Cliodhna Griffin HBCE, CMT, APPAC is the founder of Born Free Birthing and is a certified and experienced HypnoBirthing® Educator, HypnoBirthing® Faculty Member and HypnoBirthing® Chapter Leader for the State of Texas as well as a trained Doula, Hypnotherapist and Stillbirthday Doula.
Cliodhna is also proudly Houston’s first APPA triple certified Placenta Encapsulation Specialist owning the only commercially built freestanding placenta encapsulation kitchen in SouthEast Texas and that provides exceptionally professional placenta encapsulation services to Houstonian families.
Cliodhna hails from Ireland but currently lives in Kingwood, Texas with her husband of almost 15 years and their 3 fantastic daughters, 2 of whom are darling HypnoBirthing® babies.
12 Reviews on “Cliodhna Griffin”
Cliodhna is an out of this world Hypnobirthing practitioner! Her teaching and support was exactly what I needed to compliment the birthing experience I desired! She listened! She heard my needs, fears, concerns and wants and worked with me to set me up for a successful birth of my aon. A few other things I greatly appreciated about her was her punctuality, her ability to communicate effectively, the way she worked with me and my husband as a team and her overall professionalism! She is best of class in my opinion and she has such a soothing voice with her Irish accent. You will not be disappointed if choosing BornFree Birthing and Cliodhna as your Hypnobirthing coach!
After having 2 previous births I was sure of what I didn’t want for my upcoming birth but no idea how to achieve what I did want. My OBGYN suggested Cliodhnas hypnobirthing class telling me many of her patients have had wonderful births after taking the classes and I couldn’t be more thankful I listened to this suggestion. I knew from the second we met Cliodhna that we were going to love these classes and we did. She is so enthusiastic and made me feel so confident in myself and in birth overall. Every class was packed with amazing information and was so well taught. I thought I was informed about birth having 2 children already, but I was in no way as informed as I thought. We finished the classes so excited and feeling well prepared for our upcoming birth and for what was to come. I’m so happy to say our birth really was awesome. It was everything I dreamed of and more. My husband was an amazing support all night and into the morning and was so proud of all we had done as a team to work together to birth our baby in such peace and joy. Our baby is so calm and was born so alert and is such a great sleeper and nurses like a champ, my recovery was so fast too. The fastest of all 3 births, I accredit all this to the hypnobirthing classes and Cliodhnas passion to make sure we were all well prepared from the start of our labor right up to bringing our baby home. I wish I’d known about hypnobirthing and Cliodhna before our 3rd and final birth, but I’m so thankful I got my happy, joyful and healing birth that I longed for. I highly recommend these classes to all my family and friends as does my husband…
I cannot recommend hypnobirthing or Cliodhna highly enough. I came to Cliodhna’s class on the recommendation of my midwife to help me deal with health issues caused by stress, fear, and anxiety. Many people think hypnobirthing is only useful for the birthing process, but it helped me immensely prenatally and postpartum. I had a lot of anxiety built up after having a negative experience with my first child, but Cliodhna’s classes totally changed my mindset on birth. My biggest benefit from this class was the change of mindset – when you believe that you are innately capable of birthing your baby, pregnancy is less anxious, labor and birth become peaceful, and postpartum becomes joyful! And it wasn’t just me, my husband was able to experience all of this too. He was calm and able to the enjoy the birth because he finally felt equipped to be part of the process. This is not just another birthing class, it actually changes the way you think.
I can’t say it enough but meeting Cliodhna was such an amazing and special addition to my pregnancy. I met her at a Hypnobirthing info session and although I had never heard of Hypnobirthing, I knew it was something that would help me gain the knowledge and confidence to have my unmedicated birth. She is such a delight to be around. The way she teaches her classes ensures that you are involved and actually learning (and retaining) the info you need. She doesnt just read from a lesson manual, she demonstrates techniques and helps you to perfect them for yourself. I loved the way she makes the mom’s partners feel included and comfortable as well. With the help of Hypnobirthing, my laboring to birth time was just shy of 5 hours. I was told by my midwife that I was handling the pain very well (I was a quiet laborer it seems). I took so much from my experience with Cliodhna that I plan to become a certified Hypnobirthing Practitioner myself in 2019.
I have benefited so much from my classes with Cliodhna. She is a wealth of information and support. I find myself using these techniques in day to day life to calm down (not only in labor). I recently did a refresher class to have the information fresh in my mind for my recently born son. I labored off and on “inconsistently” all day thanksgiving and then an hour after consistent surges became predictable birthed baby in two easy pushes. I’m looking forward to the benefits of my placenta encapsulation. I recommend her and her services to all my pregnant mama friends.
I was skeptical when my wife said she wanted to do hypnobirthing but after Cliodhna’s classes I felt so much more prepared than I had with our firstborn. These classes helped me to know how to encourage my wife while she was in labor. Proper breathing, relaxing techniques, and knowing how to interact with medical professionals on my wife’s behalf we’re all so useful to us. I will always be thankful for this experience and would recommend her to dad’s that want to be more knowledgeable and helpful to their birthing partner.
