Kate Revealed The Birth Technique She Used With George, Charlotte And Louis
Kate Middleton is the proud mother to three children, all of which had a natural delivery. The Duchess opened up about her experiences with labour, the birth technique, revealing how she went through with it and even ‘liked it’.
“I’m not going to say that William was standing there sort of, chanting sweet nothings at me. He definitely wasn’t!” Kate reveals
Kate suffers from hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness she had with each of her three pregnancies, so she took it upon herself to learn about more about the birthing process and how to make things easier for her.
“I got very bad morning sickness, so I’m not the happiest of pregnant people,” Kate revealed while talking with Giovanna Fletcher, a bestselling author, for an interview on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast. The goal of the podcast was to promote Kate’s groundbreaking survey “5 Big Questions on the Under Fives”, with the two women covering all kinds of topics, from labour to raising three children.
“[It was] utterly rotten! I was really sick – I wasn’t eating the things I should be eating – but yet, the body was still able to take all the goodness from my body and to grow new life, which I think is fascinating,” she said during the podcast, which made its debut on Saturday.
“It was through hyperemesis that I really realized the power of the mind over the body because I really had to try everything and everything to try and help me through it.”
The Duchess continued to talk about the birth technique hypnobirthing, a birthing-process which involves various relaxation and self-hypnosis techniques to help relax the body before, during and after birth. There are classes for it, which teach the participants to practice and use a combination of music, visualization, positive thinking and words and even prompts from partners to help relax the body and control all the sensations that happen during labour, according to Mayo Clinic.
“There are levels of it,” added Kate, “I’m not going to say that William was standing there sort of, chanting sweet nothings at me. He definitely wasn’t! I didn’t even ask him about it, but it was just something I wanted to do for myself.”
“I saw the power of it really, the meditation and the deep breathing and things like that – that they teach you in hypnobirthing – when I was really sick and actually I realized that this was something I could take control of, I suppose, during labour,” she continued.
“It was hugely powerful and because it had been so bad during pregnancy, I actually really quite liked labour! Because actually it was an event that I knew there was going to be an ending too! But I know some people do have really, really difficult times, and it’s not for everybody.”
Kate gave birth to her first child Prince George on July 22, 2013. His sister Princess Charlotte came two years later, on May 2, 2015. The last of the Cambridge children, Prince Louis, was born on April 23, 2018. All three of them were delivered with seems birth Technique in the Lindo Wing at St. Mary’s Hospital in London.
Over the past couple of years, Kate has focused a big part of her work on early childhood development, which has been inspired by her own experiences as a mother. Her newest undertaking, the survey has reached more than 200,000 people from the UK and has the goal of sparking a national conversation on the early years that will ultimately help bring about positive, lasting change for future generations.
As her research on the topic widens, all kinds of organizations and charities have joined her, helping her in her goal. With this newfound knowledge, she realized that she could have done things differently during her own pregnancies. “I feel huge responsibility because what I’ve learned over the last few years is so fascinating and I definitely would have done things differently, even during my pregnancy, then I would have done now,” she revealed.
“I found it fascinating to see the wellbeing of the mother – not just physically, you know there’s so much information about making sure you exercise and making sure you have a healthy diet and things like that, which, yes, is definitely important — but the emotional wellbeing of the mother directly impacts the baby that you’re growing.
“It’s difficult, and also with life’s challenges and everything like that, it really is hard but actually just being aware of it. I was a lot more aware of it the third time around than I was the first time around.”