Kent Hypnobirthing aims to take the fear out of childbirth

Two mums are devoting their working lives to creating better birthing experiences for women across the county.

Rachel Dodd and Sophie Cartwright are the brains behind Kent Hypnobirthing, which has an emphasis on women taking control of their bodies before, during and after labour.

After both having bad experiences giving birth to their first child, they decided to take things into their own hands and are now running workshops in Kent this October.

Rachel, who has four-year-old Stanley and Gus, 14 months, began Kent Hypnobirthing a year and a half ago with Sophie joining her more recently.

Sophie, mum to five-year-old Felix and Esther, eight months, said: “I didn’t have a very good experience with Felix, and when I started to think about having another child, I knew it needed to be done differently.

“I did a lot of research and discovered Rachel and Kent Hypnobirthing.

“I started training with Rachel and ended up having Esther at home. It was just amazing and a completely different experience with hypnobirthing."

Hypnobirthing is often called a ‘revolution’ of labour and there were a number of influential people across the world who sparked the beginning of the practice.

In the first half of the 20th century, Grantly Dick-Read and Michel Odent began to research childbirth, confused why a few women gave birth naturally with no drugs and no pain, but most suffered agony in labour, coming to the conclusion that the root of the problem was fear.

Some of the training techniques Rachel and Sophie use include relaxation and going to bed listening to a therapeutic story, often talking about how to calm your body.

Rachel said: “It is about retraining your brain to think about birth in a different way.

“It is a lot about not approaching having a baby with fear. We are faced from an early age with this perception of birth – especially from what we see on TV with screaming women in lots of pain. It is about training your brain to have a more positive outcome and we focus on exactly what you want from your experience, working with both the mum and her partner."

The Introduction to Hypnobirthing workshop takes place on Sunday, October 9, and Sunday, October 16 at Cliffs cafe in Northdown Road, costing £30.

For more information visit www.kenthypnobirthing.com/ or find them on Facebook.