The Hypnobirthing Book

By: Katharine Graves

Narrated by: Robbin Goddard, Katharine Graves

Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

Childbirth can be an empowering and positive experience that you treasure for the rest of your life. KG Hypnobirthing teaches simple and gentle techniques that have a profound effect on you and on your baby.KG Hypnobirthing can reduce the need for pain relief and shorten labor, and you are more likely to experience a natural, calm, comfortable birth. It actively involves the father or partner; you will both learn skills to instill confidence about the birth and your role as parents.

The Hypnobirthing Book and audio relaxations are a complete antenatal preparation which guides you to achieve the birth you want -- for you and for your baby.

©2012, 2014 Katharine Graves (P)2017 Katharine Graves

A man is narrating, such a female needed voice!

Who is the geuniess that give a man this job??? it's so distracting when a man is explaining how to give birth and prepare your body for it!

Why would you have a man narrate a birthing book?

Seriously, why? The last thing I want to hear is another old man telling me how to have a baby. It’s superficial, but it changes the experience of the book.

Jarring Narration

I dont know why the publishers thought it would be a good idea to have a man narrate this book. I found his voice to be jarring and abrupt. I think a soft, peaceful female voice would have been far more palatable. I also think the book took to long to get to the point. Too much fluff.

Read differently

I would've preferred a woman reading the audio. The way I see it there's absolutely no way a man can comprehend what we women go through. However I did enjoy the book

Some helpful info

Narrated by a man- uh what?! Redundant. You’re better off reading Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth.

Didn’t hear much information about actual hypnobirthing

There was information about birthing process, a lot about KG course and its benefits, many mediations. Why give mediations inside the book, if I cannot download them and listen later when I need it.
Quite disappointed. I expected to learn breathing techniques and more about state of mind. But, as for me, there was very little info about that.

Extremely useful and full of information

This book is so fantastic! It gave me so much information that I wasn’t aware of and I know it will help with my delivery. Thanks for writing this!

Really helpful and relaxing.

I wish it came with a table of contents and Index to reference back.

Wonderful instructions, information, visualizations, and more

The visualizations were very effective. I will listen to this book at least two more times. It answered all of my questions and absolutely confirmed my desire to give birth in the most natural way possible. I know for sure I can do this and am saddened that so many woman won’t ever know this or do the research needed to undo the fear mainstream medicine has instilled in us that birth is the big scary and painful problem you must endure in order to get to the next step...

first time mom

I'm going to implement all steps given I have confidence this will work. very excited

A must for all pregnant people and their support person

I loved this book. Started listening to it at 34 weeks and really think it will be beneficial to my birth
So many good tips
I just wish the hypno recordings were labelled and listed seperately / easily accessible

Female voice to pitchy and anoying

The content of the book is good but I could not relax to the female voice. The way the voice goes up and down with pitchy high sounds is so un-natural to me. The way she talks makes me think more about where she puts the effort in each word rather than the context of what each sentence means. The man has a much more pleasant reading voice.

This has nothing to do with gender, I have been listening to another hypnobirthing book with a female narrator and she has a very comfortable and calming voice.

I would reccommend recording the book again with a different narrator for the female voice.

Needs to be re-recorded.

The content of this book is great but it really really really needs to be recorded again the sound is awful. His voice his deep and harsh on the speakers and her voice is high and scratchy! Very hard to do the relaxation techniques because of it.

Not the right book for me

I find Katherines' voice haunting, I'm glad most of it is narrated by someone else. It's a good start to hypnobirthing, and gives you plenty to think about and discuss with your midwife and partner but parts like how to say "no" in various ways is patronising, I don't know anybody who is that much of a pushover or any medical professional who's that forceful. I'm going to listen to a different book now until I find the one that speaks to me, we're all different so just give it a go, like I said you'll get something from the book/hypnobirthing just wasn't for me this author

Fantastic techniques, but BE CAREFUL!

The book is filled with fantastic techniques which will prepare for pain management during labour, but please be prepared that things do change, and labour is not always as easy as the book makes it out to be.

I achieved full dilation with only one morphine injection, whilst on my own, during Covid using the techniques in the first chapters. I am so very thankful for this book and the techniques that are recommended (premature labour meant I only completed the first half of the book). With a twin pregnancy however, I took everything with a pinch of salt when listening to the book, as I knew there would be lots of challenges to face, and I may not get the full choice of natural labour.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I know a couple of people who gave birth at around the same time as me, who have been left traumatised by the unrealistic expectation that they had built from the influence of the full hypnobirthing practice. Sometimes intervention is totally necessary and not because it’s anyone’s fault, which the book implies. Placing so much emphasis on the success of these techniques, means that if anything moves away from these practices, it is seen as a negative experience.

As I say, the techniques are absolutely fantastic for managing anxiety and pain during labour, but just be careful with how much emphasis you put on a text book birth plan.

Narrated by a man - really?!

I can not believe this book which is written by a woman, for women, about female bodies is narrated by a man. I found this so jarring, listening to him explaining women's Birth experiences. Who made that decision!? (a man I'm guessing)

Factually, the book is good and is recommended by nhs midwifes. I hope they rerecord this with a new narrater.

I wish it was a female voice

His voice is too male and too British. I just want a normal female voice .

I should have just got to book to read

Worst audio I've experienced. Not sure who's idea it was to have a male voice read it but this male in particular has a harsh voice and I can't retain the info because of it, I'm on my 3rd attempt at listening to chapter 4 as it's just not going in. it's a shame because I've seen a lot of women recommend this book recently. I don't think I'm going to continue as apparently the authors voice is even worse.

Narrated by a man

Cannot really listen to this from a male voice! There are better options out there!

Awful

Not only are the narrators voices really off putting on this one the general quality of the audio is not good. I was constantly having to adjust the volume. Having a male narrating all about birth really wasn't for me I'm afraid!