However, you should ABSOLUTELY plan for your birth! But the important part is not the actual plan but rather the education you receive while developing your plan.
One thing that commonly contributes towards a positive birth experience is feeling that you were the primary decision maker in your experience. When you do NOT know what your options are, you may feel that you are the passenger in your birth experience instead of the driver.
Yes, we should be consulting with our chosen medical and nonmedical team to guide us through making decisions (after all, it would not be realistic for you to know EVERYTHING there is to know about birth–a big reason why its important to choose a provider that you TRUST to guide you), but it’s still up to you to make the final decision!
During pregnancy, you can educate yourself on your options by developing a birth plan! In this birth plan, you can learn:
- What options are even available at your birth location?
- What are the routine practices at your birth location that you may or may not want to partake in?
- What are your preferences in different scenarios?
- What are your pain relief preferences, and your options are your birth location?
Figuring out your preferences–which you can do with your team, not completely alone–can help you make informed decisions throughout your pregnancy and birth! When you don’t know your options, you don’t have any, and it is easy to become a passive participant in your birth experience.
When reflecting on my first birth experience, I felt that I was not able be a part of the decision making process once I made it to the hospital. I felt that my provider was making decisions for me and telling me what I was going to do and not do–and this really impacted my birth experience. I look back on that birth with a lot of sadness–it was not how I wanted my daughter’s story to begin.
This fueled me for future births to ensure I had a supportive provider that I trusted to include me in the decision-making process and respect when I made a decision, and to better understand my options so I could make decisions!
As a part of that process, we developed our FREE birth planning template for you to download! This birth plan helps you figure out your options and discuss your preferences with your provider! Sign up for our newsletter to grab your free template!
If you want a video walk through of why you may or may not opt for different options, watch this YouTube video! We guide you through our entire birth plan and WHY someone may or may not want a certain option.
Birth Planning: Step by Step Guide
The first thing when developing your birth plan is to include your team in the process! You do NOT need to plan in a vacuum without any sort of input from your chosen birth team (both medical and nonmedical).
When choosing your birth team, it is important that they are people that you TRUST to guide you in your pregnancy and birth, BUT also feel confident that they will RESPECT your decisions regardless of their personal or professional opinion.
Then, when developing your plan, it’s important to note that its not an ALL or NONE mentality–there may be certain situations where you DO want an intervention, but not necessarily ALL the time. For example, you may not want your induction to begin with Pitocin… but if you tried other induction methods and are still not in labor, you may opt for it then.
Consider different scenarios that your birth may take, and think about what you may want in each of those general situations.
This could include:
- What if you go into labor spontaneously? What options do you want?
- What if you need/want an induction? How do your preferences change?
- What if you need a c-section?
- What if you change your mind about an intervention?
What are your options???
While we cannot guarantee our birth will go a specific way, no matter how much we prepare, we can still plan for our birth to understand what we want in our birth experience.
Some things that we find to be important to decide include:
- Your pain relief preferences: do you want an epidural, unmedicated birth, or feeling unsure??
- Your monitoring preferences. How do you want to be monitored during your birth?
- Your pushing preferences
- Postpartum: what do you want for your baby and the golden hour?
- Plus, exploring contingency plans, such as what if you need an induction, c-section, or baby needs to go to the NICU, as some considerations.
Let’s break down each of these birth planning considerations to help you plan your birth! If you want to dive deeper into your birth options (risks and benefits) plus how to plan for your birth in more detail, explore our childbirth education course!
1) Pain Relief Preferences
One of the first things you want to decide is your pain relief preferences. Do you want an unmedicated birth (and how do you define this), or do you want to explore pain relief options, such as an epidural?
Once you decide on your pain relief preferences, this can help you:
- Choose where to give birth.
- Some birth locations do not offer epidurals, such as home birth or birth centers.
- Some birth locations may only offer epidurals and IV pain meds–so if you want to try nitrous oxide, you may need to find a new location.
- If you want a certain type of birth, such as unmedicated, you may want to opt for a provider that is familiar with unmedicated birth and supporting that type of birth.
- When to head to your birth location.