My husband and I took the virtual Hypnobirthing 5 week class with Cliodhna. Truly, one of the most empowering experiences of my life. She broke me out of the fear cycle I had been stuck in from the past 3 birth traumas, and gave me the knowledge and the strength to change my birth plan and providers when they were not serving our needs. She is the kindest and very smart, with a wealth of resources, and will not educate you outside of her scope. She took extra time with us anytime we needed it, no questions asked, never a hint of frustration. I feel so lucky to have done this class during Covid19, as we were able to do a Zoom version that allowed us to do our class from the comfort of our own home, no lengthy drives and sitters each week. As a pregnant and tired mom, I especially appreciated not having to get ready and leave early in the morning. Especially since we are having a home birth, we felt that she was right there in the room with us where we would be laboring and delivering our baby, and we created that positive, calming energy that we can fall right back into during our birthing time. It was deeply personal. I hope that once this virus is all over, a virtual option will still exist, as we were one of the families that may not have been able to take a class had this option not been available. We were even able to go on our little Babymoon and take Cliodhna and our class with us! My husband found it extremely helpful, and told me after class 4 that a big “LET’S DO THIS!” energy came over him, when he had previously been nervous. We’re feeling quite fearless now! I can’t say enough about this course or this teacher. If you’re having doubts, or just need a little education or encouragement, I strongly suggest Cliodhna with Born Free Birthing.
Cliodhna was such an amazing instructor. So personable and assuring. She’s given us a lot of confidence to deliver our own baby during this crazy pandemic. The ability to take the class online really made a huge difference for us. We wouldn’t have been able to keep up with our daily lives and drive across town every weekend. Thank you so much Cliodhna. We can’t wait to use this information and welcome our new baby into the world!
When we began our journey towards a VBAC, I knew that I wanted a natural birth and sought resources to prepare for that experience. When I came across Cliodhna’s Hypnobirthing class, I decided to give it a try because she looked to be fairly experienced. Little did I know, I had stumbled upon a gem. In true pandemic fashion, everything was virtual, but that didn’t take away from a single thing. Cliodhna fostered an open and interactive class environment. Even my husband, who was originally “volun-told” to do the class, was referring his buddies who were expecting babies. He said that Cliodhna made him feel like a Birth Jedi. I got so much more from the class than information. Sure, the information was great and empowering, but Cliodhna was the key that brought it all together for me. Following a traumatic first birth experience, I had a lot of fear and doubt to mentally undo. The calming reassurance from Cliodhna reminded me to listen to my baby and my body. This time around, I had the birth experience that I had hoped for. Although it wasn’t exactly as I had originally “planned”, I listened to my body and I wouldn’t change a single thing about it.
My husband and I started this course with Cliodhna Griffin about 8 weeks from our due date and were absolutely thrilled with the knowledge and insight we were able to gain, especially as first time parents! We had no real idea of what to expect with delivery, but knew we needed more preparation than we were getting from the hospital/our doctors. This course gave us the information we needed to make educated decisions for myself and the baby, strength and peace leading up to and on the big day, and helped my husband learn how to be the best birth partner he could be for me. We cannot recommend Cliodhna and this course enough! She is a wonderfully passionate educator and pushed us to think critically about real life scenarios and practice incredible techniques to get our minds and bodies ready for labor, delivery, and brining baby home. Excellent experience!!
My husband and I decided to take the Hypnobirthing five week course online with Cliodhna from bornfreebirthing.com. This has definitely been one of the best decisions we could have taken leading up to our birth. We both feel more confident, we feel more supported and grounded than ever, and feel ready for a comfortable and gentle birth. We are still a few weeks away from our due month but we have never felt more excited or more confident for this experience as first time parents. We began the course a bit nervous and anxious about everything we felt we needed to do to prepare to welcome our first baby but now, we are extremely excited and have felt incredibly supported throughout the whole preparation- thanks to Cliohdna and her wonderful expertise and advice. I immediately began to notice the difference, even from week one, of how our view on birth has shifted through conversations with friends, with my body’s ability to relax,my ability to tune out the negative unwanted advice, and on our baby’s ability to response to our voice and belly taps (our connection has definitely been stregthened as well throughout the course). We throughly enjoyed learning about the research available, meeting and connecting with the other wonderful couples and learning and practicing the visualization activities, the breathing techniques and affirmations to implement to reframe our mindset about birth. We greatly appreciated Cliodhna’s ability to affirm our ability to achieve our desired birth, her comforting voice, positive outlook, encouranging advice as well as the way she taught since she always ensured everyone engaged and was included in the conversation. We also very much enjoyed being able to laugh in the course and grow very comfortable in the space to share honestly and candidly with the group. Again- we couldnt be more grateful we chose to take this course with her. Thank you tons, Cliodhna!
This class saved me, my husband and our baby. We learned an incredible amount that really prepared us so well for the birth of our first child. We learnt so many different techniques and had wonderful discussions that would prepare us in a class setting. The best part was that most of the class had completely different goals, backgrounds and even different plans for delivery (hospital, home, birthing center). We are incredibly thankful for this class and recommend it to all of our friends. The instructor is brilliant, friendly, and very funny. We laughed a lot. It helped us learn in an environment that didn’t have any judgement, but rather empowered us all. My husband was dreading the classes and ended up really enjoying them and looking forward to them. We plan to do it again for our next baby for a refresh – and every baby after that! 😉