If you are currently pregnant or you’re planning to be pregnant in the future, then getting prepared is a good idea. Contractions are not your signal to start thinking about what you would want for your birth plan.
There are plenty of people who will tell you that there is no point in preparing for a birth because you don’t know how things will go on the date. And that’s absolutely true. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to advocate for yourself and for what you want. Given the rise of birth injury claims, it’s important to have in place things that you want on paper and if possible, have somebody advocate for you. Birth is unpredictable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare yourself. So here are some tips for planning for your birth.
- Learn how you can work with your body. Trusting your body and your baby and your intuition is critical when it comes to childbirth. It’s important that you don’t fight any contractions that come your way, but you lean into them and push your body to relax into the pain. Childbirth is rather like a dance. If your mind is scared and fearful, then your body will trip over itself. If you embrace the pain that’s coming, you kind of don’t feel it anymore.
- Free birth no matter what. Free birthing doesn’t mean that you take yourself to a beach and give birth in the ocean, but it means being free in your decision making when it comes to your birth. If you’ve planned to have an elective C-section or to be induced and have an epidural thing, fantastic, but you still need to prepare to go into labour by yourself. Being ignorant about what happens to your body and labour is only going to frighten you and that can cause complications.
- Listen to your intuition. When you first go into labour, your instinct may be to panic, but as you’ve learned about your body and you’ve learned what you can trust and what you shouldn’t trust, your intuition should be telling you that this is OK and this is a completely natural thing that your body was designed and built to do. Your intuition is powerful, so if you are in touch with your own thinking and you are listening to your body while it labours, you should be able to determine what happens next. This way you are able to be your best advocate.
- Have a birth team on the same page. From your midwife to your doctor to your doula to your partner. You need to make sure that everybody in the room understands what you would ideally like for your birth, but what you are happy to accept when things don’t necessarily go your way. If you’ve determined that nobody else is to be in the room, then make sure that the whole team knows so that you don’t end up being barged in when you’re trying to push a baby out. Make sure that your birth team understands your wishes and honors them.