that come from? And it’s funny, these things become part of our life and pregnancy and sometimes stay forever more. Yeah. That’s part of the power of hypnobirthing. Isn’t it definitely for both of us, I know that it’s been something that supported us during pregnancy during our labors.
And since then, you know, the whole just finding hypnobirthing, both of us has been life-changing in so many different ways and yeah, it, those tools just go on and on and on and they just, they just absolutely keep giving. I think it could also be really important for people listening to this. You know, they’re going to have an induction is to also carefully plan the postnatal period and think about the recovery that they might,
you know, what they might need to recover from birth and how they can be. Well-supported not, I’m not saying recover as in like, assuming that it’s going to be awful or anything like that, There’s Always need to recover Recovery. Yeah. There’s always, even if we have the most straightforward, simple bursts, right. We still have that placenta site,
the needs to heal there is still healing. So yeah, Yeah, yeah, definitely. So thinking about that postnatal period as well, I think can be really helpful and bringing your hypnobirthing tools and techniques and mindset into that period, that recovery period as well. So yeah, we were looking at it holistically aren’t we it’s like pregnancy, it’s the process of birth and whatever that,
and however that unfolds and what it involves and then postnatally as well. And just, yeah, just planning to have the most positive experience in applying our tools and mindsets to each of those phases. Definitely something you mentioned there. I made me think of when you are in that time, planning for an induction, thinking about induction begin a session about induction,
you know, all of the induction, induction, induction, that’s what it’s like in your head all day, when you tend to make those choices and once you’ve made it and you’re preparing, we often get so wrapped up in the whole induction and the process and what we want to do, we forget that there’s actually a BB coming. Yeah. I remember like,
so clearly spending like days focus and seven completely forgetting that, you know, also there’s a BB code. You remembering why we’re having the induction like or why we’re pregnant, like the AME school as well. Yeah. I think that’s another real benefit of hypnobirthing is that again, this applies to whether it’s spawn, you know, you’re going to have a spontaneous labor or you’re going to be in GS,
but it really helps you to connect, not just with your body. As I said before, it helps you connect with your baby. And that’s why earlier, when I was talking about visualization, I was thinking, visualize meeting your baby because sometimes if we are anxious or worried or fearful, like it just removes us from we’re so tied up in those feelings that where we’re not thinking about exactly what you said,
like what the end goal is. So just reminding ourselves to connect with our babies. And again, the breath is a great way to, to bridge that connection between the baby and yourself. And that can be powerful because it becomes about the two of you without sounding really cheesy, but it comes about the two of you working together rather than this thing happening to you.
Whether that’s a spontaneous labor, whether it’s an induced labor, it becomes about both of you working together to, to end up in each other’s arms and start that beautiful journey of connection or continuing the connection once your baby is actually here. So it’s absolutely vital to keep that in mind. Definitely. One of the things that comes up quite a lot and induction chat is around pain relief.
And when we talk about hypnobirth the type of numbers we’re having, which is any breath basically, but the idea of it being this breastfeed, that pain relief and this kind of pass some feel that we can sometimes take on and not necessarily from current heading the breath thing, but very much when I was doing everything as a parent to be, I felt like I had to avoid pain relief to have a hit in the breath,
have to have a, to do breath well, or there’s a whole other conversation in some ways. But yeah, like in terms of pain relief and hitting a breath thing. Yeah, Yeah. Slightly setting another, another standard or something, isn’t it like, you know, or it’s only a hypnobirth if you don’t know how any pain relief and it’s just not true.
The decision to have pain relief or any form of like comfort measure is a decision that the individual makes doesn’t mean that you can’t use your hypnobirthing techniques. It doesn’t mean that all that practice that you put in throughout all those months in preparing to give birth is somehow, suddenly in vain. It’s just not true. You can combine the two, like we said,
you can have, using hypnobirthing and it’s got nothing to do with how much drugs are in your system or how much pain relievers in your system. It’s about you making that choice and having the best experience possible for you, for yourself and your baby. And we know that with induction, that it does alter how you experienced those sensations. And it does also,
yeah. I mean, obviously it, it reacts with your hormones and replaces your hormones If you’re having the trip. Yeah, exactly. So that in itself is something to consider like, don’t think, oh, can’t have pain relief just because I’ve done hypnobirthing because it’s not, it just doesn’t mean anything. Yeah. And I think that the two are separate things.
