Charlotte Stirling-Reed on her home birth

Charlotte-stirling-reed homebirth

by motherandbaby |
Updated on

We were so delighted to hear about the birth of infant nutritionist Charlotte Stirling-Reed’s baby girl, Ada. The baby and child nutritionist shared her adorable home birth story over on her Instagram account and we just had to share it!

With an increasing number of mums to a home birth because of COVID fears, Charlotte decided to make a home birth one of her choices for the day she gave birth. Sharing her personal story on her Instagram page, Charlotte said:

‘Lots of you wrote to me after I said I had had a home birth asking for info & asking me to share my experience - so here goes. I didn’t expect to have a homebirth at all, especially due to covid, but I was told that they had started offering them again in my area when I was around 36 weeks pregnant, so booked an appointment with the team “just incase” - which simply meant I would have a choice on the day - to go to hospital or stay at home.

'It took me a while to work out if the contractions were legit, so I timed them using an app & once they started to get more consistent & more painful, I retreated to my room & called my husband to come home.

'I was pretty chilled & wanted to attempt to use the hypnobirthing skills I’d learnt, so I set up my bedroom to make it as relaxing as I could, by:

  • Plugging in a lavender diffuser candle

  • Shutting the curtains & blinds to make it dark

  • Playing my relaxing bath time music playlist

'Getting copious amounts of snacks & water to top up my energy before the hard core contractions started. I was genuinely super relaxed & used hypnobirthing breathing techniques & visualisations to really control the contraction pains.

'Focusing on the breathing was harder as the really BIG contractions kicked in though, but when I did focus, it helped massively!
I desperately didn’t want to leave my “safe environment” at this stage, so we called the midwife to come to our home & check me out when contractions were 5mins apart.

'It all happened pretty quickly from there - it wasn’t pain free in the slightest - but it was more of a comfortable, calm experience than my birth with Raffy!
Massive shout out to the AMAZING midwives I had that day & to @birth_ed for her course & the visualisations of what EXACTLY is happening in the body at each stage. I used that a lot!

'Also @the.birthcollective who talked about “triggers” to help you relax & @theyesmummum whose book talks in detail about breathing techniques for each stage of labour - all made a HUGE difference & helped me have a more comfortable birth in my own home!'

The beautiful little Ada was born July 14 in Charlotte’s bed at her home at 8:30pm weighing 7lb 6oz. And it looks like Charlotte's son Raffy is already taking his big brother duties very seriously!

Have you ever thought about having a home birth? Or did you have you have one when you gave birth? Let us know on Mother&Baby's Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Joe Wicks and Charlotte Stirling-Reed on Wean in 15

Did you know that Joe Wicks joined forces with Charlotte to write his brilliant Wean in 15 book?

You can read more about their journey here.

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