Mum Kirsty Porter used mind-over-matter when she gave birth to her first baby.

Kirsty, 30, a hypnotherapist, used hypnosis to give birth to 9lb 3oz India and says she would do it again.

"If we are blessed with another child I would do it again. It was wonderful," said Kirsty of Caledonia Road, Lawkholme, Keighley.

Aided by a fellow hypnotherapist, Kirsty spent 18 hours under hypnosis in the first stage of labour and had a short blast of gas and air just before giving birth at Airedale General Hospital, Steeton.

Joe, her 29-year-old husband, who was present throughout her labour and the birth, said: "It was a great experience. The midwives were tremendously supportive."

Kirsty is practising as a hypnotherapist and hopes to help other women who want to shun modern technology and use natural methods to give birth.

"If any women want to know about giving birth under hypnosis I can help because not only am I qualified, but I have experienced it myself," said Kirsty.

She learned the art of hypnosis under the tutelage of a Keighley-based hypnotherapist and criticises the popular image in which people are portrayed as being under a spell.

"People are guided into hypnosis, they are not put under a spell," she said.

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