How to create a birthing playlist

When I was pregnant with our first baby I created a playlist of my favourite songs to listen to during birth, but when we arrived at Birthcare there was no way of playing them, because someone had taken the speaker out of the room!

It was possibly a good thing though, because while I was in labour, I realised the music I had chosen for my playlist was waaay to upbeat - it consisted of my favourite Dire Straits & salsa songs (I met my husband at a salsa class and we had some fav songs we'd dance at home to). 

Great music for Sunday morning vibes, but not for deep relaxation.

I realised that it would have been super helpful to have practiced relaxing to my playlist while I was pregnant ...

... Hindsight is a great thing huh?!

So I’m sharing this with you so that you don't have to make the same mistake I did. 

If you want to set the scene on your birthing day with a playlist, here are some suggestions...

You can either choose to have a playlist with many tracks, or just find one or two songs that you love and have them playing on repeat. 

While taste in music varies a lot, parents who have gone through The Calm Hypnobirthing Course usually choose meditation or yoga type music and add this to the guided meditations to create their birthing playlists. 

Those types of tracks are great options because they are usually created at a frequency specifically designed to bring you into a relaxed brain state.

Once you’ve chosen your tracks, play them while you are practicing relaxing, to make sure they help you drift off into a lovely deep relaxation, because this is the optimal state for birth.

Added bonus: When you practice relaxing to your birthing playlist, your baby is also listening and getting flooded with ‘happy’ hormones, and this helps them associate the music with relaxation. You are setting up a beautiful sleep association for your baby. You can play your birthing playlist as part of their sleep routine, to help them relax and drift off to sleep. Yay!

Make sure you share your playlist with your birth partner so they can be in control of the music for you, and don't rely on speakers being in the birthing room like I did... bring your own, or just play it through your phone.