Ep. 89 Can birth be empowering with Katharine Graves

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The experience of giving birth is one that every mother will remember and cherish in their hearts forever. However, it can also be distressing and frightening, especially for first-time mums who might be holding lots of unhelpful beliefs around birth. It’s important to educate ourselves, to think about the type of birth we’d like to achieve and hone our mindsets so that we can move towards the experience we’d like to have.

Hypnobirthing is one practice that can help pregnant mothers to feel empowered during birth. In this week’s episode, leading hypnobirthing expert Katharine Graves joins us to talk about what the practice addresses. She clarifies the cascade of interventions and some birth concepts and misconceptions that every pregnant mother should be aware of. I hope you enjoy the episode.

You can download a transcript of this week’s episode here.

As always, we continue the conversation over on Instagram, so once you’ve listened to the episode, come and join me there.

Key Takeaways From This Week’s Episode:

Pain in Birth

• We've been conditioned to think that birth is a painful event to be feared and to survive. (08:34)

• People come to the birthing class because they’re afraid of the pain. (12:03)

• Most pain occurs because something is wrong. (12:14)

• When a woman is stressed, she produces cortisol and adrenaline. These make the muscles in the uterus tighten and work against each other, making the contraction longer and labour less efficient. (12:55)

• The blood supply is diverted from the muscles of the uterus to our arms and legs, which can cause pain because of fight-and-flight response. (13:42)

Brain Stress and Hormones

• Oxytocin is called the hormone of calm and the ‘hormone of love’ because we produce it when we fall in love, when we make love, and when we give birth. (14:27)

• Endorphins are nature's pain relief and feel-good factor. (15:01)

• We have a built-in system for making labour efficient and comfortable for a woman's body. In that state, our blood supply goes to our internal organs and digestive organs, keeping our energy up, and to the uterus, which requires good blood supply to work well. (15:07)

Safety and Privacy

• It is often said that the best environment for giving birth is the best environment for conception, which provides us with privacy—our home. (16:52)

• Even if you have booked your home birth, you're still entitled to transfer to the hospital anytime if you think that it feels safer. (18:25)

The Role of Doulas and Midwives

• Doulas have no medical training, but they can give comfort, support and confidence to women in labour and help them understand the implications of their choices. (19:55)

• Midwives are constricted by the parameters of the NHS and hospitals. Hence, if they step outside the guidelines, their career is on the line. (21:14)

• There is immense pressure on midwives. That is why it works better if the mother and the midwife can work together as a team. (22:38)

Talking to Professionals

• Get well-informed and have educated information. (26:04)

• Ask the right questions. (26:11)

• It is a matter of what a pregnant woman allows them to do for, to, and with her. (26:20)

Due Dates

• The cascade of interventions starts when you tell people the due date. (27:17)

• Problems arise before labour begins because of how you set yourself up. (27:34)

• The natural length of labour is between 41 and 41 and a half weeks. (28:28)

Managing Fear and Stress

• Make use of the bonus weeks that you've got to schedule one thing each day that you love doing. (32:04)

• It is essential to tell your friends and relations about your due date at least two weeks later. (34:08)

Induction

• Induction is the process of trying to make a baby come before it's ready. (35:40)

• Implications of sweep: One in eight sweeps work, which means the baby is born within 48 hours. (36:10)

• You can tell if a baby's nearly ready to come by using the Bishop score. (40:31)

• If the score is not favourable, the baby is not planning to come anytime soon. Therefore, an induction is likely to be ineffective or at least long and painful. (40:57)

• Induction consists of inserting prostaglandin into the vagina, which softens the cervix. However, the risk is that it can soften it too quickly. (41:12)

• Induction of labour has a significant impact on the birth experience of women and their babies; thus, it needs to be clinically justified. (43:55)

• Induction is not that painful a procedure, but the effect of the epidural is quite profound because it slows everything down. The actual method of the induction is not the point; it's the repercussions. (45:15)

Hypnobirthing

• Even the WHO says that the medicalisation of birth has gone too far. (53:09)

• Katharine’s job is more prevention rather than dealing with it after the event. (53:47)

• The most significant part of the formula is practising. (54:14)

• Katharine says that you need to understand the system so that nobody is in a position of destroying your confidence. (57:11)

Three Things That Make KGHypnobirthing Different

• Fear release (58:43)

• Simply defined, codified practice (58:46)

• The work they do is relatively unique in educating people on how to navigate the system. (58:59)

About Katharine

Katharine Graves is the leading hypnobirthing teacher who was one of the first to bring hypnobirthing in the UK. She is the founder of KGHypnobirthing and The Hypnobirthing Association. She has trained over 3,000 couples as well as 2,000 teachers, with a massive following of midwives. Katharine is also the author of the international bestselling book The Hypnobirthing Book, which has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide.

You can connect with Katharine on Twitter. You can also check out KGHypnobirthing's website and their YouTube channel to learn more about hypnobirthing!