Anyone tried Hypnobirthing in HK public hospitals?

B

BBbbmum

New member
Hi, everybody! I'm new at this forum and expecting my first baby in April. At the moment, I'm living in London, but will come to Hong Kong next year to give birth. I have currently booked the Queen Mary hospital. I am pro natural VB and attended hypnobirthing classes here in London already, hoping I can apply some of the techniques I learnt to reduce the suffering and have a calm delivery. However, I was told that hypnobirthing is not common at all in Hong Kong hospitals, so I am getting anxious that I may not be able to have the birth plan I have in mind. I have heard that although not common, someone did successfully do that at Queen Mary. I hope those of you who have experiences in doing so can shed some light on how I can convey my message to the medical staff in hospital and have it arranged? And did any one of you employ a doula? Even though I wish to have my hubby to be my birth companion if possible.

Any advice will be much appreciated! Thanks in advance!!! :thanks:
 
Hi there,
I did a hypnobirthing course and gave birth at Queen Mary. I wasn't following the hypnobirthing method strictly, since it just didn't click with me. But I can tell you the following
Most midwives are not familiar with it.
You can't really arrange anything beforehand, it all depends on the staff on duty at the moment.
Some things I noticed (my birth was without complications and without pain meds)

- you only get to go to the delivery ward when you are more than 3cm dilated, before that you are alone in the labour ward
- there is a birth ball in the labour ward
- once you are in the delivery ward with your birth companion the staff only comes in occasionally to check up on you.
- apart from the tens machine and massage, the staff never offered me any pain medication
- they have a CD player
- you can ask them to dim the lights a little
- they are ok with you being in different positions (all 4 etc) during contractions
- they made me wear two monitors and a blood pressure thing and told me it was necessary because of baby's heartbeat
(I think they just told me that to make sure I would wear the monitors, they were very very uncomfortable and restrict your movement a lot)
- once I was fully dilated they asked me to sit in the traditional birthing position, with an almost straight back and legs lifted up. I tried a different position for a while on all fours and the staff was OK with it. I didn't feel very comfortable like that. I ended up in the normal position and found it to be quite comfortable
- One midwife shouted at me to push and I couldn't since the contractions were slowing, my husband explained to her how I felt and either her shift was up or she was replaced by someone after that.
- All the other midwives were very nice, I had a hard time "not pushing" when I wasn't supposed to and they told me how to do the panting (not really part of hypnobirthig I think :))
- you need to be VERY VERY assertive that they give you the child straight away. They took my baby for about a minute and both me and my husband had to shout at him to bring him back straight away. Again they told us it was because of some important test.

I hope this was helpful, I think the most important part is that your partner knows what you want and can talk to the staff for you, also with some things you need to be assertive.

let me know if you have any questions.

all the best
 
the important test is the apgar test. it is given to ALL newborns immediately after birth and again about 5 minutes after, i believe. you can google it. it is to make sure that the baby has all the necessary reflexes.
 
How does this apgar testing differ from what they do in the UK or US ?

In the UK it's standard for a baby to be put on the mother skin to skin immediately... but seems not the standard in HK ?
 
don't know. i've never given birth in the usa or the uk... only hong kong. they take the baby, do the test (takes about 30-60 seconds) and then give you the baby.

at least, that was what they did with my kids....although my kids were born 6 & 8 years ago, so things may have changed since then.
 
My experience in the UK, a couple of years ago. Baby is born, shown to me. AGPAR test done at 1 minute. Given to me, then picked up again for AGPAR at 5 minutes. Both tests had good results and were done in hardly any time.
 
i did hypnobirthing here in hk in 2008. the staff at QMH were very open to it - they read my birth plan & were communicative - especially the second shift of midwives that I had. At PWH (2010) they weren't so open, but my labour was very quick so that might have made a difference (30 mins from admission to bub in arms!). From memory at both hospitals i was able to have some skin to skin time before the apgar, but it was very clearly stated in my birth plan. it seems that in the public hospitals (and perhaps private too, although i have no experience there) your experience has a lot to do with who happens to be on shift at the time. also, being polite but firm about your requests can get you pretty much everything you want. I did the hypnobirthing course at Annerley & they are very knowledgeable about the public system.
one thing they did say (at Annerley) was make sure your birth plan is no longer than a page, otherwise they won't read it. I went through the suggested birth plan from the hypnobirthing book & only put the things on that I really cared about. hope this helps.
 
oh & for my first i did employ a doula but only my husband was able to accompany me in the birthing room. I found it useful to have a doula because I wanted to stay at home for as long as possible. She drove my husband and I to the hospital when it was time to go.
 
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