Welcome to my new podcast – Rock Your Birth! The first episode is Birth Planning 101.
I’m so excited to bring my new podcast to you. Each week, I’ll share tips and evidence-based information, interviews with experts, and birth stories from real moms to help you have a confident, calm, and empowered birth experience.
Birth Planning 101: How to Create the Ultimate Birth Plan
Welcome to Rock Your Birth, the podcast that helps you step into motherhood feeling confident, calm, and empowered. I’m your host, Cassandra Huneke.
Since this is my first episode, I’m going to introduce myself to you. I am a certified pregnancy health coach, birth educator, and birth and postpartum doula. I’ve been doing this work for 5 years. Years before my husband and I were planning to have a baby, I started researching everything about pregnancy. I’m a bit of a type A person and I like to learn everything there is about a subject. So I of course started learning about pregnancy years ahead. But as soon as I learned what a doula was, I just thought it was the coolest job in the world to help parents bring their babies into the world. And when I did get pregnant myself, I started my postpartum doula training and dove headfirst into creating my own business, Modern Moms Collective, as a birth worker. I quit my job in nonprofit communications and started working with new moms. And it truly is the best job ever for me.
So I’m super excited to finally be starting my own birth podcast and to have you listening.
And I can’t wait to dive into today’s topic – Birth Planning 101, creating the ultimate birth plan that will help you have the birth experience you want and deserve.
As a birth doula, one of the very first things I do when sitting down with a couple is helping to create their birth plan.
What is a Birth Plan?
Now, a birth plan is a written summary, outline, or checklist that clearly states what you want to happen during labor and birth. It often includes a list of many of your options such as using an IV, having constant fetal monitoring or intermittent fetal monitoring, comfort measures, and even what you’d like to do immediately after birth, such as skin-to-skin and breastfeeding.
So, let me answer this question about birth plans right now. A birth plan does not guarantee that what you’ve laid out in your plan is actually going to happen during labor. Birth is unique for everyone. Sometimes interventions are needed other times the mom or birthing person may change their mind about something.
You might be wondering, “If I can’t predict birth, then what’s the point of doing a birth plan?” Look, I understand where you’re coming from. So many moms make their birth plan and then afterward feel like it wasn’t very helpful for them. This is because of my number one pet peeve with birth plans – a lot of times you can find a free template online or download it from someone, and all you get is this checklist, and you’re supposed to fill it out yourself with no directions about HOW to use your birth plan effectively.
This is why I created a free birth plan workbook, that not only gives you a template and two different samples (one for a medicated birth and one for a non-medicated birth), but also gives you an envisioning your birth worksheet to get to the heart of how you want to feel during birth (these are your birth values), a short guide on how to use your birth plan to communicate your goals to your care provider, birth partner, and doula, a birth vision board that you can create for yourself, and more. You can download that for free at modernmomsco.com/birth-plan and I’ll put the link in the show notes for you.
Can You Prepare for Birth?
I’ve also heard some seasoned and new moms say things like “you can’t prepare for birth. You just show up to Labor & Delivery and do what they tell you.”
And honestly, hearing things like this make me cringe inside, because even though you can’t predict what will happen during your labor, you CAN prepare for it. And using a birth plan is a really important tool to help you do that.
Completing a birth plan means that you will learn about all your options during labor and birth (especially if you’re birthing in the hospital), common hospital policies and procedures, and all possible interventions.
Can you imagine getting to L&D in the hospital and being told you need pitocin or should have a c-section without knowing or understanding why, what that means, or what your choices really are? To me, that sounds pretty scary and like I have no control over what’s happening to me or my baby. We prepare for just about everything else in life. Hell, we spend hours researching the safest baby cribs, strollers, and bassinets for our babies, as well we should. But we need to invest the time and effort into our birth experiences, too. We want healthy mom, healthy baby, of course. But how you feel when you bring your baby into the world will stay with you forever, while that bassinet will only last a few months before it’s on the curb or packed away in the garage.
You’re listening because you want to have a positive birth experience. So let’s get into the nitty gritty details of creating the ultimate birth plan.
