What do Hypnobabies pressure waves feel like?

[Emily's Mama]

Just wondering, if you do Hypnobabies and the pressure waves do not feel "painful", just like pressure (even intense pressure), what does this pressure feel like? Does it feel like a Braxton Hicks? Or is it different? Can anyone who has done Hypnobabies please try to explain it to me?

I'm 36.5 weeks now and trying desperately to keep up with my home study CDs and practice, but am slipping behind and losing motivation. I almost ALWAYS fall asleep while listening to it too. I guess I also need some encouragement to keep at it, especially if it will eliminate pain.

Thanks in advance

Sharon

[ZoeyZoo]

To me the pressure felt like a dull sensation - almost like a cross between someone applying pressure from the inside and muscle fatigue. I felt it mainly in the lower back area (also the pelvis area). Once I hit transition it felt like pressure plus an intense urge to go poo.

I always fell asleep to them too... never did through one awake. I was really inconsistent with them at the end. I think the most important thing is to relax and listen to your body.

[SiobhanAoife]

No personal experience, but a friend who did this 8 weeks ago told me that she felt "like her cervix was getting hugged". I thought that was a lovely image

[srneda78]

Originally Posted by Emily's Mama

I'm 36.5 weeks now and trying desperately to keep up with my home study CDs and practice, but am slipping behind and losing motivation. I almost ALWAYS fall asleep while listening to it too. I guess I also need some encouragement to keep at it, especially if it will eliminate pain.

Sharon,

I don't know what they feel like, but I have to tell you, I'm only on week 2 and I have already not done them everyday. I am trying to at least do it 4 times a week (with a goal of 6 times preferably). I figure some is better than none. And I realize that only doing it four times a week isn't as good as seven times, but at least it's something.

Try not to be too hard on yourself. I'm sure that the more you do it, the better off you will be (and I'm not encouraging you not to do it on schedule). But there's only so much time in a day. You will probably be better off if you do it how it's meant to be done, but you can only do what you can do.

By the way, I see a psychologist who is also a hypnotherapist. I mentioned to her today that I was having problems staying on schedule with this program. She said, "The most important thing is that you do what you can and learn to relax. By stressing out about it, it's giving you the opposite effect of what it's meant to do." Personally, I was surprised she was so encouraging about CD hypnosis, but she was. She also told me that when she had her babies 20 years ago (midwife births in a hospital), she knew nothing of hypnosis. Yet, looking back, she knows she went into a state of hypnosis just by "going within and relaxing." She said the most important thing you can do is RELAX. Don't stress about it.

Good luck, sweetie.

[mommyfied]

I fell asleep during my scripts too. I would actually use them to go to sleep every night... just put the mp3 player in my ear and drifted off! I just made sure I listened to them at least once while I was awake and doing something around the house/working on the computer.

I thought the pressure waves felt like Braxton Hicks, but stronger. There are also pressure sensations in the cervix, like it's stretching and opening up, but that was painless.

I found the main thing about Hypnobabies was that I learned how to completely relax my body and get rid of any tension with the flip of my switch. I need to practice that again. Being so relaxed, my body quickly and efficiently did what it needed to do. I went from 1 cm to 10 cm in less than 4 hours.

[Cheshire]

I wasn't able to practice every day. I'm 39 weeks today and I just did the best I could. I've been having labor pains/early labor for about two weeks now. So much so that I have to get out of bed, put on my hypnobabies birth day CD and relax. I've found that it really does help me focus on the strength of the waves and not on the pain. I focus on the work that my body is doing reminding myself that it is not supposed to be painful. When I resist the waves that's when it hurts. When I keep my mind out of it and just focus on her voice then my body can do what it needs to do.

I don't think I stayed awake more than twice while listening to the scripts. But, I do believe it did sink in. I'm looking forward to when my body decides to stay in labor more than a couple of hours and get this birth done. I'm dilated to 5 cm so I know the waves I've had are doing something and I'm ready to finish this marathon.

Keep it up and as others have said don't stress about it. Stick with it and best wishes!

[Emily's Mama]

Thank you all so much for your responses. I have found them extremely encouraging.

I cannot believe how many of us fall asleep while listening! It's quite funny really, but understandable if you are heavily pregnant and finally getting a chance to take time out and relax!

I will try not to be too hard on myself and to relax, as the course is intended to teach. I do feel calmer in the lead up to this birth than my first (which wasn't great).

I'm relieved too to hear that you can fall asleep often during the CDs and it still leads to painless childbirth. I'm quite intrigued to see what happens with my own birthing time.

good luck to those ladies who are also pregnant and using hypnobabies. May will all post happy stories in the not-too-distant future!

Sharon

[Halfasianmomma]

Emily's Mama...I had my DD about 4 weeks ago and used Hypnobabies through my 20 hour birth. It wasn't as natural as I would have liked (they ruptured my membranes and gave me pit for 3 hours), but I did manage to do the whole birth without any pain medication, and I attribute it to Hypnobabies.

