Read Part 2 and Part 3 of birth partners perspective!
Gina and I have talked at length about getting my memories and thoughts down on paper as they pertain to both Adeline and Eoghan’s births. I’ll be the first to admit that knowing myself, I should have just done it initially when she brought it up. The product would have been more raw, authentic, and descriptive.
However, as my mind works, I’ve subconsciously prioritized and reinforced many of the moments either caught by pictures or retold in frequent story. To that I owe the reader a disclaimer. The upcoming blog posts are not all the differences between our first and second births, nor the two miscarriages we experienced in between, rather ones that I can recall or describe the best.
In this effort, I’ll attempt to offer some general but candid advice on how to approach pregnancy as a birth partner, as well as some of the pros and cons that I drew from the same lens between hospital and home birth, first and second births, and how to approach partner support through miscarriages.
Birth Partner Advice From a Birth Partner
One of the first pieces of advice I can offer a birth partner is to retrain the way you think about who is pregnant. I ask you to think about it in terms of the subjective case, where the two options are “I”, or “we.” You might wonder exactly where I’m going with this. Approaching your family’s pregnancy from a first-person plural perspective does two important things in my opinion. First, it shows your birth partner that you are mindful and fully supportive of prenatal physiological, mental, and spiritual changes going on in their body and don’t just view things as a guaranteed 9-month designated driver.
Second, it will train your brain to think in a more empathetic and supportive manner, which will pay dividends in your holistic effectiveness as post-partum partner/new parent.
Bottom line, your lives, especially hobbies and free time change when you have a newborn, not just your postpartum partner. I’ll cover some best practices for both prenatal and postpartum support in my upcoming posts!
-Thank you for your time.
Our online childbirth education courses help the birth partner understand how to support and advocate for your family during pregnancy and birth!! The information shared in the online courses are what Barron used to support Gina during their latest home birth!
