Ep 119: Hypnobabies Childbirth Education with Milène Miller

In this episode we take a deep dive into Hypnobabies Childbirth Education with Milène from Harmony Birth Services.  She experienced 4 very different births (emergency cesarean to homebirth), and as she describes her journey as a birth worker, you see how her own birth experiences help her help her clients to advocate for themselves and take charge of their birth experience.   

We discuss:

• What is hypnobirthing
• An outline of the classes and what is taught
• The at-home tasks with the class
• Core memories, critical factors, and pain management (yes - think about the movie Inside Out!)
• What hypnobirthing is not
• How hypnobirthing can transcend birth
• Her doula and photography work
• And more!

Connect with Milène:

Harmony Birth Services

Instagram

Facebook

Resources mentioned: 

Episode 111: from cesarean to unassisted homebirth 

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• 22:12 (Cont.) Ep 119: Hypnobabies Childbirth Education with Milène Miller

Transcript

Dr. Shannon (00:03.555)
you are listening to the Aligned Birth Podcast. I am Dr. Shannon. I'm one of the hosts of the show and today is an interview day. I, you know, I love these interviews that we get to do. We have another amazing birth worker on. This is fun because I know her again in the social media world, but I haven't met her in real life. So hopefully one day we meet in real life. But we have a...

Birth Dula, a photographer, and a hypno-babies instructor on today. So it is Milen with Harmony Birth Services. So we're talking all things, hypno-babies, like childbirth education. That's what I really wanna focus on with the show today is really why hypno-babies, what is it, how has it helped the women that she's worked with, did she use it herself, because she's got a good amount of kids as well too. We'll get into that in a minute. So that's a big focus of it.

Milene Miller (00:31.758)
Thank you.

Dr. Shannon (00:58.365)
how she got into this birth worker world. Did her births inspire it or is it just something that she's been led to do? So with Milen she was born and raised in South Africa. So she's moved with her parents, two older sisters, to San Jose, California. And then she met her husband and got married that next year. So at 21 she met her husband, got married. And then now they have four kids. So right now they're 10, seven, four and two.

I guess you could say she has her hands full. July of 2021, they moved from California all the way to Georgia. So now she's in Georgia. And then a year ago, she turned her passion for birth into a tangible job. And so really becoming a doula, picking up the camera and looking at birth photography, and then becoming a Hypno's Babies instructor. And so now she's attended her 30th birth and I'm so excited to chat today with you.

Welcome to the show, friend.

Milene Miller (02:00.683)
Hi, welcome. Aritha, thank you for having me. Welcome to you too. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. I was really excited to get to talk to you today.

Dr. Shannon (02:10.491)
I know. So, and you're connected with...

Rachel, who is the co-host on the show as well too with North Atlanta Birth Services as well. So I know you're kind of in that dual aspect of you do your own thing, but you also work within that realm with them as well too. So I think that's kind of how I had found you, but obviously too, social media and seeing your beautiful birth photography on Instagram. I think, I think that kind of captured my eye. So we'll have on there.

Milene Miller (02:22.062)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (02:40.726)
Thank you.

Dr. Shannon (02:44.917)
to where people can find you and follow you and stuff because pictures are so good. They're so good. I love it. And you were the doula and photographer for, we had birth stories with Jessica. And so she was the one that had the, from cesarean to unassisted home birth and you were the doula at the unassisted home birth, right?

Milene Miller (02:49.518)
Thank you.

Milene Miller (03:08.554)
Yes, I was.

Dr. Shannon (03:11.083)
I'll have to link to that so people can listen to the story because she talks about the hypno birthing as well and how she used that. I don't know, before this, Mila and I were chatting because I'm trying to figure out where I want to start with this and where. Maybe a little bit of how did you get into the doula world and why doula work for you?

Milene Miller (03:20.599)
Yeah.

Milene Miller (03:36.162)
Yeah. So I'm going to kind of start with.

Gosh, I'm gonna go back a little bit. I'm gonna go back to, you know, when I was a teenager, I had this passion. I always loved, like, anytime I saw a pregnant woman, I was like, I just love, like, pregnancy. I always thought it was so cool. And then as, you know, a high schooler, I said, oh, I would love to become an OB-GYN so that I can work with women during their pregnancy and childbirth.

Dr. Shannon (03:44.227)
I know, how far back do we go? It's a big question.

Milene Miller (04:10.354)
And I had this idea in my head that that's the only way you can work with pregnant women, right? Like you have to go into the medical field to be able to pursue that line of work. Um, so went through high school, got into college, wasn't really like gelling with the whole, like I was like, I don't think I'm going to go like the full doctor route. This is not really me. Um, dabbled in a lot of things, really loved the social sciences, ended up really feeling drawn to.

psychology and becoming like a family and marriage counselor. Again, like I really wanted to help families and like women and like this process of like of relationships and so that's always been where my heart is, is to help kind of in this stage of life where people have young children and maybe they're going through, they're going through stuff right? And so

I was in my junior year at university when I had my first son. And that kind of put a stall on my studies, but I said, you know what, that's fine. If I get some life experience, that's probably a really good thing for a counselor to have. So I was like, that's okay. I'm consciously making this choice. I want to start my family. And so I'm going to put my studies kind of on pause so I can start a family.

And I went into my birth with a very open mind. I didn't have this like past or I didn't have a lot of kind of fear surrounding birth, really going into it because the stories that I grew up with were largely positive. But I did trust my OBGYN. I said, I wanna have this natural birth. I don't want an epidural. I wanna just do it by myself. But I didn't go into it any further than that. And so on the day,

I just sort of trusted her advice. And I believe that she would, she knew what I wanted and that she would support me in the outcome I was looking for. Not realizing that that's not how things work really. And that OB-GYNs aren't really trained in, you know, the natural birth process. And so I was about four centimeters when she goes, well, why don't we break your water and speed this thing, you know, speed this thing up and get this baby out. And I was like, oh, hey, sure, why not? I was like, great idea.

Dr. Shannon (06:29.883)
That sounds great. Yeah.

Milene Miller (06:32.554)
And that just sort of started the whole cascade of interventions. And so eventually, you know, I ended up with sort of the whole host of things that you can imagine that somebody would get and ended up with about an eight, nine centimeters getting emergency cesarean because the baby wasn't tolerating labor anymore. And so that was that. And it wasn't.

It wasn't this overwhelmingly traumatic experience at the time. Probably the most traumatic part was that I saw my baby leaving the OR without them showing him to me. After they told me, specifically they would, they just sort of like rushed him out and I didn't know what was going on. He hadn't cried yet and I was very concerned. And then my husband left and then I was all by myself. And I think of it as a mercy that at that point the anesthesiologist actually knocked me out.

