Can Hypnobirthing induce labour?
I think as we approach the end of our pregnancies and get to 37 weeks where we are deemed as ‘full term’ we start questioning what all the little niggles and naggles are! I remember googling signs of labour almost daily. I also used to find myself googling how to naturally induce labour. I think there is about a million and way different ways google tells you that you can get your labour going, and most of them have absolutely zero science backing them!
Here are some of the things I tried. I was drinking raspberry leaf tea for several weeks leading up to my little mans birth. In fact funny story - my boyfriend made me a mug but put 6 teabags in it… and my little boy was born the following day! Now I am definitely not suggesting anyone should do this, chances are it it not medically advised (and possibly even dangerous!) and more than likely a coincidence that he was born so soon afterwards. But it’s one of those factors we will never know if it helped or not!
I had my first vindaloo! Turns out I like hotter food than I realised, although not quite as spicy as vindaloo.. but I am now partial to a madras! I ate lots of prunes, and then found out after I’d eaten them for weeks that it was apparently supposed to be dates that I was eating. I swapped to dates but the sugar content in them just made me feel sick! My boyfriend and I did the deed (wink, wink) a couple of times, but I don’t think either of us were particularly in the mood. I know some women get super horny toward the end of pregnancy but that was not me. This was more of a function that what got him (baby) in, needed to get him out! I will never know if any of these old wives tales made any bit of difference.
If we start to pick apart if Hypnobirthing can induce labour, there is lots of elements that we need to consider here. So firstly, one really critical point is due dates and pregnancy duration.
Let’s tackle duration first. So pregnancy is suggested to be 40 weeks long, starting on the first day of your most recent period. This is also basing all women to have the same cycle duration. But this is suggesting all women, and all bodies are the same. We already know this is not true. So why would all women have pregnancies that are exactly the same length? Im not saying some women will be 3 months and some could go on for years, but it’s reasonable to think some women would have health babies that could be born 4-5 weeks apart from another. Right? A bit like how some babies walk at 10 months and others bide their time a little bit and it clicks when they’re 18 months. It doesn’t mean either is broken in anyway, they are just different humans. But they both get to the same end goal. Since when did once size fit all?
What about due dates. The theory that is used to predict due dates is from back in the 1800’s and doesn’t even have very good evidence to support it. More recent studies that have looked into it in 2001 and 2013 have both found that pregnancy is closer to 40 weeks + 3-5 days.. It is a known fact that the majority of first time mums go over their due date. In fact only 3-5% of women give birth on their due date!! This just shows how inaccurate due dates are.
A lot of the focus on due dates is a service provision. Maternity services needs to have some level of control over births and predicting how many births are likely to occur within a certain period to help them manage the service safety. However, from a pregnant persons perspective due dates can have a major impact on their headspace when they’re full term and inadvertently put pressure on them to go into labour when maybe baby isn’t quite cooked enough.
It is better to focus on a period in which baby is more likely (although not guaranteed) to arrive. Even then, there is a portion of people who go over 42 weeks (my research suggests about 10%) and this doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them, this could be simply their baby needed longer to grow or maybe their dates were really wrong and predicting pregnancy length has flaws!
There is many old wives tales that will tell you certain things can induce labour naturally. I mentioned a few at the start of this blog. It doesn’t take long to google all these things, and no doubt you’ll have your grandparents, or aunty Doris giving you unsolicited advice about all the things you should be doing to induce labour. I guess the thing with all of these is that, they aren’t going to work if your baby is just not ready to be born.
So, let’s talk a bit more about can hypnobirthing and why it could be perceived that this would induce labour.
Firstly, one of the big things hypnobirthing talks about is the role of oxytocin and adrenalin in labour. With oxytocin, it shows how incredibly critical the production of this is. With adrenalin, it talks about how back in the cavemen times this was critical for survival, but actually in modern society, it can just get in the way of labour progressing when all is safe and well. So if you have one person who has done a hypnobirthing antenatal course (CLICK HERE to find out details of courses I offer) and therefore understands the role of these two hormones, they would theoretically be able to put into practice all the things they have learnt about how to get the oxytocin flowing - right? Whereas someone (me prior to my own hypnobirthing course) who had no education, might not have a clue and could be unintentionally doing all the wrong things to induce labour.
Hypnobirthing has tones more education about lots of different areas of the female anatomy, labour and birth. This education helps a lot of women understand their bodies better to be able to try and give it the best possible chance to maximise these built in functions.
One piece of research (Semple 2011, SEE FULL ARTICLE) into hypnobirthing has found:
Birthers have felt MORE relaxed during labour and therefore more likely to ENJOY the experience.
Less likely to use pharmacological pain relief options during birth.
There is a greater chance of having a spontaneous labour which means better outcomes for the baby.
Another research project (Catsaros and Wendland, 2020, SEE FULL ARTICLE) into hypnobirthing found:
A reduction of fear and pain for birthers, and an increase in feeling in control.
Less anxiety and increased satisfaction.
Less likely to have birth interventions.
Better postnatal recovery and childbirth experience overall.
I don’t think that there is really a true answer to can hypnobirthing induce labour, because truthfully I don’t think that anything can. I think that every woman and baby are different. I think that they all take different times to grow and be ready to be born. I think that different life factors make a difference. However, I do strongly believe, and this is backed up in the research I’ve noted above, that hypnobirthing does improve birth outcomes. It does increase your chance at a spontaneous birth. So you could argue that if you put everything in the hypnobirthing classes to practice, you should be able to trust your body enough that it feels safe and relaxed to allow labour to spontaneously occur.
If you want to get the education to be able to maximise your bodies natural functions, CLICK THROUGH to my courses page to check out what I offer! Or feel free to GET IN TOUCH with any burning questions you might have, I know that hypnobirthing as a name doesn’t really sell what it’s about! Maybe you need to KNOW MORE about what it really entails before you commit to a class!
P.s. one final note - it is actually counter productive to google ‘how to induce labour’ because this means you are causing yourself extra stress, unintentionally. Doing this, and getting caught up on forcing things is more likely to spike adrenalin and not oxytocin. My BEST advice to you if you are looking to induce your labour is make sure you have done a hypnobirthing course and then DO NOTHING! Doing nothing is far more likely to bring on labour than eating a million pineapples or getting spiked with raspberry leaf tea..!