Susan Marx, BA International Relations, MA African Studies, MA International Human Rights Law, HBCE
Area: Pretoria
I am a native South African who lived and worked overseas (USA, Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor-Leste) for 20 years from 1997-2017.
In 2010 I was pregnant with my first child and planned to have the birth in South Africa. After visiting a number of hospitals, I was concerned with the highly medicalized approach to birthing in South Africa and sought alternatives, which is how I came to know HypnoBirthing. I subsequently planned on having a home birth with a midwife in Cape Town. As with most births, mine did not go as planned, and I never made it to South Africa. Instead, I went into spontaneous early labor at 30 weeks in Dili, Timor-Leste, and was medevac'd to Darwin Australia, where I managed to give birth naturally, assisted by my stunning birth partner husband Chris and a midwife, using my HypnoBirthing training, to a 1.7kg baby boy, Luka.
The experience was transformational and I immediately committed to birthing my second with HypnoBirthing once again in 2015. At 28 weeks we had yet another early labor scare, and I was once more medevac'd from Timor-Leste, but managed to make it to Pretoria. Unfortunately this little guy turned breech at 30 weeks, but fortunately for us, we had the most amazing caregiver team and in close consultation with our midwife, and with the backup support of a gynie in Pretoria, we committed to birthing naturally. Our second son Cornel was born frank breech on Mothers Day in a wonderfully empowering HypnoBirth an an independently run midwife unit in Pretoria. The video of his 2:30min breech birth have been used at midwifery trainings throughout South Africa.
Fast forward to 2017 and we were expecting our third, this time we moved to South Africa to settle closer to my parents. Once again, bub was breech! Once again, we tried everything, but s/he also stayed put, and we had to make the call to proceed again. My labor was spectacular, spending it at home on a Sunday making pancakes (while in labor!) for the family, and eventually transferred to the same midwife unit to birth Stella a mere 7 minutes after arriving in the parking lot, (unexpectedly) feet first! So to say that I am a true believer in HypnoBirthing would be an understatement, given that I have what would normally be considered "high risk" births, all would have been automatic C-sections (not to mention that I had them all in my late 30s, including the last one 6 days before my 40th).
From these experiences, I knew I had to share my love of childbirth with couples, to try and demystify and de-fear couples and introduce a belief that birth could be fun, empowering and amazing. I trained with Kim Young, and now conduct HypnoBirthing classes in my free time for small groups of couples interested in pursuing an empowered, fearless birth.
When I am not teaching these classes, I am a human rights lawyer working on anti-human trafficking in persons, am an avid mountain biker, and I run around after my three busy kids.
If you live in Pretoria, particularly in the "old East" or anywhere else and would be interested in pursuing an empowered birth, please feel free to get in touch, I'd love to chat with you perhaps over a coffee.
Qualifications
I am qualified as a HypnoBirthing Practitioner (Mongan Method). I also hold a BA in International Relations from USC, a Masters in African Studies from UCLA, and a Masters in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University. I am also an amateur singer and private pilot.
I am a native South African who lived and worked overseas (USA, Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor-Leste) for 20 years from 1997-2017.
In 2010 I was pregnant with my first child and planned to have the birth in South Africa. After visiting a number of hospitals, I was concerned with the highly medicalized approach to birthing in South Africa and sought alternatives, which is how I came to know HypnoBirthing. I subsequently planned on having a home birth with a midwife in Cape Town. As with most births, mine did not go as planned, and I never made it to South Africa. Instead, I went into spontaneous early labor at 30 weeks in Dili, Timor-Leste, and was medevac'd to Darwin Australia, where I managed to give birth naturally, assisted by my stunning birth partner husband Chris and a midwife, using my HypnoBirthing training, to a 1.7kg baby boy, Luka.
The experience was transformational and I immediately committed to birthing my second with HypnoBirthing once again in 2015. At 28 weeks we had yet another early labor scare, and I was once more medevac'd from Timor-Leste, but managed to make it to Pretoria. Unfortunately this little guy turned breech at 30 weeks, but fortunately for us, we had the most amazing caregiver team and in close consultation with our midwife, and with the backup support of a gynie in Pretoria, we committed to birthing naturally. Our second son Cornel was born frank breech on Mothers Day in a wonderfully empowering HypnoBirth an an independently run midwife unit in Pretoria. The video of his 2:30min breech birth have been used at midwifery trainings throughout South Africa.
Fast forward to 2017 and we were expecting our third, this time we moved to South Africa to settle closer to my parents. Once again, bub was breech! Once again, we tried everything, but s/he also stayed put, and we had to make the call to proceed again. My labor was spectacular, spending it at home on a Sunday making pancakes (while in labor!) for the family, and eventually transferred to the same midwife unit to birth Stella a mere 7 minutes after arriving in the parking lot, (unexpectedly) feet first! So to say that I am a true believer in HypnoBirthing would be an understatement, given that I have what would normally be considered "high risk" births, all would have been automatic C-sections (not to mention that I had them all in my late 30s, including the last one 6 days before my 40th).
From these experiences, I knew I had to share my love of childbirth with couples, to try and demystify and de-fear couples and introduce a belief that birth could be fun, empowering and amazing. I trained with Kim Young, and now conduct HypnoBirthing classes in my free time for small groups of couples interested in pursuing an empowered, fearless birth.
When I am not teaching these classes, I am a human rights lawyer working on anti-human trafficking in persons, am an avid mountain biker, and I run around after my three busy kids.
If you live in Pretoria, particularly in the "old East" or anywhere else and would be interested in pursuing an empowered birth, please feel free to get in touch, I'd love to chat with you perhaps over a coffee.
Qualifications
I am qualified as a HypnoBirthing Practitioner (Mongan Method). I also hold a BA in International Relations from USC, a Masters in African Studies from UCLA, and a Masters in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University. I am also an amateur singer and private pilot.