So I woke up and I got to meet my son. But a couple years later, I was faced with the question of, am I gonna have a re-pizzasarian, or am I going to try for a vaginal birth? And I said, I have to try. If I don't try, I'm going to wonder what if my whole life. And so then when I said, okay, I'm going to try, I decided if I'm gonna do this, I have to go in all the way.

And that's where the whole process began. And so on this path of like going in all the way, I learned about Berth Dula's and I hired a Dula and she was an amazing photographer, which ties into why I became a photographer. And then I looked at all the different, I started researching Berth classes. And I looked at Lamaze and at Bradley and.

I looked at all the different kind of options out there. I found hypnobirthing. I thought, oh, this looks really cool. I got the book, like the hypnobirthing book. I read through that. I did some of like the breathing exercises. I kept kind of looking. And that's when I stumbled on HypnoBabies. And everything that HypnoBabies talked about, I was like, this is what I want. And it's, this is, HypnoBabies is giving me concrete.

Milene Miller (08:49.838)
steps and tools and methods of getting the birth that I want. And so originally I actually bought their home study guide. I was just gonna do it at home by myself. And then I said, you know what, this isn't good enough for me. I know myself and I don't feel like I'm going to, I feel like I might like slack off and not do this properly if I try to do it by myself at home. And so I told my husband, we need to sign up for the classes.

that are in person and I know it's like a 45 minute drive, you know, up into the city once a week for six weeks. We got my parents to watch the baby for us for six weeks in a row and it was this whole big thing and because the classes are really long, it went like late into the night, but we did it. And so my husband and I went to the six week long Hypno Babies series and it just sort of changed.

my entire life, really, because it not only was it teaching you birth hypnosis and how to have a comfortable, easier birth, it also was all of that childbirth education that I was missing previously that... Yes.

Dr. Shannon (09:48.827)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (10:06.367)
Okay, I was gonna ask, did you take childbirth education with that first at all or was it, maybe it was just the hospital-based or maybe just from what your OB had kind of talked about?

Milene Miller (10:16.898)
Yeah, and so that, yeah, we had done with my first, we had done like a weekend express class, you know, where it mostly talks about when you get to the hospital, you have to do this, and it's all about like the hospital policies. And they had you like hold it, a ice cube in your hand to try to simulate, you know, it's like, okay, just breathe through the, you know, breathe through and like the metal, that's about as hard as like a little gut. And so with Hypno Babies,

Dr. Shannon (10:29.196)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (10:47.014)
it just went into so much more depth about what is birth, what are all the processes, what's happening to your body, what are your options, what are your choices in birth, because that's a huge part of it. You have options, you have choices. And so I, and then you practice every day, right, with your hypnosis, you practice every day how to go into that state of hypnosis where you are so deeply relaxed and your whole body.

just kind of becomes heavy and it just melts away all the tension and they have tracks for fear clearing. And so when you're holding on to any kind of like fear, you'll have to listen to that to try to kind of just release that fear that you might be holding on to. And actually that was when I was 37 weeks pregnant with my second, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I had this immensely sort of anxiety filled a couple of weeks.

And I remembered I just like leaned heavily into my tracks. I was like, I just need to, I just need to like listen to my fear clearing. Like I just need to take this like real step of taking my nervous system and just like calming it down again. And when the time came and you know, my birthing time started, I actually, my water kind of trickled. It wasn't a true rupture. And

Thank goodness I ended up being at the hospital with the lowest cesarean rate and the highest VBAC success rate and the whole thing, L&D was run by midwives and this was by chance. This wasn't by design for me. I did, but because we had to. So when we went from two people on our insurance policy to being a family, our premium jumped so high that we had to switch. We actually switched to Kaiser, California. And in California, they're this huge thing.

Dr. Shannon (12:23.943)
I was gonna say, did you change OB practices or anything?

Milene Miller (12:42.402)
They have their own hospitals. And so I was with Kaiser in San Jose, and they have this amazing hospital where you have access to like gas and air. And like the nurses will offer you a TENS unit if you want it. And just very supportive of natural birth. And so when I went in and they said, I said, I think my water broke, they tested it.

And then they said, we're not going to check your cervix because your water hasn't ruptured yet and we don't want to introduce an infection. Which is something I have yet to experience here. Every single time somebody goes in and their water's broken, oh, they go right up ahead and check their cervix. And so, and they said, I remember my midwife sitting down with me and saying, okay, you know, your birthing waves haven't started yet. It's up to you.

Dr. Shannon (13:25.16)
first thing to do. Yeah.

Milene Miller (13:39.298)
how long are you comfortable waiting before we start any kind of augmentation. There's no pressure yet, or you have a lot of time. And she had this conversation with me, she wasn't standing over me, she was sitting at the foot of my bed, and I said, I think I wanna wait at least 24 hours. And she said, okay. And at 24 hours we can start talking about what are the next steps. And so that night, at about the 12 hour mark, finally things kinda kicked into high gear very quickly.

and an hour and a half later I was holding my baby. So, yes, but that started it all. And so I fell in love with birth.

Dr. Shannon (14:10.603)
Oh gosh. That started it all. You're like, that's my answer to your first question.

Milene Miller (14:20.266)
Yes, that's my answer. I fell in love with birth. I fell in love with HIPAA babies. I used it again for my daughter's birth, who was actually nine hours for hers. And it was like the most beautiful, calm. Like that was my true, I always say that's my true HIPAA baby's birth where I was just this like picture of calmness and serenity and like it was perfect.

And then in 2020, I had my son and he was my planned home birth. And he was also, he was a 40 minute from my first real sort of birthing wave to when he was born. It was 40 minutes. He was sort of similar to my other son. Like my water had ruptured and for six hours nothing happened. And then once it did, it went real quick. But through all of these, I had my doula with me every single time. She took pictures every single time. So I have beautiful pictures of my children's births and they mean...

the world to me. My children love to look at them. They love seeing the stories of how they were born. And so this has immense value to me. Having birth, you know, birth photography holds huge value to me. And I never, in my head, I never thought about becoming a doula for a very long time. There was one time where I kind of thought about it, I was like, oh, that wouldn't work with my life. And I just kind of put it aside.

Dr. Shannon (15:37.747)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (15:41.11)
and then when we move to Georgia.

There was one day I was sitting just kind of scrolling through Facebook and I saw on a mom's board that I'm part of, you know, one of the mom's groups, somebody asking about a doula. And it was like, you know, I, there are very few moments in life where you feel like God is speaking to you clearly. And it was like, he was like, you need to do this. This is what I want you to do. And I had struggled a lot in my life and not knowing exactly what I felt like I was meant to do.

