BIRTH PLANS
I am currently designing a birth planning template to assist women to explore their local options and communicate their preferences and choices.
Please consider sharing your birth plan here!
Read Amanda’s Birth Choices for baby number four
Read Mum of 4′s Birth Plan for baby number three
Read Olga’s homebirth plan for baby number two - midwife-attended homebirth under the UK system
Read a birth plan about delayed cord clamping and natural third stage
Read the ‘Bubble Wrapped’ birth plan for a possible hemophiliac baby
Read the Australian Breastfeeding Association breastfeeding plan
MammyDoula responded to my call-out on Facebook about birth planning, replying:
One of my ladies had an A5 card which simply said:
I want to move about freely.
I want to eat and drink throughout.
I want intermittent monitoring.
Please don’t offer pain relief, I will ask when I want it.
I wish to labour but not birth in water.
I want a physiological third stage.
I want skin to skin as I will be breastfeeding my baby.
Thank you.
Twenty one years ago my three-year-old and five-year-old daughters were psnreet for the birth of their brother in the hospital. My mother and grandmother were there as support people for the girls. It was a wonderful experience, and my favourite birth. I welcomed the distraction of the kids it kept me grounded. My older daughter rubbed my back and breathed with me, and came up to say Congratulations, Mommy! afterwards. My younger one told people later, First there was a baby, then it was a boy. Then there were popsicles. Not traumatized. Like Mrs Ivany above, this was a family baby, so it just felt natural to have the whole family there to welcome him.