"Raigmore hospital – labour suite"

We were planning a hypnobirth at home but, since I went into labour at 38 weeks, the mid wives were not yet on call for us so we ended up at Raigmore. The staff were fantastic and were very respectful of our birth plan for minimal intervention. The birthing pool was available and so we had a very peaceful water birth in the pool.

Looking back on the birth there are two decisions that I regret not questioning at the time. The first was towards the end of the birth, the midwife in attendance began to tell me that I was running out of time to birth my baby and if my baby was not born in the allotted time, interventions would have to be considered. I felt pressured at this point and was being told to push baby out rather than allow baby to be delivered in her own time. In hind sight I regret not questioning this. The birth was going very smoothly with no complications, mum was strong and happy and had been in good health throughout the whole pregnancy, baby’s heart rate was normal. I didn’t understand why we were being rushed.

The second action that I regret challenging was the cutting of the umbilical cord immediately after birth. We had said that we would like to leave the cord until it stopped pulsing. Baby was delivered in the water and was slightly blue when I lifted her head out of the water. It is normal for water birthed babies to take a little longer to adjust but the mid wife seemed to panic a little and was insistent that baby needed oxygen. To do this, they needed to cut the cord to take baby to the oxygen. Why is this not possible in the birthing pool? The mid wives worries were unfounded since she had hardly made it across the room when baby was waking up and becoming alert. At 1 minute baby was given an APGAR score of 8 and a score of 9 at 5 minutes.

I had a very good experience on labour suite and we received excellent care from the staff. When I was moved from labour suite to the ward, I had missed dinner but labour suite staff called ahead to ask for a meal to be saved for me. Thank you!

Hypnobirthing worked extremely well for our birth and I would like to see the NHS offering Hypnobirth training to their staff as standard practice.