Dr. Shannon (16:03.035)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (16:14.766)
I had a lot of things that I felt like I could do. And I kept waiting for that thing that was like, this is what I should do, this is what I'm meant to do. And he was like, this is what I've been preparing you for. This is what I want you to do. And I don't want you to wait. I want you to go, I want you to do it right now. And I was like, okay. And so I didn't feel unprepared because I had all these years of learning about birth and pursuing it myself.

Dr. Shannon (16:34.634)
Hehehehe. Ahhh! Ahhh.

Milene Miller (16:43.158)
So I jumped right in and things, I got taken kind of by storm. I don't know how else to describe it. I wasn't expecting to be where I am last year to now. And, you know, it's been such an amazing journey, but yeah, it's, and one of the first things that I said, was, you know, once I said, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be a doula.

Dr. Shannon (16:59.02)
Uh-huh.

Milene Miller (17:10.958)
I said, well, how do I become a hypnobabies instructor? And so I went on their website and I looked up, how do you become a hypnobabies instructor? And I saw that, oh, they only take one group a year. So they take about, you know, between 15 to 20 applications a year. And they take this one sort of cohort every year and you get a ton of work. And then you meet, you do an in-person sort of...

intensive like few days where they actually teach you how to teach hypno babies. But for the next, you know, from it was about September last year until May of this year, we were doing, or I was doing all kind of home study stuff. And it was like a full introductory course to hypnosis. It was a ton of

I haven't written, read and written that much since I was in college. I was like, this really is on par with any of the classes I took in university, the amount of information that they were having us learn. And then to actually, it wasn't just, oh, just read the stuff. It was you had to then now write about it. Many words, pages and pages and pages.

Dr. Shannon (18:30.855)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (18:34.814)
of words that you have to write in response to, and lots of questions that you have to answer about what you have read. And so went through that, did certification, had to do a big test to get certified, and in June of this year, I finally got my certification. And so it was a very big milestone for me, and have been kind of trying to.

get going and you know teaching classes and finding my groove and so yeah that's kind of where I am. Ow.

Dr. Shannon (19:01.505)
Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (19:07.855)
Uh, so that's a fun, that's a fun full circle trip. Um, I know right before we started recording, when we were chatting a little bit, cause I...

Milene Miller (19:12.07)
Yes, it is.

Dr. Shannon (19:19.415)
I love your website because you do have an about me page and it really does go through a little bit of that birth history for you. And so I think that's why I like to talk about these things with birth workers because not that I want birth workers to come in with some sort of bias into the world, but also some sort of just why it's that why you do what you do type of thing. And so those life experiences can lead to it. But I know you and I had very similar first births as far as that just that cascade.

of interventions there. So, and you even said, I remember with my second one, I was at 36 weeks and I was like, oh my gosh, if I don't want to have another cesarean, I've got to do something differently. Like I've got to change something from what I was doing beforehand. And so you kind of, you did the same thing. It was like, okay, well, how can I set myself up for success, you know, with that?

I just love that part of your story and then how it branched into all the kiddos. All the kiddos, yeah. Yeah, I know. And I like that you had your hospital birth, it went well, and then even your home birth year. So you've experienced them all. That's really fun. That's a good background and history to have. Now.

Milene Miller (20:26.727)
Guess I had lots of kiddos in the end.

Milene Miller (20:34.838)
Yes.

Milene Miller (20:40.842)
Mm-hmm. So I will. Thank you.

Dr. Shannon (20:42.715)
Let's get into a little bit. I want to go a little more in depth with the with hypno babies because you talked about it is a and well, I don't say intensive class, but it is. It's a commitment, you know, and it sounds like there's a good deal of time involved too, because I too just took the hospital childbirth education weekend class, which was a lot of you know, hospital policies.

Milene Miller (20:59.182)
Yes.

Dr. Shannon (21:12.929)
So this is why I always really do advocate for something outside of just that hospital class so We're where should we start with the what is Let's go with what is hypnosis like is it so it is a full-blown like Hypnosis aspect of things and then it's those tools are just applied to the birthing process I mean, I know you talked about using these skills

Milene Miller (21:13.09)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (21:38.83)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (21:39.447)
at other parts of your life. So let's start with that hypnosis aspect, because it's not like someone's there with you. I guess people think of hypnosis as someone else is leading you in something. So this has got to be something that you can lead yourself in, correct? So maybe let's start with that.

Milene Miller (21:49.666)
Yes.

Milene Miller (21:56.214)
Yes. So it's considered self-hypnosis, what we do in hypno babies, but ultimately all hypnosis is actually considered self-hypnosis. And the reason for that is that you, it's always a choice. Even when you are engaging in like hypnotherapy with a hypnotherapist, you are saying, I wanna be here.

I'm engaging in this, I'm saying yes. And so anytime you are engaging in hypnosis, you have to say yes and mentally go along with the process. Otherwise it doesn't work. And so hypnosis at its sort of core or its most simplest definition, I guess, is when we take the

There is, we have our conscious mind and our subconscious mind, and in between the two we have our critical faculty, which is what sort of like, it's like a filter. And so when we hear something consciously, our critical faculty is able to listen and say, is this true to what my belief system says I believe? And it can either reject or accept whatever you have just heard.

And so what our goal is, is to get into the subconscious mind, bypass the critical faculty. And the way that we do that is through hypnosis. And so hypnosis kind of puts the critical faculty in a state of rest, where we can kind of go around it and access our subconscious mind. And our subconscious mind is where we can then affect the greatest change, because...

when we go into our subconscious mind, which is where we house our entire life experience, and that is what then creates our belief systems about different things. And so we go into that belief system of birth. What has our entire life taught us? What birth is? And that's what we believe on a subconscious level about birth. Now, depending on

Milene Miller (24:10.882)
who you are and sort of what your experiences has been and maybe what movies you've watched and what our culture has told you as a child and as a young person growing up. Maybe well-meaning friends have, you know, talk to you about their births. You have this belief system of what you think birth is like. For most of us, it's a little scary.

And so how do we change that? How do we change that belief system? How do we make it less scary? How do we change the idea that birth is filled with pain and change that narrative? And so how can we make it something that can be, filled with joy? How can it be something that is normal, natural, the feelings that you experience are not feelings necessarily of pain. It can be feelings of

pressure of, you know, pulling, of tugging, it's normal bodily sensations. And yes, maybe it's intense, maybe there's a degree of discomfort in there, but it's normal. You don't have to fear it. It's not something that is happening, you know, to you, it's happening inside of you and it's part of you. And so when we are able to change that belief system.

it becomes something that you don't have to consciously think because your subconscious is just believing it already. And the way that we do that is we kind of put this, you know, we put the critical faculty to rest and then we give suggestions to the subconscious mind. And so that is what a lot of the process in hypno babies on the hypnosis side is about. It is about like listening to tracks that have a lot of positive suggestions in them about birth, about the birthing experience.