Firstly, I want to recommend doing your plan as early as possible. You don’t need to wait until your third trimester or until you hire a doula to do this. Your birth plan is like a living document. It can be changed, amended, at any time. This allows ample time for research, consultations with care providers, and revisions.
Birth Planning 101 – The First Step
The first step, before you even fill out that birth plan checklist, before you do anything else, I want you to think about what makes you feel safe and comfortable. Does your home or bedroom make you feel cozy and secluded? Are there certain people that make you feel at ease? Maybe think back to a time you felt really safe and taken care of – what made you feel that way?
There are so many elements that can make us feel good and relaxed from the environment, the people, to how we are treated.Think about them and write them all down.
The things that make you feel safe are of paramount importance when it comes to your birth. Firstly – everyone should feel safe while giving birth. Secondly, when we feel comfortable and at ease, the tension in our bodies dissipates, our oxytocin increases, and we can feel less pain. These are necessary feelings for our bodies to keep progressing during labor, to feel calm, confident, and empowered.
So, I want you to bring as many of those elements that make you feel safe into your planned birthing environment. You may need to get creative, and this is definitely where a doula, your birth partner, and care provider can come in and help. But that feeling is what we want to emulate for your birth. How you want to feel is the foundation of your birth plan.
Do Your Research from Credible Sources
The second step is to do your research. Take a look at the birth plan and research every option listed there. Educate yourself about different birthing options, interventions, and potential complications. Understanding your choices enables informed decision-making during labor.
One of my favorite resources for doing birth research is Evidence Based Birth. They are amazing. You can find articles on various topics for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum where they will thoroughly explain all the studies that have been done on that topic in a way that’s really easy to understand. And they summarize what the leading evidence shows so you can make the decision that’s right for you.
Communicate with Your Birth Team
The third step in creating the best birth plan is to now collaborate with your birth team, including your obstetrician or midwife and doula, to ensure your birth plan aligns with your medical needs AND so you can be sure your team aligns with your birthing goals.
This one is MAJOR. Communicating with your team about what you expect from them is crucial to having a more positive birthing experience. As a first time mom, you may not be sure what to expect. But, talking with your team will help clear up any confusion or anxieties.
Questions to Ask Your Care Provider
One of the biggest tips I share with moms is to print out and distribute copies of your birth plan to every single care provider you have an appointment with (as many practices include several OBGYNs or midwives who could possibly attend your birth) and ASK QUESTIONS.
Here are some of the most important questions I think you should ask:
“Do you support my birth values?”
“Does the hospital have any policies that would prevent me from doing X?”
“How do you support birthing moms who want (fill in desire here)?”
I have many more questions included in my birth plan workbook, but these are a few to help you get the conversation started.
When you’re talking to your care provider, doula, and/or your birth partner, it’s extremely important to discuss contingencies and ask yourself should anything unexpected arise, what medical interventions are you comfortable with and what are you absolutely not okay with? Make plans for different scenarios. I never want the need for interventions to arise and preparing yourself for labor and taking a birth education course, along with having a birth doula, can help decrease the risk of interventions. But, the reality is that they can be necessary. Being unfamiliar and unprepared for interventions can make them more upsetting, even traumatic. If you’ve already discussed the possibility of interventions with your doctor, you know your options, and what your comfortable with choosing – then it’s not going to be as stressful because you already know what to do.
Revise, Revise, Revise
Lastly, review and revise your birth plan. It is never set in stone. It’s there for you to revisit and make changes as your pregnancy continues. Keep learning and communicating with your team. If at any point you feel like you’re not being heard or you’re being dismissed by your care provider, you can change practices or doctors, if more are available near you.
Creating the ultimate birth plan is all about empowerment, preparation, and communication. By taking the time to research your options, identify your priorities, and communicate with your birth team, you can set yourself up for a positive and empowering birth experience.
Again, you can download my free birth plan and workbook at modernmomsco.com/birth-plan. I will put the link in the show notes and if you’re watching on YouTube it will be in the description.
That’s all for today’s episode of the Rock Your Birth podcast. Thank you for tuning in. Until next time, rock on mama!
Listen to Rock Your Birth on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, iHeart Radio, & more.
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