What Is Hypnobirthing? A Midwife’s Guide to the Truth Behind the Calm
written by Beth Kitt |
What is hypnobirthing? Midwife Beth explains what actually is hypnobirthing, pulling out the facts from the fantasy.
What is Hypnobirthing?
Hypnobirthing is a method of birth preparation that uses relaxation, breathing techniques, and mindset tools to help reduce fear and support a calm, positive birth experience. It works by lowering stress hormones and boosting the natural hormones that make labour smoother, like oxytocin and endorphins. Rooted in science (not stage hypnosis) hypnobirthing helps you feel informed, confident, and in control, whether you’re planning a home birth, hospital birth, caesarean, or induction.
🧠 The Science Behind Hypnobirthing: Your Hormones on Birth
To understand why hypnobirthing works, we have to go back to biology.
When you feel fear or stress, your body kicks into fight or flight mode. Your heart races, your breathing speeds up, and blood is redirected away from your uterus toward your limbs because your body thinks it’s in danger.
This response served us well when sabre-tooth tigers were a threat. In fact, ancient birthing women would have paused labour instinctively if they sensed danger. The adrenaline would slow contractions so they could escape to a safer place.
Today, we don’t face cave predators, but our modern stressors- TV drama, traumatic stories, medicalised language – still trigger the same response.
🧨 How Modern Fear Impacts Labour
Think of all the messages you’ve absorbed about birth:
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Screaming women on reality TV
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Dramatic birth stories from friends and family
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Fear-filled conversations in antenatal waiting rooms
When you go into labour, your brain draws on this “evidence” and says:“This is going to be painful and dangerous.”
Cue fear. Cue tension. Cue adrenaline.
Adrenaline slows labour, increases pain perception, and often leads to more intervention- creating a cycle of fear and difficulty that confirms your worst expectations.
💗 How Hypnobirthing Breaks the Cycle
Hypnobirthing helps you change your internal narrative about birth. It replaces fear-based beliefs with understanding, calm, and confidence.
You’ll learn:
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How to rewrite the stories you tell yourself about birth
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Watch positive birth videos
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Listen to affirmations
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Understand what’s really happening in labour
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How to calm your nervous system
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Use breathwork techniques that activate the parasympathetic response
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Reduce adrenaline, boost oxytocin and endorphins
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Stay present and grounded, even when birth takes an unexpected turn
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How to stack the odds in your favour
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Use upright positions to help labour progress
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Eat and drink for energy and stamina
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Prepare your birth space so it feels calm and safe
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Help your partner know exactly what to do
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This is birth preparation that works with your body, not against it.
✅ What Hypnobirthing Is Not
Let’s bust some myths. Hypnobirthing is:
❌ Not stage hypnosis
❌ Not just for “natural” births
❌ Not about pretending pain doesn’t exist
It’s about understanding how birth works, releasing fear, and building a mindset that helps you stay calm and in control, whatever path your birth takes.
👶 Hypnobirthing for Every Kind of Birth
Because I’m a midwife, my course isn’t just dreamy visualisations and theory. It’s real-world, midwife-approved advice that applies to all births- including inductions, caesareans, assisted births (forceps and ventouse), and unexpected detours.
This is hypnobirthing that prepares you for birth in all its forms.
🧰 Want to See What Hypnobirthing Looks Like?
My online hypnobirthing course is designed to be accessible, evidence-based, and confidence-boosting.
You’ll get:
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🎥 Video lessons
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🎧 Breathing and relaxation tracks
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✅ Checklists and tools
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💬 A supportive online community
- 🧘♀️ Biomechanics to help optimise baby’s position
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All taught by a midwife who knows how birth actually works
✨ [Try a free taster here -> click and then scroll down to course curriculum] and see what it feels like to prepare for birth without fear.
To summaries the ‘What is Hypnobirthing?’ question.
Hypnobirthing is just a different type of birth prep with the focus on having a positive birth. Its main focus is reducing the fight or flight and increasing oxytocin. As a midwife, this is how I teach the online hypnobirthing course over here at The Bump to Baby Chapter
I think the main thing that can be learnt from Hypnobirthing is that the more you know, the more things you can do to increase the chances of your birth going the way that you want it to.
📚 Read More About Hypnobirthing Online
If you’re exploring the idea of online hypnobirthing, these related posts go deeper and answer your next questions:
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👉 7 Surprising Benefits of Taking a Hypnobirthing Course Online
- 👉 Does Hypnobirthing Work? A Midwife’s Honest Answer.
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👉 Can You Really Learn Hypnobirthing Online? Real Mums Say Yes
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👉 Hypnobirthing for Second-Time Mums: Why Online Might Be Better
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👉 What to Expect in an Online Hypnobirthing Course (With Sneak Peek)
Bookmark this page as your go-to hub for calm, confident, midwife-led birth preparation.
🌸 Final Thoughts
Hypnobirthing isn’t about chasing a perfect birth.
It’s about understanding your body, calming your mind, and preparing for a birth experience that feels informed, empowered, and positive- whatever that looks like for you.
And as a midwife and a mum of four, I’m here to help you do just that. If you’re ready to get stuck in then here is the link for The Birth Chapter – a hypnobirthing, antenatal and biomechanics online course.