And we talk a little you know it's it really is just all filled with this positive message about birth and so are we're trying to Give your mind new food Fill it and to try to kind of let's throw out that old belief system So that your new belief system is good, and it's positive and you don't go into birth expecting

Milene Miller (26:35.274)
what the old system told you, but now you have changed that belief system out. And so that is the sort of, if you talk about the hypnotherapy aspect of hypno babies, that is a lot of the process. And that is why you need time because hypnosis take, it builds on each other. Then one of the beautiful side effects of being in hypnosis is having this physical relaxation and comfort. And so we lean into that.

Dr. Shannon (26:47.317)
Mm-hmm

Dr. Shannon (26:54.087)
Uh huh.

Milene Miller (27:04.846)
And we say when you use this during your birthing time, when you are physically relaxed and comfortable and you continue to do, because it really has to be a continual process. You can't do it for five minutes and then say, okay, I'm good for the rest of my birth. You have to keep doing it. And then we give you tools to keep doing it. We give you partner tools. We give you tools to continually kind of feed that hypnosis so that you stay in a physically relaxed and calm state.

Dr. Shannon (27:19.991)
Uh huh.

Milene Miller (27:34.154)
where your muscles are loose and relaxed. And so you don't experience as much tension. And when the tension is, yes. And when the tension is gone, we experience less discomfort. And so we are able to be in a much more comfortable state throughout our births. And our body is able to work more efficiently because when you are comfortable and you are in that relaxed state,

Dr. Shannon (27:39.083)
as much tension yeah probably in the jaw uh-huh

Dr. Shannon (27:58.464)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (28:03.846)
your birthing hormones are going to work better, right? It's going to be like the flow of birthing hormones is just going to just keep going more efficiently. And your uterus will be doing its job without anything from the outside standing in its way. And so we get this birthing process that just sort of goes a little bit smoother than it maybe would have.

while you stay much more comfortable. And one of the big things that I have noticed that really kind of struck me is with, and I will say that you can, this state of very deep relaxation and very deep, that sort of state of hypnosis, Hypno Babies gives you a very clear way of achieving that. It gives you steps, things to do, tools to use.

You can do it without HypnoBabies. There are other ways that you can achieve this, but it's maybe a little bit more difficult and you have to like really dig to find what your thing is. And so HypnoBabies just gives you a clear, like this is the program, you follow these steps, if you use these tools, if you start early, they really lay it out very clearly so that you are able to use it.

Dr. Shannon (29:23.837)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (29:27.298)
And what I've noticed with these moms in a very kind of real way, a very measurable way, is that when you have a mom who is in that beautiful, relaxed state, you see it on the heart rate monitors. And mom's heart rate is high 60s, 70s, kind of. You can see she's not working that hard.

Dr. Shannon (29:55.931)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (29:57.162)
as opposed to moms that are really struggling, right? That are like just barely coping. And then your heart rate goes into the 90s, the 100s, and you're working really hard. Like your respiratory rate goes up really high. You're physically exerting yourself. And that then plays into the postpartum experience. And that's, I personally experienced this where after my birth, you know, I was like, ooh, I'm.

Dr. Shannon (30:20.363)
Mm-hmm, exactly.

Milene Miller (30:27.33)
jumping out of bed, like walking around, all the nurses were like, whoa, you know, sit down. I'm like, I feel fine, I feel great. You know, I don't feel tired because I was in a calm, restful state. I wasn't hard.

Dr. Shannon (30:38.935)
you weren't fighting it, right? You know, it's called that sympathetic tone, that fight or flight, you weren't fighting it as much. And so that's kind of what this sounds like is it does promote that parasympathetic to where it's more of that ease. Yeah, because if you're fighting it, then you're stressed and then baby's stressed. Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (30:53.762)
Yeah, and you're, you're resting more. So you're just not working as hard and mentally you are, you're maybe playing a game and like really kind of keep feeding into yourself mentally and that when you keep feeding into yourself mentally, it has a physical response. Um, and so that's, you know, one of the things that I absolutely love about hypno babies and the fact that you do get so many tools and.

Dr. Shannon (31:05.373)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (31:14.531)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (31:22.447)
These are, yeah, these are definitely tools to use outside of birth as well. Like there's a whole other thing, I know. I've done hypnosis before, that's a show for another day. But it was very interesting. I mean, mine was kind of led by someone and it wasn't this aspect of.

Milene Miller (31:30.05)
Yes.

Dr. Shannon (31:45.643)
let's use this and incorporate it into your everyday. You know, now one thing that came to mind, I don't know if you ever saw the movie, what is it, Inside Out, is that the one with the...

Milene Miller (31:46.243)
music.

Dr. Shannon (31:57.207)
all the little people, the core memories. And all I can think of is we've got the core memories of how our birth was formed. And then we have like joy and sadness and fear and disgust like having a party. And that's the critical factors that are like, calm down. I can see anger like, yeah. So that's what came to mind when you were describing all of that. I love it. Cause that's what I can see jumping around in the moms if we've got the high heart rate and we're fighting and we're struggling. It's cause you know, anger's in there

Milene Miller (31:57.702)
People tip the head. Yes.

Milene Miller (32:08.123)
and then we'll have a party.

Milene Miller (32:14.559)
So now I'll point you to my hearing-scribing. Yeah. I'll be back. OK. Bye. Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (32:27.121)
fears in there, disgusted, all of that, they're just kind of, they're each speaking their voice as opposed to kind of silencing that for a little bit.

Milene Miller (32:36.972)
Yeah, happiness saying like, we're good. We're good. Everything's fine. What?

Dr. Shannon (32:40.355)
Uh-huh. Joy is trying to like get everybody, get everybody to come. We saw what happened in that movie with Joy trying to do all that. So, um, anyway that was my side note with that. Um, now, so there, it sounds like there's...

homework aspect to this as well too. Like quite, and I don't wanna say like it's, you know, quite a bit of work, but in the aspect of you are going to these classes, and then there's work to be done at home. Did you say there was work to be done? Like.

Milene Miller (32:56.195)
See ya.

Dr. Shannon (33:13.083)
for mom to just kind of do on her own. And then there's partner aspects too, because if partner is around, like is that, are there things that they can do as well? And even if mom is solo, like is it enough for her to be able to use that on her own?

Milene Miller (33:30.646)
Yes, so it is definitely a program that was developed with, it can be used by yourself. So if you are a single mom, if you don't have a birth partner, you absolutely can do it by yourself. And Hypno Babies has created additional tools for those moms. But it also is a program that's developed to have a high partner support sort of aspects. And so.

