The Hampshire Birthing Company

FAQ

Reviews

• 

  Lucie Barker

  We would highly recommend Susanna. I was very anxious during pregnancy, mostly due to it being our first and not knowing what to expect from the birth. We did a private hypnobirthing course with Susanna in our home, this made me feel even more comfortable. Hypnobirthing was most useful for me towards the end of my pregnancy as I was 2 weeks late and the conversations had started about being induced, which made me extremely anxious. We read the scripts a number of times a day, turned off my phone trying to ignore the ‘where’s the baby?’ texts and enjoyed those extra days as Susanna had taught us. My labour was 3 days long, and by the end I was absolutely exhausted, even though we had planned a water birth at home we had to transfer to a hospital in the end as my labour stalled and baby was getting distressed. But hypnobirthing helped us to adapt and feel comfortable even though the birth suddenly went in a different direction. Surprisingly (to me) I was happy to be in the hospital and 6 months on I look back at my birth very fondly. We are so glad we did the hypnobirthing course, it really helped both of us understand all of our options, empower us and the daily exercises bought us even closer together during the pregnancy.

  29-03-2023
• 

  Benjamin Heavens

  We first researched hypnobirthing as a concept in the earlier stages of our pregnancy (this was our first child). We live in Hampshire, near Alresford, and we started searching for how we could learn more. We discovered Susanna and The Hampshire Birthing Company and the rest is history. We enquired about 1:1 sessions as we really wanted to immerse ourselves in the learning and get the best possible outcome for the birth experience. Upon first meeting Susanna, we knew we had made the right choice. She immediately made us feel at ease and helped us to understand the fundamentals about hypnobirthing and how it can make an immense difference in the birthing experience for both baby and the parents. What was a really pleasant outcome from our learnings was just how critical hypnobirthing is for the birthing partner (the father in our case) as it gives you knowledge and tools to be the best partner and advocate for the mother during the pregnancy and birth. Susanna gives so much attention to detail, and most importantly: she truly cares about her clients and ensuring you have the best possible chance of a positive birth experience, and prepares you for any outcome thoroughly. As the course continued, we felt more and more confident and both had an increasingly positive mindset of the exciting event to come. During the birth, we felt empowered and in control, and had such a positive outcome. So much so that we were both (yes, mother too!) ready to do it all over again once our smiley baby boy was born safely and fortunately naturally. Our baby is now a little over a year old and he has always been a very happy baby: we are so confident this is in many ways due to the positive mindset we were both in during the pregnancy and during the birth, and how positive the birth experience was. This positivity is entirely down to Susanna and her powerful teachings. Susanna also arranged brunches and meet-ups with other parents and parents-to-be which was so helpful and enjoyable to socialise with other people experiencing the same things we were. We will be signing up for refresher courses with Susanna for any future pregnancies we go through, she changed our lives.

  28-02-2023
• 

  Jemma Gifford

  29-01-2023
• 

  Dave Hall

  Susanna is a true gem, she has such a wonder demeanor and really opened my eyes and heart to hypnobirthing. It was lovely to have general chat around birth and psychology. I felt empowered as a father and birth partner after our sessions with Susanna.

  29-12-2022
• 

  Tara Purchell

  Would highly recommend! I was really keen to sign up to hypnobirthing with Susanna, I had seen a friend post about hypnobirthing and I felt that was for me. I convinced my husband which he obliged. I enjoyed everything about the course and I felt it brought us even closer together through information about child birth I couldn't have explained. I can't thank Susanna enough! I'm a person who likes to know why and how things work and the course offered me a wealth of knowledge I didn't have before. Knowing my husband had this knowledge as well allowed me to concentrate on birthing our baby and he was able to advocate for me in decision making. Once labour had started, everything we had learnt at hypnobirthing came into its own, especially the visualisations and the breathing techniques. It made me feel calm knowing what my body was doing and breathing through it. Every decision made through our baby's birth, we both felt empowered with the knowledge from hypnobirthing to help make the right decision best for us and our baby. A few weeks following our little boys birth, Susanna has been in touch and has always been on the end of the phone when I've reached out for help. Our birth didn't go the way we thought it would have and I struggled to process it. Susanna offered the 3 step process to help me move on and I can't ever thank her enough for all her support and helping me to process the birth and to see all the positives!

  29-11-2022
• 

  Emma Matthews

  I’m so embarrassed it has taken me 2 years to write this review (sorry Susanna!) but we were lucky enough to squeeze in a Hypnobirthing course with the amazing Susanna a few weeks before Covid hit in 2020. We still feel so grateful for our evenings with her, learning all about labour and birth and how amazing the female body is! The knowledge we acquired during the course reassured us about the whole birthing process, gave us the confidence to make the right choices for us during the birth of our daughter, and made labour a very calm and positive experience. It is fair to say that my husband was, like many, a little sceptical of Hypnobirthing before we started (largely put off by the name!), but within minutes of meeting Susanna he was a convert and is now one of its biggest advocates - the course empowers birth partners and gives them a clear role during labour - birth becomes a team effort. We couldn’t recommend Susanna and her course more highly - she is incredibly knowledgable and a genuinely lovely person. We were also so grateful for her ongoing support after the course and arrival of our daughter - she was always brilliant at signposting us to the relevant person if she couldn’t help herself - we weren’t expecting this continuing support but it was a complete bonus and godsend at times! Thank you so much Susanna - if we decide to have another baby we will definitely be back for a refresher!

  29-05-2022
• 

  Chloe Kind

  Susanna’s hypnobirthing sessions were absolutely incredible, her knowledge is second to none and we came away from them feeling empowered and ready for the birth of our little girl. If you are in two minds about the session I would absolutely recommend them. It’s a positive way of thinking about birth and can be truly empowering. Thank you Susanna for supporting us through this amazing time of our lives. X

  29-05-2022
• 

  Mark Rimmer

  Susie is amazing! She is extremely knowledgeable on hypnobirthing and has provided us a lot of comfort on our birthing journey, providing us with tailored recommendations and generally tonnes of very useful advice. Thoroughly recommended!

  29-05-2022
• 

  Sarah Frost

  Having avoided thinking about birth until 37 weeks, I'm so glad I decided to try Susanna's Birth Planning power session! I had been feeling nervous about the experience, and based my birth expectations on film/TV representations and friends horror stories. Susanna was friendly and welcoming and I felt at ease to listen and talk about all options for labour and birth. I felt able to ask all sorts of questions, and Susanna was never judgemental about my choices or preferences. Of course it's not possible to plan a labour/birth and get everything you want but it is possible to make informed choices and have back up preferences and options. The session has helped me to now feel positive, to understand my options and feel more confident in being able to voice those and for my husband to help voice them for me too. Plus there was coffee and delicious homemade cake which was an added bonus! Definitely recommend this type of session.

  29-05-2021
• 

  Eliot Boyd

  Let me start my saying how incredibly skeptical I was about "Hypnobirthing" when my wife told me that this was something she wanted to look into. I reluctantly went along to our first session with Susanna wondering what I had let myself in for, to find that not only was Susanna NOT some sort of hippie like I had initially assumed but also that the course was both logical and incredibly informative about all aspects of preparation for childbirth. At a time were there is almost no support from the NHS because of COVID restrictions Susanna's excellent support and advice both during and after the course helped us to calmly address medical challenges in the later stages of pregnancy and during birth simply just by being well informed in our decision making! I am very thankful that through the Hampshire Birthing Company and Hypnobirthing I was able to feel involved and be useful during childbirth rather than the distant spectator that COVID forced me to be during all of our Antenatal appointments and scans.

  29-05-2021