Preparing yourself for Labour

Hi Ladies, I was just wondering if everyone here is doing yoga or hypnobirthing to prepare themselves for giving birh or do you actually need to do anything to prepare you for this. Will the anti natal classes explain about how to breath when your in labour or does it just come naturally. Also are there any good books out there to help you for when you actualy bring baby home. I'm totally clueless so I'd love any advice from you.

Hi I got the hypnobirthing cds from www.gentlebirthing.ie and find them great. Havent listened to them in about a week but thats becuse I was listening to them at night and kept falling asleep!Im in Kerry and cant find pregnancy yoga so hopefully I ll just stick with the Cds

Hi Barbara Ann, the day you give birth is one of the biggest days of your life and one you will remember forever. Although nobody can predict exactly what will happen on that day preparing for such a huge event physically and mentally definitely gives you a sense of control and you just feel better knowing that you're actually doing something to stack the odds in your favour of having a good experience. Think of how you might have prepared for other major life events in the past (wedding, moving house, etc).... about what helped you then. Once you've explored your options and know what you want (and have your partner trained up !!) then you can relax and go with the flow more on the day. It can be a fantastic experience for the three of you and the more you actively participate in the experience the less 'at sea' you feel. I'm sure you'll get lots of recommendations for baby care - it's such a personal thing and those first few days can be nerve wracking. You'll probably find that you'll take what works for you from various books, advice etc . Trust your instincts - nobody knows your baby better than you do :-) It's such an exciting time - enjoy every minute of it !! Tracy

I read the hypnobirthing book and got a gentlebirth CD, which I'm listening at least once a day now. I also got a pregancy yoga DVD which Im doing every now & then but mainly to stretch my muscles and to get rid of back pain. We didnt got taught in the antenatal how to breath during labour, it was written on one of those notes which we got. Def found antenatal helpfull, as they prepare you of what happens within your body when you're in labour, give you full details of the various kind of pain reliefs (if you wanna go ahead with it) and all the other things what could happen&of course how to breastfeed etc. I find the gentlebirth CD very helpfull to calm me down & to get me confident

Hi Barbara Ann I'm doing the Yoga classes in Holles Street hospital and they go through breathing techniques which I think are usefull... I'm also doing the Hypno birthing cd's and I actually listened to them for the first time last night and found them really relaxing... I'd recommend both! Best of luck with your pregnancy...

I found the yoga helpful for learning some nice positions to get comfy for labour, and for helping move things along (i.e. letting gravity help you out rather than lying down where possible). So the yoga was worth it. I've also bought some natal hypnotherapy CD's and they're good. I haven't done it in about 2 weeks so I must get back on track, but I hope it'll help me on the day. I bought the Gina Ford book - the contented little baby book, and although some of her ideas are a bit more radical, I found it has helped me feel more prepared for bringing baby home and what to do. I'm not saying I'm going to follow this book to the letter, but I certainly felt alot more confident with bringing the baby home after reading this. Oh yes, and they've not taught us any breathing techniques in our ante natal class - well they mentioned one where you breath in as though you're smelling a rose, then blow out as thoug you're blowing out a candle.... but at yoga we learnt that one and many others, so might be worth doing some investigation if you want to learn some more about breathing for labour. x

I bought the hypno birthing cd but never really listened to it, im doing pregnany yoga and i find this great. Breathing is very important

Hi, I'm signed up for a gentlebirthing course in January so I hope to prepare myself during and after the course. Gonna give 'au natural' a go and imagine that it's more head preparation than anything else !! Sassy

Haven't started anything but but my hypobirthing cd's are ordered and I should have them this week. I hope to start pregnancy yoga in the next week or two. I still haven't booked any ante-natal classes though - hopefully will get that booked this week. Am going for a one day course!

Thank you so much ladies for all your replies. I was considering the pregnancy yoga but wasin't sure if it actually helped. Theres another course starting at the end of November so I might sign up for that. I really do hope to have as natural a birth as possible but who knows what will happen on the day. Thanks again, I'm off to sign up for my Yoga classes.