Yes, there is homework and we call it home play. We like to put a positive spin on everything. But every week moms are encouraged to listen to their tracks every day. And so there is a track and then there's also a script that partners are encouraged to read. And so they kind of alternate between the track and the script. And so part of why we want partners to read the script is that it

Dr. Shannon (34:01.027)
Ah, I like that, yeah yeah.

Milene Miller (34:26.498)
their voices become a hypnotic anchor to their partner. And so when mom is in her birthing time, her partner's voice is automatically soothing to her. And so, because she's been hearing it for all these weeks as he has read to her, and it becomes a hypnotic anchor. And so a lot of our things, the music that we use as well, we have a music that was...

that is a biurnal beats. And so it's that, you know, automatically kind of helps your brain calm down. And we use that in the background of every single one of our tracks and that music by itself turns into also a hypnotic anchor so that as soon as you start hearing that music, you kind of instantly sort of start, okay, I can relax. And so,

Dr. Shannon (34:56.831)
Mm-hmm. I used to study to that or you know the different frequencies. Yes. Yes

Milene Miller (35:23.55)
you are encouraged to practice every single day. But then there's also supplemental reading. So we cover a ton of childbirth education in class. So we go over the whole birthing process. We go over your birthing choices. We go over so, so much content. But then there's additional, every student gets like a thick book with about 200 pages of additional material.

and it's split up into the six weeks. So each class is three hours long. So there's 18 hours of instructional material plus home play. And so you get a book and each week there's a section for each class with additional information. And that's gonna just go into things a little bit deeper because we can't, even that those three hours gets, that gets full. You can only fit so much into three hours. And so.

Dr. Shannon (36:14.737)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (36:18.898)
it will go into things a little bit deeper. So things like the optimal cord clamping, it'll go, there'll be articles in there about, let's talk a little bit more about this. Some of the things are short, some things are just kind of glanced through, some of it are longer articles for students to read. And then in addition to that, Hypno Babies has a whole online resource guide where if you are like, I wanna know, where did Hypno Babies,

get all this information that they're telling us, you can go to their online resource guide and you can go and see all of their resources to look into things even more if you really are called, you know, feeling a call to do that. And so I kind of, you know, so for some people, it might feel a little bit like information overload. There's a lot of information, there's a lot of content because HypnoBabies really tries to not hold back on anything, but it is very thorough.

And so you're definitely walking away with.

Dr. Shannon (37:19.075)
Mm-hmm. That's the key. It's thorough, but it sounds like it breaks it down because you've got those six three hours sessions, so it's not it can be information overload if it was all in like one Aspect you know and so it kind of builds upon so I guess the big take home with it too is the earlier starting with hypno babies the better as far as

Milene Miller (37:32.854)
Yes.

Dr. Shannon (37:46.988)
using it for labor and birth, you know, and that.

Milene Miller (37:50.006)
So the recommendation is to really not wait until later than 30 weeks, but that's kind of the latest that you should wait and I would say that around 25 weeks is about the between 25 and 30 weeks is a really great time to get going and start. If you start too early it might become it's just like too much for too long doing the practice like every single day. So I would see somebody being sort of like falling off if that makes sense.

and being like, oh, I've been listening to these every day for so many weeks and I just don't feel like doing it and then kind of flipping away. And so I would say that it might be better to do it past your halfway mark and not doing it super, super early. But it definitely is good to have because we do have something called maintenance phase. And so that is after you finish your six weeks.

Dr. Shannon (38:26.154)
Yeah.

Milene Miller (38:47.386)
We kind of want you to be in maintenance for a couple of weeks where you're just practicing and you don't, all the reading is done, all the class stuff is done, and now you're just practicing your hypnosis every day. And just, because that is compounding and every time you enter hypnosis, it happens faster, it's easier. So that by the time your birthing starts, you're able to just very quickly.

And we talk about, we have a mental light switch that we talk about in class, and you're able to just turn that switch off very quickly and easily. And so, that's what we're training for this whole time. This.

Dr. Shannon (39:24.971)
Yes, it's training. I love that. That's why I run a lot. And I know Rachel always likes to talk about the running stuff that I do because it does relate so much to your training for your to give birth, you know, there's some things that can go into it. So yeah, it's just part of the training process. Now with the tracks.

Milene Miller (39:44.29)
Yes.

Dr. Shannon (39:50.955)
Is that something, is something you talk about in class, but then that's part of the homework, is kind of listening to those tracks, correct?

Milene Miller (39:59.118)
Mm-hmm. Yes, so the tracks, we don't really listen to any tracks in class. The tracks are all part of what you do at home. And then you have specifically birthing day tracks. And so those are gonna be the tracks that you are going to be listening to during your birthing time.

Some of the tracks that you listen to during your pregnancy you can also use during your birthing time. You end up having a total of 20 tracks. And there's even a track in there specifically for birth partners, which is there. They call it relax and feel confident. And so just to help birth partners as well with like, because we sometimes overlook dads and partners and sometimes they are feeling kind of, right? They're feeling a little anxious as well.

Dr. Shannon (40:35.911)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (40:39.259)
They go through a lot of emotions too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Milene Miller (40:44.286)
They are also, they might not be physically having a baby, but they are also in the process of having a child maybe for the first time, that they didn't have before, and they're watching their loved one, you know, going through this process. And it can definitely cause some anxiety. And so we'd like to help our birth partners as well in that.

Dr. Shannon (41:05.607)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, they need help too. Don't forget about them now with Jessica and I'm gonna link to her birth story Cuz I remember I wrote episode it was and I don't even know when this episode's gonna go out so I'll put it in the show notes there, but

Milene Miller (41:09.771)
Yeah.

Milene Miller (41:16.696)
Okay.

Dr. Shannon (41:25.767)
She did specifically the Christian hypnobirthing. So is there a difference in the hypnobirthing world for those things? I mean, obviously it would make sense. It's more of a Christian religious state point to it, but what does that look like? Does it sound differently? Are the tracks different? What's the difference there?

Milene Miller (41:29.527)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (41:45.458)
So the big difference for me about, and I won't talk about other methods and I'll all specifically just talk about what makes hypno babies different. So I don't want to like, you know, throw shade at anybody else. But the big thing with hypno babies is that it is based on clinical hypnotherapy. And so it goes in very deeply in terms of.

the kind of clinical hypnotherapy aspect and it's a lot more, I don't want to say scientifically based, but it's, there's much more of a process. Um, and it's not just listen to these tracks and become deeply relaxed. It's a lot more than that. Uh, the founder of Hypno Babies, she actually taught other birthing classes prior to having her own children than had her own child and had a very

Dr. Shannon (42:28.182)
Okay.

