Birth: 7 Questions to Ask When Making a Decision

Birth, Birth Options, Birth Preparation

Families that report having a positive birth experience tend to have a few things in common. They felt that they were able to make the decisions throughout their entire birth experience; they felt supported and heard by their birth team (providers, nurses, staff, doula, partner, etc); and they felt educated on their options. “If you don’t know your options, you don’t have any.” So, how can you feel empowered in your birth to support a positive birth experience?

When it comes to making decisions during birth, there is no one best decisions for all situations! There may be a time in your labor when a certain intervention doesn’t make much sense even if it is the common recommendation. Then there will be times when intervention makes a lot more sense, even if it’s not the common recommendation.

Let’s explore 7 questions to ask to gather the information you need about your specific birth situation to make a decision that best supports your family’s birth and priorities!

5 Questions to Ask: Use your BRAIN

B: Benefits

What are the benefits of this procedure or recommendation? Understanding how this will improve your birth outcomes or improve your experience. What are the pros; why would this option be the best option for your specific situation?

Example could include: the benefit of delayed cord clamping is that your baby will have higher blood content (by 30%), and usually will have higher levels of iron at their 6 month check up.

Learn about your birth options and planning for birth in our upcoming birth planning webinar!

R: Risks

What are the negative impacts of this procedure or recommendation? Understanding how this may negatively impact your experience will be important, such as what type of harm may come to me or my baby.

What are the cons; why would this option still be a good option even with the risks? Why would this option not be a good option with these risks? What are the risks of us doing nothing?

Example could include: the risks of delayed cord clamping is that your baby may develop jaundice due to higher amount of red blood cell breakdown, which may require the baby to have additional testing or treatment.

A: Alternatives

What are your other options besides the one being recommended? What else may achieve the same intent or outcome, but in a different way? What are some considerations of these other options that may influence which option to choose?

Example: an alternative of Pitocin may be nipple stimulation or breast pumping to help with oxytocin release. But Pitocin may work more quickly, while nipple stimulation may take longer or not work at all. If you are exhausted, or fatigue is a concern, trying more holistic options may take longer than desired. Or can you wait on all options and rest instead??

I: Intuition

What does your gut tell you? Do you feel comfortable or confident making this decision, or do you need more information before you can proceed? Feeling confident in your decisions is important! If you feel you need more information, ask more questions!

Now, confident in your decision doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the decision you wanted to make, but you feel good that it is the best decision based on the current circumstances.

Example: You wanted to go into labor spontaneously, but you developed a prenatal complication that your provider is recommending induction. You may not want to choose an induction, but after weighing all your options, you feel confident that induction is the option based on the current situation.

Does your gut tell you to wait? Does your gut tell you to go with it? Listening to our intuition can be really powerful.

N: Nothing

What happens if you do nothing? Is there a positive or negative impact, or no impact, on your experience? Can you have more time to see if change happens or to make a decision? Usually there is time to think, but there may be times where a decision needs to be made more rapidly. For these more rapid decisions, having had some childbirth education prior on your options can help make those circumstances less stressful.

The visuals are awesome! My favorite is the pelvis model and showing how baby moves through the birth canal during labor. That made no sense to me until I was able to see it, and it is so cool to watch!

This course gave me all the knowledge I needed to understand what was happening in my body as well as a variety of tools I could use at each stage. I would highly recommend this course to any expecting mother. I’m a first time mom, whose pregnancy was considered at risk. I was in active labor for 5 hours, no medical interventions, and only needed 1 stitch. Thank you for your help and sharing your knowledge!

I absolutely LOVED this course. I have encouraged my prenatal fitness clients to take it and also have talked with my midwife about how fantastic and more prepared and calm and excited I feel for the whole labor process. I really liked how the sections were separated and then broken down into short videos so it was accessible to start and stop. I loved the visual aids and all of the anatomy and physiology to better understand what we can do to facilitate labor and comfort. I loved how there were so many sections directed at the partner as well so they could understand and not feel so helpless as well as open lines of communication for what I would expect of them during labor. I wish I would have taken this course with my first instead of just jumping to an epidural. While I had a wonderful birthing experience the first time I’m greatly looking forward to this one and seeing how being more informed and prepared can make me feel stronger and possibly not need an epidural. Thank you for putting this course together it is fantastic and I’m so glad to have found it!

Other Considerations:

1. How will this change my care?

Understanding how a procedure or intervention will change your care will be important. You may agree with the intervention but when you realize how your care may change, suddenly not be interested in it anymore! Things may include continuous monitoring or being restricted to the bed. You may also realize you don’t have certain options anymore because you took that intervention. An example would include if you got an epidural, you would not long be able to have intermittent monitoring.

In-Person Childbirth Education Course

Learn the science of pregnancy and birth to take the mystery of labor away! Understand why you are feeling what you feel, and learn strategies to confidently move through pregnancy and birth!

2. What new information will this gather that will influence my care?

Understanding how a procedure or test will gather new information that may influence or encourage different recommendations will help you decide if you want a test or not. If a test does not gather new information, it may not be necessary. Are there other ways to gather that information?

Examples could include: the benefit of this cervical exam is that we will be able to assess your labor progress more accurately since other external clues seem to indicator there is no change (such as temperament, contraction pattern). If we do this exam, we can see if there is still cervical change happening. If not, we may need to progress in our labor induction to the next step.

Making decisions during birth can feel overwhelming! There are so many options, and those options may not be clearly communicated to you either! We are helping to break down those options in our online, self-paced childbirth education courses.

Learn more in our 1-Day Childbirth Education Course offered both in-person and virtually! See our upcoming schedule here!