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Sellotape Or Sticky Tape??

1
Serious question.  You need to wrap a present, so do you shout ”where have you put the Sellotape?”  Or do you hunt quietly,  muttering under your breath about no-one putting the sticky tape back in the drawer?  (Or is that just in my house?)
I bet most of you said Sellotape.  Why? Because it is an extremely well known brand name that has just become part of everyday speech.  And when you finally find said item, will you actually be looking at a roll of Sellotape or is it a lesser known brand that they just happened to have in the shop when you
SelfishMother.com
2
went in?  Did you even care when you bought it as long as it does the job?

I bring this up, partly because we have several rolls of different brands in the house and I can never find one when I need one, but mostly because the same has happened with hypnobirthing,  You see technically it should be written HypnoBirthing and belongs to Marie Mongan, the lady from America who many moons ago realised that the fear of birth could be removed using hypnosis techniques and that self hypnosis was a great tool to use during labour for keeping calm and in

SelfishMother.com
3
control.  Over the years, just as with tape,  new versions have been developed and because people were already familiar with the term ”HypnoBirthing” it became the generic name for all programmes that use hypnosis in birth preparation.  In fact there was a huge court case about it because people started putting it in the names of their programmes.  To be fair, you don’t see Asda calling their sticky tape ”Sellotape by Asda” so the HypnoBirthing crew had a point.  They won, but didn’t really win, because they got to keep HypnoBirthing as long
SelfishMother.com
4
as you used the capital letters.  Unfortunately because the name was now so generic anyone can use hypnobirthing to describe their programme.

”Why is this important?”  I hear you yawn!!  Alright, whilst knowing this might get you a prize on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (is that still on?!) you may think it is not that important when it comes to choosing your birth preparation course.  This is where my tape analogy dies a death because tape is tape is tape.  There are so many hypnobirthing programmes to choose from now to learn these

SelfishMother.com
5
techniques, but people don’t realise they are all different.  There is the original programme, there is one that tweeked that programme to be more specific to the UK, there is one that just teaches you the breathing techniques without all the background, there are a million homestudy programmes written by hypnotherapists, and there is The Wise Hippo Birthing Programme – which is the one I chose to teach.

They are all different in their own right.  Each one focuses on different aspects of birth and teaches you to prepare in a different way.  You

SelfishMother.com
6
have to choose the right one for you.  Not the one closest to you, not the cheapest one, not the most expensive one, but the one that makes you think ”Yes! I want that!” when you read about what you will learn.  I had a bad experience recently with some clients who had turned up to my classes expecting beanbags and hours of meditation because they had searched hypnobirthing, found me down the road and expected what their friends had gotten elsewhere.  I took hypnobirthing out of my advertising after that.  Not because I had an issue with the word
SelfishMother.com
7
but because the generic name has it’s own expectations and that is not what The Wise Hippo Birthing Programme is about.  And it is not what my teaching is about.  I might teach in Monton Carlo but I grew up in Walkden and I don’t do hippy dippy shit.  (Sorry, I don’t normally swear in my blog posts but it’s a good phrase!!)  I want to give women an amazing birth experience, I know from the birth stories I receive that it works and I also know from the difference in the dads from when they walk in with that polite yet guarded ”what are you going
SelfishMother.com
8
to make us do?!” look on their faces to when they finish session four and they bound out the door knowing they have just learnt everything they need to know to keep the person they love the most safe and calm whilst they birth the person they are then going to love the most.

In my classes we do a lot of discussion, a lot of practice, answer a lot of questions, talk about poo (it is part of the course, not just a random tangent about newborns!!) cry together as we watch women give birth in the calmest, most serene way possible, laugh at Tamara’s hair

SelfishMother.com
9
bobble (you will only get that if you have done the course) share stories and feel safe that we are all in this together and there is nothing to be afaid of.  We talk about the things that can go wrong and make them less scary.  I have books you can borrow on all sorts of topics and a Pinterest board filled with links to things you didn’t know you wanted to know about.

