Jennie, who is originally from the UK, gave birth to her beautiful daughter Aska last year in June. She chose the Showa University Hospital.
She shares her birth experience at the Showa University Hospital in Hatanodai, Shinagawa and also compares the Iryo Center in Meguro, where she gave birth to her first daughter.
Listen to that podcast episode here: LINK
Jennie talks about some visualization exercises she used during labor. The ones that helped her the most were:
Visualize a circle of women around you. A circle of women who have babies as well.
...now draw a village of women in your mind around you, they are supporting you.
Another powerful technique was:
Imagine swimming over the sea to a destination - I chose an island.
The idea is that sometimes the sea will be smooth and sometimes it will be choppy. You need to breath constantly and keep swimming through it, because you will get through it and you will get to the island.
The third visualization is about a beach. Jennie lived in Mexico before, so she imagined a specific beach she would go to with her friends. She imagined two friends who also have babies, waiting at the beach for her. This helped her a lot.
In addition, she recommends to focus on breathing:
With the breathing, I would never believe it works. I was like "giving birth is just painful, how can breathing help?!" but it did!
"Doing things like touching my face while I was breathing to focus on the breath and on my face to help me to disconnect from the pain...and doing breathing with contractions. That helped me a lot."
Here are interesting and helpful quotes from Jennie which will encourage you during pregnancy:
Just because everything doesn’t go the way you expect, doesn’t mean it’s negative.
I was more than happy to embrace the Japanese style because they do care so well for women and for the baby’s health…
Go to Japanese prenatal Yoga and Pilates. It’s not only about the Yoga. It is a chance to hear other women’s stories, to feel less alone when giving birth and to learn a lot of Japanese vocabulary about giving birth. If you can, try to embrace Japanese support outside of the hospital through your pregnancy and even after birth.
Jennie recommends Yoga Glo app for not only prenatal yoga but also visualization exercises: https://www.glo.com/