Milene Miller (42:41.45)
and said, this didn't work. Like all this that I've been teaching for years, like this doesn't work. I did not like this. And so she went on this mission to find something better. And eventually she came to hypnobirthing. And she actually approached, there is a master hypnotherapist Gerald Klein. He had developed a pain-free childbirth method.

but it was something where you had to go and sit in his office and he would work with you. And so she went to him and said, can I take your program that you've developed and can I take it and turn it into Hypno Babies, which is we're going to combine it with this complete evidence-based childbirth education. We're gonna take both of these parts, we're gonna put them together and we're going to make, you know, create a way for

hopefully thousands of women to be able to have easier, more comfortable childbirths. And he gave her his blessing. And so she took his, you know, real like hypnotherapist techniques to creating comfort and turned it into this method of child birthing. And so things that you get in hypnobirth or in hypno babies that sort of sets it apart, I really believe is

One of the things is you are taught how to create hypnoanesthesia, which is something that is used by hypnotherapists in dentistry a lot, or in the world of medicine for patients that cannot use anesthesia. And they go through this process of teaching them how to create hypnoanesthesia so that they are able to undergo procedures and operations with zero anesthesia. And so,

we go into teaching our students how to create hypnoanesthesia within their body and how to direct it and kind of move it around and create comfort anywhere they need it. And then we create these hypnotic anchors. And so we have the light switch, the mental light switch, a little light switch at the back of your neck that you can turn off or you can turn on and you can turn it off. And we can also, something that we have is we have what we call a center switch, which allows you to be

Milene Miller (45:05.922)
deeply in hypnosis, but you can open your eyes. You can walk, you can talk, you can move around, you can interact with people, but your physical body still stays very, very relaxed. We give keywords, so we have multiple keywords that can be used and that we practice during those six weeks with our partners that helps our mom kind of like, okay, let's relax a little deeper.

Let's go a little bit deeper. Remember, you can turn off now. And so we use those keywords and those hypnotic anchors to keep our students in that state of relaxation. And so that I feel like is kind of what sets HypnoBabies apart is that it's based very much on clinical hypnotherapy techniques. It's not just listen to some calming tracks and pretty words and go become relaxed.

It's here are actual techniques that you can use. And yes, there's a process to it. And here are tools that you can implement during your birthing time to kind of help you in this process. So yeah, that's my, why I love Hypno Baby. So, I'm gonna leave you with that.

Dr. Shannon (46:09.413)
There's a process to it.

Dr. Shannon (46:21.583)
Yeah, the process, the process to it, that's good. What do you get asked mostly, or are there frequent questions that come up from potential clients or those that are seeking hypnotherapy or hypno-babies therapy?

Milene Miller (46:43.398)
Oh gosh, most of my students that have decided to take hypno babies, they come into it fairly well like, oh, this is definitely something I want to do.

Milene Miller (47:00.058)
I would say that one of the big, from outsider's perspective, that I've heard a lot is, especially here in, obviously we live in the Bible Belt, there has definitely been a, and I will say that myself personally, my first subliminal hypno babies, I was like, hypnosis, I was like, what is, like, how does this work entirely? I wasn't...

I was a little bit skeptical until I got into the class and God explained to me a little bit more, but I was open, but I was still kind of like, hmm. And so I've definitely been met a couple times with, it goes against my religion. Hypnosis goes against my religion. And so things like that where it's like, well, hypnosis as we see it in the movies is very much not what it actually is in real life. So people have this misconception about it where they think that

it is somebody controlling you. And so they think of, you know, a pocket watch swinging back and forth, and you going into this trance-like state where somebody can tell you to do whatever they want you to do, and you have no control over yourself, and you have to do what they tell you to. And so that, again, our belief system that's been created by media and... Yes.

Dr. Shannon (47:55.907)
controlling you. Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (48:16.935)
I was going to say it sounds just like our, yeah, how did we learn about birth? How did we learn about hypnosis? Good grief, Hollywood. They're infiltrating all things.

Milene Miller (48:27.518)
And so that is something that's definitely come up. And so like, no, you know, and then I try to sort of gently talk about it and say, well, that's what the movies make it sound like, make it look like. But at the end of the day, all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. And even if you go to a show where there is like a stage hypnotist, they are extremely good at picking people out of the crowd that are suggestible.

And that person that's there came there that day, wanting to be there, wanting to see a show. And then when they usually could bring multiple people up on the stage and then kind of like in the process of elimination, find that person that they think will kind of go along with this the best. And then in that moment where that stage hypnotist is, you know, doing the stage hypnosis, that person

is agreeing, you know, and that's again, it's like, you have to say yes. And so that person is saying yes. And so there was an agreement, an unspoken agreement between those two before it happened that person said, I I'm here willingly. I'm willingly participating in this, you know, silliness. Um, and so it, again, it was.

Dr. Shannon (49:36.635)
and spoken.

Milene Miller (49:51.394)
If he walked up there and was like, there's no way that I'm doing anything, nobody would be able to do anything to him. And it's the same way with hypno babies. And I actually caught myself out a few times with that at the beginning of my process, where there's things in the tracks where it's like, it'll say, and now just, you know, focus on your eyelids and they just feel so heavy. And if you try them, you'll find that you can't even open them.

Dr. Shannon (49:57.676)
Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (50:01.006)
Yeah.

Milene Miller (50:18.878)
And I was the stubborn one that was like, I can totally open my eyes. Yes. I was like, don't tell me what to do. And so what I realized very quickly though, is that it's not gonna work if you don't say yes. If you want it to work, you have to lean into it and you have to say yes. And you have to say, oh yes, my eyelids are so heavy. I really can't open them. And so the more you lean into it and the more, because it's

Dr. Shannon (50:22.621)
They'll tell you what to do. Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (50:32.512)
Yeah.

Milene Miller (50:48.474)
I know that everything in the hypno babies, you know, process is good, it's positive, like it's all things I want. Like I want this, like what they're offering me, I want this. I want an easier, more comfortable childbirth. I want to change my belief systems on birth. I want this. And so to get it, I have to participate. And if you don't participate, it's not going to work.

Dr. Shannon (51:12.001)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (51:16.431)
Yeah, and I bet some people could even anchor to potentially like Bible verses or something like that because I've had moms, you know, speak about that before too. So you know, it's kind of.

Milene Miller (51:17.534)
It's different.

Milene Miller (51:23.918)
Absolutely.

Milene Miller (51:28.202)
Yes. You can incorporate anything you want to into it. And so that is actually with my daughter's birth, we were listening to worship music throughout the whole process as well. And I basically didn't use any of my hypno baby's tracks during her birth because I could do it by myself so easily. I didn't need instructions anymore. And so I was just leading myself in the hypnosis aspect.