So I don’t use hypnobirthing when I advertise anymore.  I do use it on my website because, you know, I still want to attract some of the googlers, but I try to make it clear that

SelfishMother.com
10
the way I teach The Wise Hippo Birthing Programme is so much more than ”hypnobirthing”.
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- 5 Feb 16

Serious question.  You need to wrap a present, so do you shout “where have you put the Sellotape?”  Or do you hunt quietly,  muttering under your breath about no-one putting the sticky tape back in the drawer?  (Or is that just in my house?)

I bet most of you said Sellotape.  Why? Because it is an extremely well known brand name that has just become part of everyday speech.  And when you finally find said item, will you actually be looking at a roll of Sellotape or is it a lesser known brand that they just happened to have in the shop when you went in?  Did you even care when you bought it as long as it does the job?

I bring this up, partly because we have several rolls of different brands in the house and I can never find one when I need one, but mostly because the same has happened with hypnobirthing,  You see technically it should be written HypnoBirthing and belongs to Marie Mongan, the lady from America who many moons ago realised that the fear of birth could be removed using hypnosis techniques and that self hypnosis was a great tool to use during labour for keeping calm and in control.  Over the years, just as with tape,  new versions have been developed and because people were already familiar with the term “HypnoBirthing” it became the generic name for all programmes that use hypnosis in birth preparation.  In fact there was a huge court case about it because people started putting it in the names of their programmes.  To be fair, you don’t see Asda calling their sticky tape “Sellotape by Asda” so the HypnoBirthing crew had a point.  They won, but didn’t really win, because they got to keep HypnoBirthing as long as you used the capital letters.  Unfortunately because the name was now so generic anyone can use hypnobirthing to describe their programme.

“Why is this important?”  I hear you yawn!!  Alright, whilst knowing this might get you a prize on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (is that still on?!) you may think it is not that important when it comes to choosing your birth preparation course.  This is where my tape analogy dies a death because tape is tape is tape.  There are so many hypnobirthing programmes to choose from now to learn these techniques, but people don’t realise they are all different.  There is the original programme, there is one that tweeked that programme to be more specific to the UK, there is one that just teaches you the breathing techniques without all the background, there are a million homestudy programmes written by hypnotherapists, and there is The Wise Hippo Birthing Programme – which is the one I chose to teach.

They are all different in their own right.  Each one focuses on different aspects of birth and teaches you to prepare in a different way.  You have to choose the right one for you.  Not the one closest to you, not the cheapest one, not the most expensive one, but the one that makes you think “Yes! I want that!” when you read about what you will learn.  I had a bad experience recently with some clients who had turned up to my classes expecting beanbags and hours of meditation because they had searched hypnobirthing, found me down the road and expected what their friends had gotten elsewhere.  I took hypnobirthing out of my advertising after that.  Not because I had an issue with the word but because the generic name has it’s own expectations and that is not what The Wise Hippo Birthing Programme is about.  And it is not what my teaching is about.  I might teach in Monton Carlo but I grew up in Walkden and I don’t do hippy dippy shit.  (Sorry, I don’t normally swear in my blog posts but it’s a good phrase!!)  I want to give women an amazing birth experience, I know from the birth stories I receive that it works and I also know from the difference in the dads from when they walk in with that polite yet guarded “what are you going to make us do?!” look on their faces to when they finish session four and they bound out the door knowing they have just learnt everything they need to know to keep the person they love the most safe and calm whilst they birth the person they are then going to love the most.

In my classes we do a lot of discussion, a lot of practice, answer a lot of questions, talk about poo (it is part of the course, not just a random tangent about newborns!!) cry together as we watch women give birth in the calmest, most serene way possible, laugh at Tamara’s hair bobble (you will only get that if you have done the course) share stories and feel safe that we are all in this together and there is nothing to be afaid of.  We talk about the things that can go wrong and make them less scary.  I have books you can borrow on all sorts of topics and a Pinterest board filled with links to things you didn’t know you wanted to know about.

So I don’t use hypnobirthing when I advertise anymore.  I do use it on my website because, you know, I still want to attract some of the googlers, but I try to make it clear that the way I teach The Wise Hippo Birthing Programme is so much more than “hypnobirthing”.

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