The pressure waves really did feel like an ever increasing hug in my uterus, and what helped me was moving my hips in a figure 8, and vocalizing "Oooopen". I found that moving through the waves was infinitely more desirable than just lying down or sitting still through them. It was nothing like the BH that I had experienced in my third trimester. The waves did sometimes take my breath away, especially in transition.

Don't worry one bit about falling asleep or not being consistent. The cornerstones of the Hypnobabies program are still embedded in your mind. You already know to trust your body and to go with your instinct when you're in the thick of things. I would add that it helps to remain flexible when your birthing time begins; I hadn't planned on pitocin but it was the only thing that go my pressure waves going (and BOY were they strong while I had that stuff flowing through my veins).

Remember to take it one pressure wave at a time. That was KEY for me. If you focus on how many you've done so far, or how many more you have to do, you'll get discouraged and give in. I just focused on coasting one pressure wave at a time, and when each was over, I congratulated myself for getting through.

HTH!

[Shelsi]

I always fell asleep too. Anyways my waves just felt like a big bear hug. They felt really cool. With my first birth (non-hypnobabies pit induced hospital nightmare) when you knew a wave was coming I would say in my head, "oh no, another one, no no no..." With my hypnobabies birth when I could tell a wave was starting there wasn't that negativity in my head. It was more like, "oh good, another one! cool!"

My hynobabies birth was totally pain free. It worked 100% for me

[velcromom]

I always slept through my scripts.

It's kind of hard to describe how it felt... at first I was not committed to my hypnosis and a couple of them were, um, uncomfortable. Then I got tough with myself, committed to doing it and the discomfort faded away. It was kind of like lifting a heavy weight that normally you would not be able to move. I was aware it was difficult, and I had to participate with my body as they passed over me, if that makes sense, but I felt no fear of it and did not experience the sensations as negative. Truth be told, I went so deep for a few hours that I was completely unaware of the pressure waves at all, and I appeared to be asleep (but I wasn't).

eta to clarify - except for the three waves before I used my hypnosis, my labor wasn't painful. Not transition, not pushing, not even having dd's little head turned by the midwife... the hypnosis was totally effective.

[SublimeBirthGirl]

They felt the same as my contractions during my 1st birth.

[carriebft]

I did hypnobabies and practiced everyday (the scripts, the pregnancy affirmations, the exercises, visualization, etcetc). My birth was not painless but I handled it soo much better. The deepening CD (counting down from 10 part I replayed again and again) plus the birth affirmation really got me through.

I was unable to turn my lightswitch off after the pressure waves really got going, so I kept it in the middle...for some reason I had to shake my hands while having my pressure waves

the position shown in the book with the woman leaning forward against the bed on a birth ball was the position I spent 90% of my birthing in. It was amazing (dh put heat pack on my back during pressure waves).

I visualized the birth to be 5 hours (my first and second were 14 and 16 hours respectively)....and it was 4.5!


but the original question-- i would say they felt pretty much the same as the other births but they were more "in the background" of my thoughts and the time between them was soo much more relaxing.

[rixafreeze]

I didn't do Hypnobabies, but I fell asleep at least half the time while listening to the Hypnobirthing CD. I'd always wake up right when it ended, so I figure my subconsious was still aware of the messages! LOL

[Shelsi]

Originally Posted by velcromom

I always slept through my scripts.

It's kind of hard to describe how it felt... at first I was not committed to my hypnosis and a couple of them were, um, uncomfortable. Then I got tough with myself, committed to doing it and the discomfort faded away. It was kind of like lifting a heavy weight that normally you would not be able to move. I was aware it was difficult, and I had to participate with my body as they passed over me, if that makes sense, but I felt no fear of it and did not experience the sensations as negative. Truth be told, I went so deep for a few hours that I was completely unaware of the pressure waves at all, and I appeared to be asleep (but I wasn't).

eta to clarify - except for the three waves before I used my hypnosis, my labor wasn't painful. Not transition, not pushing, not even having dd's little head turned by the midwife... the hypnosis was totally effective.

: No one had any idea I was ever having pressure waves. I was totally silent just hanging over my birth ball. I basically just laid on my birth ball, completely silent, and not moving, for an hour, then got up, walked to the bathroom and started pushing lol. My midwives had always told me that during the birth they would hang back and could be in another room...that they'd be able to tell by listening or watching me when they needed to actually pay attention...if they had made it to the birth they would have been as in the dark about my waves and what stage I was in as my dh. My mom said it was like I wasn't even in labor, just sleeping in the living room lol.

[battymama]

I was really bad at keeping up practice especially listening to the cds, and i still had an almost pain free experience, slight stinging as she crowned. It felt like an intence bear hug to me, Intense is really the best word for it. It felt nothing like bh or cramps, in fact nothing like i have experienced before. Its like trying to describre the colour blue to a blind person