Dr. Shannon (51:46.061)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (51:49.955)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (51:56.554)
And but I had worship music playing, which had just this beautiful, you know, it was just like speaking truth to my heart. And it just helped me to kind of release that much more because it gave me something even more that kind of was like, I'm safe. This is, you know, a beautiful process. I don't need to be afraid of what's going on. And so I definitely, I incorporate with my clients that,

you know, do have a strong, you know, strong faith. And that was with Jessica. You know, we spoke at length about, you know, about her faith and she really wanted to incorporate it into her birth. And I said, you know, I think hypno babies or Christian hypno birthing would be a great choice for you because she had already gone through three births. We knew by that point that she could do this. She could do this. She's already done it. She's already proved it to herself.

Dr. Shannon (52:29.489)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (52:45.799)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (52:53.109)
Yeah.

Milene Miller (52:54.698)
I don't think she held onto a lot of fear necessarily. She just needed that surrender. And so Christian Hypnobirthing was the perfect fit for her because it gave, it just spoke into her what she needed to hear.

Dr. Shannon (53:02.405)
Mm-hmm

Dr. Shannon (53:10.719)
Yeah, and that's nice though, as far as being able to help people focus on those things and like what is it that maybe they need to hear to help, you know, release some of those fears and or some of those things. Change the core memory on birth a little bit there.

Milene Miller (53:30.879)
Yes.

Dr. Shannon (53:32.071)
Now with your doula clients, I'm sure you support births even if mom doesn't want to do hypno birthing. So your doula work can kind of ebb and flow in that. And then the photography work too. So you can come in and be doula and photographer with whatever childbirth education class, you know, folks choose as well to correct. Yeah. How has...

Milene Miller (53:41.282)
Yes.

Milene Miller (53:51.979)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Dr. Shannon (54:00.035)
I know you said you just kind of picked up a camera and started documenting the birth too. So touch a little bit on how that doula and birth photography kind of ebbed and flowed together.

Milene Miller (54:13.614)
So I've always been an artistic person. And so I've always thought like, oh, it could be really fun to pick up photography. I could see myself doing that. I think I could manage that fairly well. And I just never did it. And so with my own births, of course, I had my photographer and she was amazing. And so I always knew that was something that I wanted to incorporate. Once I kind of started on the doula path, I said, this is something that's so important to me.

birth photography and having that documentation of your birth, birthing time, that I started looking into it, how can I incorporate this? And so that is when I found there is a group, and you might know them, called Birth Becomes You, which is run by two birth photographers. And every year, or actually twice a year, they have a class called Essence of Birth. And it's an online class, but they also do Zoom.

Dr. Shannon (54:56.939)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (55:10.758)
one on, not one on ones that do like Zoom group meetings every week during, during the session. And I said, well, I'm going to take, I'm going to sign up for this class so I can start to figure out how to utilize a camera. And so that was kind of where it all started was I, I had a camera that I was borrowing from my mother-in-law, but I was using it on like auto, which doesn't provide the best results.

And so in this process of going through the Essence of Birth course, I learned how to use my camera properly. You know, I always knew how to make a good composition. That's something that like, if you've done any kind of art, any kind of art background, you know how to compose pictures. And so I knew how to take, you know, how to frame a picture. Like I knew what looked good, but how do I manipulate light? How do I?

Dr. Shannon (55:48.235)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (56:06.207)
Yeah, so that you can actually see everything. Yeah, how can you get the best image?

Milene Miller (56:08.822)
Yes, and how do you make that depth of field? And so how do you take your camera from auto to manual and start manipulating all those little things on it? And so that's really what that course taught me. And I started messing around with it a little bit. I started just kind of throwing in birth photography for my doula clients that had already...

They were already my dual appliance. I said, you know, hey, I'm, are you okay with me taking some pictures during your birth? And, um, that's kind of how it started to sort of just get a feeling for it. But yeah, I mean, I just absolutely felt like I, I really loved it and kind of took to it quickly and yeah, it's just.

Dr. Shannon (56:58.947)
It's gone from there. Yeah. No, I've heard of that group. I didn't know that they did teachings though I know don't they do like a photography Do you do a birth photography like contest or something like that or people can? Yeah, I'm always like oh my god those images. So that's really cool though In the art I found that most Duelists that do photography or that aspect that they do have that artistic Background to them and so it just kind of ebbs and flows

Milene Miller (57:11.519)
Yes, the Shokans, they just did it this year.

Dr. Shannon (57:28.801)
into like, well, I've also got this helper in me as well too. And so you just kind of put those together and can capture those images. So do you do a lot of home births or do you do a lot of hospital births or is it kind of a good mix?

Milene Miller (57:46.558)
It's a mix right now. I would definitely say that it's used to hospital birth purely because of the need. That's kind of where, you know, the majority of women seeking doulas, at least from my, you know, that's, so that's a lot of the population that I'm serving right now is hospital-based. I do have, you know, home birth clients. I love doing home births. They're certainly like, it's just such a beautiful experience. It's very different.

Dr. Shannon (57:52.386)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (57:59.223)
are still giving birth. Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (58:13.955)
It's different. It's very different, right? Yeah.

Milene Miller (58:17.614)
I love doing home birth. I'd love to do more home births, but it's, yeah, I do. I don't currently. Yes, well, and that's actually so my end goal one day is, I know that I have had a heart for, it started with wanting to be an OBGYN, but I have had a heart for midwifery for many, many years. Before I even thought about becoming a doula, I thought, oh, maybe one day I'll.

Dr. Shannon (58:20.46)
Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (58:24.419)
We need more home birth midwives in Georgia. That's what we need. Ha ha ha.

Milene Miller (58:46.498)
go back and I'll become a nurse and then I'll go into midwifery. And so in the years to come, my and sort of my kids are older and I have more time. I would love to pursue midwifery. Uh, but right now this is, you know, this is where I am and this is where I'm.

Dr. Shannon (59:04.739)
Well, yeah, this is where you're at and that's okay because how do you fit in your doula work because birth is unpredictable. So every time I send an email to a birth worker to come on and do the show, it's always, I mean every email is like, oh yeah, that date sounds great as long as I'm not at a birth. Like it's like that. It's hilarious. So how do you fit in the doula work with...

Milene Miller (59:14.836)
Uh huh.

Milene Miller (59:22.83)
Thanks for watching!

Yep.

Dr. Shannon (59:32.623)
for children under 10.

Milene Miller (59:36.062)
Yes. So my oldest two are in elementary school. My daughter is in pre-k, which is also basically full time school. And then my baby, he just started preschool and he goes actually on Tuesday, Thursdays and Fridays. But we have this amazing woman in our neighborhood that has an in-home daycare. And she's just phenomenal. She's the mom that...

Dr. Shannon (59:39.817)
Uh huh.

Dr. Shannon (01:00:01.019)
That's so good.

