The Hampshire Birthing Company

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.

Hypnobirthing doesn’t teach you how to have the perfect birth, it teaches you how to have the best possible birth for the type of birth you want and in whatever situation that may arise during that birth, and Susanna is the best person to teach you how to do it.I used hypnobirthing for both of my daughters. I had a bit of experience in mindfulness, but both my husband and I found it invaluable to learn the science involved and why relaxation is so incredibly important in childbirth. The hormones, the muscles, the sheer biology behind it all was staggering. Not only does Susanna know every single detail of it, she explains it with such clarity and with such purpose that it makes you wonder why it’s not taught as standard antenatal practice. The main thing that I learned from our hypnobirthing course is that we had so many choices, regardless of the situation.Both my husband and I practiced our relaxation techniques every day so that it felt second nature for when labour started. It created a greater closeness between us and built a lot of excitement and good anticipation.My first was a completely natural birth with no complications. There was zero fear and we both felt completely in control. It was a very happy time. Everything we could have ever hoped for.My second ended in an emergency c-section after developing sepsis. A terrifying situation that still remained a very calm experience, thanks again to the hypnobirthing. We continued to be in control and were able to exercise our choices. It was believed to have been the relaxation techniques that kept my daughter’s heart at a safe enough rate, when she might have otherwise been in more danger. I don’t believe I could have done that without the specific hypnobirthing preparation we had put in both during and after the course.Susanna cares so deeply about each one of her clients and it really shows. She just wants the very best for everyone, and she knows how to help to make that happen.

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!

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.

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!

I used hypnobirthing for both my kids and it was an amazing experience. Before I read into it, I was scared and worried about labour but by the time my first baby was due, I felt confident and positive. Learning the skills made me understand all the stages of labour and baby movement so I felt completely connected and confident with what was happening at all times. I felt really in control of every contraction and it proved to me that there is honestly nothing stronger than the power of your mind. Every labour is totally different but I used exactly the same techniques for my daughter 3 years later and it was the same story and experience second time round because I had that control and focus like I did with my first.My focused techniques also meant my husband stayed calm too so the whole process helped us get through it as a couple and as a result, I had two very straight forward labours and we left hospital 6hrs after each baby arrived!There are lots of books to read and classes you can do to learn about it all but finding the right teacher is really important. Susanna is grounded, down to earth and a real mum who has been through it all herself twice, so has all the knowledgable, guidance and approachable personality that is needed to guide you and your partner during this incredible time in your life. I’m 100% certain our experience would be entirely different if I hadn’t used hypnobirthing techniques and I have and always will, recommend it to any mum/parents to be!

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.

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.

We did not know what to expect from Hypnobirthing but we could not be any more grateful that we were introduced to Susanna.The course was informative, fascinating and helped dispel many myths and thoughts we previously had. We were delighted to learn that it was all about creating an environment that would support our birth rather than one model fits all. Having a broad understanding of all our different options and how we can prepare for our birth has been a game changer.We could not recommend Susanna any more highly, she is personable, caring, explains everything without bias and simply wants you to be best prepared for your birth.Thank you for giving us the very best experience.Alex & Alex

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