Birth plan, part 1

 

I don't really know where to start with a ‘birth plan’. I spoke to my midwife about it at last weeks appointment, and she said that basically it can be as detailed or as simple as you want it to be, but that of course sometimes things just don’t go to plan, so always keep an open mind. As an aside, I really like this midwife, my first few appointments were all with someone different and one of them was quite possibly the most unhelpful person I've met, after looking at my notes a few weeks ago she had managed to write down my height wrong, and a few other anomalies had crept in too.

Anyway, I digress, I explained to the MW that I didn't really know where to start with thinking about the birth, and in actual fact I had quite a lot of anxiety about it, amongst other things. She said it needs to cover three main areas, which can be as detailed or as simple as you want them to be.

• What is important to you (who do you want with you, where do you want to do it? )
• What you feel are priorities (including pain relief/coping techniques, do you want your baby cleaned before being given to you etc)
• How you want things to happen after the birth (breastfeeding or formula, vitamin K injection or not…)

So I am right at the beginning stages of the process, and so far all I know is that a) Sam will be with me and not my mother/anyone else, BUT that if things go on for a while and he needs a break, but that b) a friend who lives not far from the hospital and had her baby there a few years ago will be on hand for support if possible, which is good to know. In the true spirit of my ever growing procrastination, I actually made a full and detailed list of what to pack in my hospital bag instead of getting any further with the birth plan, but i’ve started thinking about it and have 13 weeks left anyway, so expect another post on the subject further down the line!

Tools and things you may find helpful:

The NHS Birth plan webpage, you can fill out online and print it for your records

The NHS 'how to write a birth plan video’ which you can watch here

The Tell me a good birth story website (Steph found this website really useful before she had D, and recommended it to me)

Bountys advice on writing a birth plan

And the Netmums take on it

and just for the sake of argument, here is an article that I found about why ‘birth plans are worse than useless’ (the 899 comments on the article don’t agree!)

 

If you are a mum already, how closely did your experience resemble your birth plan, if you had one? Any tips?