Duchess Kate Middleton is just a regular mommy like you and me. Despite being royalty, she's faced the same 'mommy's guilt,' painful pregnancies and difficult birth. She's just had to do it in limelight.
During an appearance on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, the duchess chatted about the joys and pitfalls of parenthood.
Kate apparently suffered from hyperemesis or extreme morning sickness through all her pregnancies. While some morning sickness is common, only 3% of pregnancies lead to hyperemesis, where you vomit constantly.
This can lead to dehydration and weight loss. For some mothers, morning sickness will only last the first trimester, but for those suffering from this condition, the vomiting lasts longer.
The Duchess joked that her pregnancies left her feeling "utterly rotten" and in comparison, labour was almost better.
What helped her during her difficult pregnancy? She hypnobirthed all her three children.
She said, "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.”
But what is hypnobirthing?
Hypnobirthing is built around special breathing exercises, relaxation, visualisation, meditative practice, along with nutritional requirements for the body. Doulas in the UK help form a bridge between the birthing mothers and medical professionals, irrespective of whether you choose a home birth or a hospital birth.
It also involves birthing classes that help you get ready for the big day.
Many practitioners believe that women have been for long told horror stories of birthing, creating an atmosphere of fear around child birth. This leads to the body becoming tense, leading to painful birth and unnecessary medical intervention.
Doulas can come into the picture at any point during the pregnancy, but preferably earlier than later. In an earlier article on FIT, a doula in India spoke about "having helped women who have had painful first time deliveries, crisis of belief in themselves and failure at breastfeeding to have perfect, calm natural births the second time round."
In India, the government is seriously considering a mid wife programme that will help bridge the treatment gap that exists between pregnant women in far flung places and their access to medical care. The GOI had announced Guidelines on Midwifery Services, which include recommendations for midwifery training and certification, at Partners' Forum, a World Health Organization (WHO)-led global forum in 2018.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)