Birth Plan

Having a birth plan is a great way to prepare yourself, and your support team. It is also a good way to figure out exactly what you want out of the experience, and how you and your support team can achieve this. Joyous Birth has this to say about birth plans:

So why should you try to plan for your birth? After all, isn’t birth unpredictable and you don’t want to be tied to a plan that doesn’t fit the circumstances?

Well, first off, your careprovider has one so unless you want your labour to run totally to their plan (which will involve interventions more likely than not in a hospital) you need to tell them how it will run.

It will probably protect you from the things which go wrong as a result of managed labours such as the cascade of interventions which commonly results from induction or epidural.

It will probably ensure that if things do result in a caesarean, you have a plan for having your baby kept with you, immediate skin-on-skin and breastfeeding.

It will help you labour more effectively if you're not stressing about who might try to do what to you without your knowledge or consent.

It will mean that your baby will only have those tests or injections which you truly believe in and they won't be automatically poked, prodded or turned into a pin cushion without your consent and participation.

It means that you will know, no matter how your journey goes, that you made the best possible choices for you and your baby and they weren't choices made by staff you don't know based on their timetables and philosophy rather than yours.

It empowers you through knowledge to understand and respect your body a lot better and give you and your baby the best possible chance of achieving a peaceful

So who wouldn't want one?!

And if you hire a doula you have another person advocating for you, and able to help you make decisions based on your needs, not that of the hospital/BC.

But remember that just because you write it down doesn't ensure it will be respected by your attendants. You need supportive and trustworthy attendants who share your goals.

To start writing your plan, ask yourself:

• Where would you like to give birth? Where would you like the baby to be born?

• If the answer is not at your home; when would you like to go to your birth place?

• If the answer is at home, you may also like to prepare a second birth plan for the unlikely event of a hospital transfer.
  

• If you decide not to birth at home, when would you like to go home after the birth?

• Would you like to be free to move around, eat, drink, and change positions at your leisure?

• What positions would you like to use when pushing?

• Would you like the baby to be monitored during labour, and if so; how?

• Would you like to have time limits on the length of your labour or pushing, or would you rather let your body take its own course?

• What procedures are you willing to go through? For example: induction or augmentation, episiotomy, electronic foetal monitoring, caesarean, etc.

• Are you willing to be separated from your support team at any time? Or are you willing to be separated from your child after birth for any length of time? If so, are you willing to allow your child to be separated from your partner during this time?

• Would you like your child to be given any injections or tests after birth? For example: vitamin K injection, vaccination against hepatitis B, hearing tests, and measurements and weight of the baby recorded, etc.

• Would you like to breastfeed your child immediately?

• Would you like to have skin-to-skin contact with your child immediately?

• Would you like someone to take pictures or record the birth?

• Will you have the umbilical cord cut, or have a lotus birth? If you would prefer to cut the cord, who will cut it, and when would you like them to do it?

Be sure to discuss your answers to these questions with your support team, whether that be your partner, friend, midwife, doula, nurse, or obstetrician. And don’t be afraid to ask your care provider lots of questions. Remember they are working for you, so if you are not satisfied with their answers find another care provider better suited to you.

You can find samples of birth plans online by searching “birth plan”, or check out templates and expamples: here and here.

More birth plan links:
Birth plans
Writing a meaningful plan for gentle birth

For an inspiring birth plan idea see the end of this blog post.

Related Ilithyia Inspired Pages:

Pregnancy & Birth Websites

Pregnancy Articles

Birth Articles

Birth Stories That Inspire

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