Milene Miller (01:00:04.758)
bakes cookies and leaves it on her porch for the rest of the neighborhood to pick up. She's just this unbelievable woman. And my son, and once we found her shortly after I kind of started my doula business, and my two-year-old, when I dropped him off there, he shows me the door. He's like, bye, mom, leave. Yes, and so it is just such a blessing to have that.

Dr. Shannon (01:00:25.323)
Yeah, he's like, you can go now.

Milene Miller (01:00:32.49)
system and have know that I have this person that I can send my son to and she feeds him and takes care of him and she's just amazing so and then and then on the other side of that I have my husband who's just my absolute greatest supporter and cheerleader and I mean I could not do any of what I do without him and he you know will be he is stuck at home with all four kids

regularly. And he doesn't, you know, he doesn't, they're his children. So he doesn't complain. He just, he just does this thing. He's just a parent. He takes care of the dishes and the laundry and anything that needs to happen. If I'm not here, he steps in and he takes care of it. And so, you know, I married a wonderful partner. And he, we definitely.

Dr. Shannon (01:01:00.86)
Thanks for watching!

Dr. Shannon (01:01:06.828)
Yes. Yeah.

He does everything. Uh-huh.

Milene Miller (01:01:29.518)
There's no kind of like his work, her work. It's just all our work. And so we just do what needs to get done around the house and we both step in a little bit more when we need to and when the other person needs that slack and it's a great partnership. So.

Dr. Shannon (01:01:32.543)
Uh-huh. It's a razor. Yep.

Dr. Shannon (01:01:41.255)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I heard Brene Brown recently, some interview that she had done and it was talking about how her and her husband communicate and it'll be like, okay, I've got 80% to give today, you know, or they come in and like, I got 20, you know, like, I'm going to need that push pull that give take kind of thing. So but that's what you I mean, to live in that unpredictable birth worker world, you know, you need that. So you need that support system. So that's why I wanted to highlight that a little bit.

Milene Miller (01:02:05.639)
Yeah.

Milene Miller (01:02:14.83)
Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (01:02:16.98)
Okay, so again, tell us what your business name is and where can people connect with you and find you and reach out to you.

Milene Miller (01:02:27.342)
So my business name is Harmony Birth Services, and you can find me online at harmonybirthservices.com. I'm also on Instagram, there I am Harmony Birth ATL, so not Harmony Birth Services, Harmony Birth ATL, and then I'm also Harmony Birth Services on Facebook, and that is kind of my main, those are my main platforms, so my website, Instagram, and Facebook.

Dr. Shannon (01:02:56.895)
and you do regular hypno baby or yeah, hypno baby birthing classes. Do you offer them both in person and virtually?

Milene Miller (01:03:07.074)
So I currently, the classes coming up is actually gonna be a hybrid class. And so we will do the first and the last classes in person. And then the middle four classes we will do virtually over Zoom. And that has been, so what I have found is that a lot of people want an in-person aspect. And so they don't necessarily wanna do all virtual. But then because the Atlanta area is so big.

meeting six weeks in a row in one location can be difficult for people coming from far away. And so I've, if you only have to come for the first and the sixth class, that's a lot more doable. You only have to travel that, you know, two times. And then the rest is going to be, you know, and I think I'm sort of still playing with what is going to work the best, but I feel like I really like that model.

Dr. Shannon (01:03:41.063)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (01:03:57.696)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (01:04:01.494)
And so I might stick with that for the next couple of classes. And so my next class that's coming up starts on October the 13th and runs through November the 17th. And that's going to be on Fridays from six to nine. And that first and sixth class will be at Exodus Health Center in Kennesaw. And that will be my last class for this year. And then coming up next year, I will probably only be offering quarterly classes every three months because it is a six week long class.

Dr. Shannon (01:04:30.883)
That's a big, yeah, yeah.

Milene Miller (01:04:32.894)
Um, and I'd rather, you know, have one class that's full with, you know, that have a lot of people in it. It's also nice for people to kind of be able to talk amongst themselves. I create a Facebook page for each cohort so that they can also, you know, they on Facebook, they can send me questions. I'll post things there for them. Um, sort of a way of keeping in contact. And I love for everybody to then share their birthing stories once they have

Dr. Shannon (01:04:43.679)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, maybe birthing around the same time. Okay.

Dr. Shannon (01:04:51.652)
Connect.

Milene Miller (01:05:02.434)
have had their babies. But yes, so the last class for the for this year is coming up in October.

Dr. Shannon (01:05:10.597)
And all of that, the Hypno Baby classes are on your website, correct?

Milene Miller (01:05:14.91)
Yes, so the current, the one that starts in October is listed on my website under the Hypno Babies tab.

Dr. Shannon (01:05:23.38)
Yeah. Let's see, anything else you wanted to mention or talk about with doula work or what you do or hypno babies or anything? I know we talked about a lot.

Milene Miller (01:05:35.95)
I know, I talked a lot. That's always, you know, when you get me talking about things that I'm passionate about, I can definitely talk about.

Dr. Shannon (01:05:43.88)
Every birth worker's like that. So I have an outline so I can try to keep us on path. You had lots of good information though.

Milene Miller (01:05:49.728)
Yes.

Yes, no, and it's, you know, that's, as a doula, I just want to see women supported and given that information. And so that is what, you know, even when you don't have hypno babies, even if you haven't done any, even when you haven't done any prep leading up to your birth, I always tell people that my goal for you during your birth is that when you are, when we face those questions,

we're able to look at all the information. And once you have all the information, at that point, every single time, mother's intuition is the way to go. When mom knows the risks, the benefits, the alternatives of every option, and then she looks within herself and says, this is what I'm feeling is the right next step, it hasn't failed yet. Even when I don't agree, even when I'm like,

Dr. Shannon (01:06:34.077)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (01:06:50.119)
Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (01:06:51.846)
I don't know if that's the right choice. I don't say it out loud, but even in I have doubts, every single time mom's intuition, when she has all the facts, that's the key. She needs to know all the pieces. When she knows all the pieces and then she looks inside and says, I think this is what I wanna do, it's the right choice. And at the end of...

Dr. Shannon (01:07:02.907)
That's the key.

Dr. Shannon (01:07:12.207)
when she's the active participant instead of it just happening to her. And those, I mean, I feel like one of your keywords is choices and letting women know that they, that there are options and choices in labor and birth. And it's really, yeah, it's discovering those. Mm-hmm.

Milene Miller (01:07:24.042)
Yeah. And it's their birth. They are allowed to make the choices. They don't just have to go along with whatever is being told to them.

Dr. Shannon (01:07:35.655)
Mm-hmm. I know. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. I had such a good chat with you and I hope everybody goes and checks out your website learns more about Babies and what it can offer the birth and community. Thanks friend

Milene Miller (01:07:37.678)
Thank you.

Milene Miller (01:07:52.938)
Thank you for having me.