HypnoBirthing® UK

[Brian Evans]

Hello to all you practicing Hypnobirthing Practitioners .

I have been Practicing as a Clinical Hypnotherapist in my three clinics (2 in the uk & 1 in Ireland ) since 2006 and it has been suggested to me that I train to be a Hypnobirthing Practitiioner. Being a male do you think I would be at a disadvantage as most of the practitioners are female ??
I would appreciate some professional advice

[ockysmith]

There are quite a few male HypnoBirthing practitioners in the UK so it is possible.

The only thing I would say is that HypnoBirthing is a whole ethos about natural birth, it's not simply an "add on" to a regular hypnotherapy practice (the course is 12.5hrs, I would say roughly only around 4hrs of that is hypnosis specific - the rest is antenatal education), it is very much a complete antenatal course so you do need to have a good knowledge of the female body and birth - I know I trained with quite a few hypnotherapists who seemed to be quite shocked at how much the course was antenatal education rather than hypnosis, so much so that a lot of them are now no longer practicing - that's if they went on to practice in the first place (after realising it wasn't really what they thought it would be). There is a full list of what we cover in classes on the US website, but basically we talk about the physiology of the uterus, the hormones of birth, bonding with your baby, due dates, induction of labour and it's alternative, good diet and exercise for pregnancy, breathing & massage techniques for each stage of labour, positions for certain stages of labour, 1st/2nd/3rd stage of labour and initiaing breastfeeding & bonding after the birth.

I think that the most successful/busy HypnoBirthing practitioners do tend to be the ones who have a real passion and a deep knowledge about childbirth and a wish to help empower women to have amazing experiences of childbirth - successful in terms of good outcomes and busy in terms that as there are more and more HypnoBirthing practitioners training competition is now quite high and ladies do phone around before signing up for classes - the majority want to hear that enthusiasm and confidence in natural childbirth from you from the very first phonecall - rarely in the first contact are they interested in hypnosis talk.

So if you do share in that passion (and I don't believe you have to be female to have that) and you think you could happily teach couples the full ins and outs of labour (i.e: what happens at each stage etc..) then absolutely - go for it!

[Danielle]

There are male midwives so I don't see why it should stop you... I know some blokes hate watching birth videos-are you happy to sit and watch them all day long? As Sarah has said there is more birth than hypnosis, which really surprised me as I was clueless about birth (since then I've had two babies and been to several births and love everything about birth now).

[kaz]

I'd agree with what has been said so far. I qualified as a hypnotherapist in 2006 but since last year have mainly been teaching HypnoBirthing and I find I am doing less and less of other hypnotherapy work. I think I've found my niche and love teaching HB It is a steep learning curve however, learning everything we need to know about birth.....even as a mum of three I have learned loads LOL

Having said that there was a man training on the course I was on (Northampton, Nov 2007) and IMHO I don't see why a man with the same enthusiasm and love of HB shouldn't teach it very well