I recently did a  hypnobirthing practitioners course  and something that really stuck with me was the idea that every first experience we have, of anything, should be amazing and limitless. It should make use want to do it again and again.

The course educator used the analogy of booking a holiday.

When you are booking a holiday to some where you have never been before, do you go to a travel agent and say “We will leave it all up to you. You just tell us where to go and what to do when we get there”?

No, because you want a fantastic holiday experience that suits you, not some travel consultants, or Google’s,  idea of the perfect holiday. You do your research and find out all your options so that your holiday will be exactly how you want it to be.

So why treat the birth of your first baby any differently?

The birth of your first baby is such a unique moment in time, and it will set you up to experience your next births in a similar way.

This is why it is so important to be fully informed and make sure you  can ask for what you want. A bad birthing experience, where you felt out of control or even coerced into decisions that didn’t really match your vision of childbirth, can have a devastating effect on your experience of motherhood and subsequent births.

So make sure you make your first experience as amazing as it can possibly be.