- If you want an epidural, there are labs and pre-epidural things you have to do before you can get one. Plus, anesthesia has to be available! So, there can be a time delay from when you ask for an epidural until you get one.
- If you are wanting an unmedicated birth, it can be better to labor at home for as long as possible!
You can also explore how to let you team know that you have changed your mind! If you want an unmedicated birth, you can either tell your team you changed your mind and want an epidural. Or you can establish a code word/action and a set of “rules” that help your team know that you are serious about changing your mind.
If you want an unmedicated birth, check out our online childbirth education course! In our course, we discuss labor comfort techniques, labor positions, ways for your partner to support you, and so much more!
2) What Birth Options Do You Want??
Some key things that you want to explore as you develop your birth plan are your preferences for your labor–such as monitoring, which you will have access to in most scenarios. And also, contingency plans–what happens if something shifts in your birth plan, such as needing an induction, c-section, or to transfer to a higher level of care?
Some other key birth options that you will want to explore include:
- How do your contractions and baby want to be monitored during your labor?
- You can either be continuously monitored, intermittently, or have a fetal doppler.
- Additionally, your birth location may offer non-portable wired monitors, portable wired monitors, and wireless monitors. This can impact your freedom of movement, and access to labor comfort measures.
- For example, if your birth location requires you to be continuously monitored and they only have non-portable monitors, you will most likely not be able to use the shower or tub to labor.
- What induction options would you want to explore? Which ones are you feeling unsure about or anxious?
- It can be really helpful to understand how your birth location manages induction–what is their standard protocol with induction?
- If your birth location cannot do a medical induction (such as a community birth), where would you transfer your care to, and how do they manage inductions?
- Induction options include cervical ripening, mechanical dilation, Pitocin, and breaking your water (artificial rupture of membranes, known as AROM).
- If you need a c-section, what options do you want to explore? This could include clear drapes or lowering the drapes when baby is born, skin-to-skin, breastfeeding in the OR, additional support persons, and more. You still have options, even with a cesarean birth!
- What advanced care options are available, if needed, or where would you transfer you care to if you need a higher level of care?
- This can apply if you are having a community birth, and you or your baby need to transfer care during pregnancy, labor, or postpartum. Knowing the hospital that you will transfer and potentially establishing care with their clinic can be helpful.
- If you are giving birth at a hospital, what level of care do they offer if your baby needs to go to the NICU or if you require a higher level of care during your pregnancy or birth?
3) Pushing Preferences
Another common thing to begin to consider is how you want to push! Sometimes, you aren’t gonna know what works best for you until you’re pushing–but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore your options!
You can decide:
- What pushing techniques do you want to try during your birth–and practice some of them during pregnancy as you use the restroom
- What pushing positions do you want to try to use during your birth, such as supine, side lying, all fours, squatting, standing, and so on!
- Understand your birth locations pushing support–and what to expect with their care
The best pushing technique and position is the one you choose–not the one someone forces you to do or into–so understanding what your options are can help you pick the best one for you!
If you want to learn more about your pushing options, explore our childbirth education course or grab our pushing mini-course (included in our childbirth education course).
4) Postpartum Preferences: Golden Hour and Beyond
And then your birth plan needs to also include what you want after you give birth to you and your baby! This can include:
- For you:
- Placenta preferences, such as how you want your provider to support the birth of your placenta, do you want to see your placenta, and do you want to keep your placenta.
- For baby:
- Delayed cord clamping
- Delayed bath
- Baby medications:
- Vitamin K
- Hepatitis B
- Eye drops
- Skin to Skin
- Feeding preferences
- If baby has to be separated from you, what are your options?
It can be helpful to understand what is the standard care at your birth location–many birth locations routinely do skin-to-skin, for example.
Learn more about what to expect in the postpartum, and learn more about your options in our Postpartum Prep and Newborn Care Course!
Prepare and Plan for YOUR Birth!
You should absolutely plan for your birth–not to develop a concrete plan of what will happen, but rather to explore your options and decide what your preferences are in different scenarios.
As we start making decisions on our preferences, it can help us decide WHO should support our birth, and in what situations we may want to change our minds. You can create a birth plan to empower you as you navigate your pregnancy and birth!
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