It’s not, they’re not actually having an paly. It doesn’t mean that you’ve not had a hit, they can go save. I say, this is aliens just because you’re having an induction also doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily going to need. And I think that’s quite often the misconception. Yes. Okay. You may want one that’s, that’s fine. You may get to a point where you think,
okay, I need this next level of peer relief, comfort measures, but also you might not go in there armed with all the tools and use what you need to use and half what you need to have. Yeah. Making it your own. And I think there’s so much guilt around stuff like that. It’s just That, And these days as well,
I think, you know, there are so many different methods of induction now as well. So there’s, there’s lots of options for people to explore. And I think it’s really important in that phase where you’re preparing to, to be in juice, that you explore those different options and work out what would be best for you as an individual. Quite often,
we find, you know, whether it’s true or not, but quite often we find that hospitals tend to have a certain preference with the methods of induction that they tend to favor or they tend to use. But it doesn’t mean that that’s the only option. So really discussing what’s available and working out the pros and cons and using your brains and then seeing how does that fit in to your overall plan about how you want your birth to be,
or to look and yeah, not being afraid to, to ask those questions and to, to explore that as well, I think is really important. And that’s another thing that hypnobirthing gives you is the confidence to have those conversations as well. Yeah. Brilliant. And now she wants to add anyone, confronted induction, wondering whether hypnobirthing will work or not.
What are the things that we probably haven’t mentioned is just like considering the environment that they’re in, you know, again, that’s something that we would discuss in a hypnobirthing course. Like whether it, you know, someone was planning an induction or not, but just to think about all the different senses and how to positively impact their senses and the environment that’s around them and how that may impact and affect how they’re feeling.
Again, it’s just one element that we teach that hypnobirthing course that becomes even more important when you’re being in gees. That’s just something to add there. Yeah. So basically every aspect of hypnobirthing can be used and deductions number thing worked for induction. Yes. Yes. That question is a total is a totally different conversation as well. I think like, you know,
just the overall question, like does hypnobirthing work? I always say it, doesn’t not work. Like it’s not, it’s not a working thing. It’s yeah. It doesn’t not work. Cause if it didn’t work, then it would imply that somehow there was some kind of failure there and you cannot fail at birth and you cannot fail at hypnobirthing either. I mean,
that’s the question that people often will ask me, oh, well, when will hypnobirthing work and induction? And actually even like you see asking the question or does hypnobirthing work kind of shows that you maybe don’t understand what Hypnoparenting is because yeah. It’s not about like you see like a certain way of passer feel or like a hypnobirth that’s very much like tools and techniques that you can use on laborer,
understanding your body, understanding how to make decisions, getting that confidence and empowerment and mindset. How can it not work be weary. I suppose if you have a done a Hypnoparenting course where people are very much seeing that, you know, this is the way it should be, because that’s not the case. Yeah, absolutely. That’s the, that’s the big secret,
isn’t it? It’s not the case. Definitely. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for sharing him with us. It’s really nice to hear. I think having that positive encouragement for people who’ve done hypnobirthing to know they can change it and adapt it as necessary, or just use it as it is. A lot of the time for induction is really encouraging.
Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me Worries. Thank you so much to Liz for joining me to talk about a topic that we’re both very passionate about. Of course you can use hypnobirthing for induction. Here are a few things that stood out from our conversation today that I want to remain you off. Firstly, it’s so important to have balanced information. We mentioned using your brain,
our brains, which is a great decision making too, looking at the benefits, risks, alternatives, your intuition, and doing nothing. And there’s more about this in the show notes. The point here is that we need to look at the risks and how duction is different than spontaneous labor. And we need to appreciate the potential for further intervention. However,
if you’ve made a decision to be a, just is important to remember that there are things you can do to be more prepared of that with any type of breath, there’s a whole range of experiences going into that adduction appointment for the fear and worry and expecting it to be truly awful is not helpful. It doesn’t help you get into that main set. You need to get into it.
Doesn’t help you work with your body. If you’ve taken a hypnobirthing course where your teacher seems almost anti induction and you’ve made that decision to be induced and you’re filled with a high level of fear, do you get in touch with me, head over to the show notes with our additional resources or send me an email or you can pay me on Instagram at positive induction.
Make sure when you go in there that you are as prepared as you possibly be. You can feel that confidence. Secondly, remember I hit my breath. This dot something you can achieve is not a type of bird. This is not a pass or fail. Hypnobirthing is a philosophy is tools, techniques, mindset, learning about your body and the steps of birth or induction.
And if you haven’t taken our head of dressing for induction course yet head over to positive adduction.com forward slash course. And you could start Riley faley as Liz mentioned, I want to encourage you again to ask what the local options are in terms of the steps of induction. As Lez mentioned, the change from area to area, ask all the questions you can beforehand.
So you can be as prepared as possible going into that appointment. Thanks for listening. Head over to the show notes for this episode at positiveandduction.com forward slash episode five, where you’ll find links to additional resources out. Of course, the positive induction course. Thanks again for being here with us today and do get in touch. If you have any questions, you can email me jade@positiveinduction.com.
I hope you have a lovely week.