Technique focuses on relaxation and self-hypnosis during the birth… Spike in interest has seen NHS trusts offering courses for free… Experts say increase in popularity is largely down to 'word of mouth'… 

Most pregnancies are medically uneventful and end happily in the successful birth of a healthy baby. But you still have 40 weeks to wonder whether certain physical and emotional discomforts are serious enough for medical intervention or are minor problems you can deal with on your own.

A natural birth is something many pregnant women plan and hope to experience. The choice to have a natural, unmedicated and intervention-free birth should ultimately be decided by mother and baby wellbeing. 

Leukaemia accounts for about 30 per cent of all childhood cancers… Most likely reason why breastfeeding reduces the risk is because it transfers chemicals that boost the infants' immune system… Experts: 'Study adds further weight to the benefits of breast feeding'… 

Dr Michel Odent: Women giving birth should be protected from stimulation… Conscious thinking turns off the primitive system that allows them to give birth quickly and painlessly, he argues… If there is no thinking, the 'foetus ejection reflex' can occur, where the baby slips out quickly and easily while the woman in an 'ecstatic state'… Fathers should be banned from birth as they stop the woman relaxing…