How to Create a Birth Plan for Your Baby's Delivery

As a woman's pregnancy progresses, she begins to think more about the actual process of labor and delivery that is required to bring her baby into the world. Most women have specific "wants" and "don't wants" related to the process of childbirth. As women become more educated in the options available and the risk involved in childbirth, and as technology expands our choices and methods available to us during our labor and delivery, more women are choosing to develop a birth plan to ensure that our wishes and needs are met during our labor and delivery. Here are some things to think about while developing your birth plan.

You should consider your birth plan and some of your most important wishes even before even choosing your obstetrician. If you want to have your baby at a particular hospital, want a natural childbirth or water birth, or you are adamant about some other aspect of your baby's birth, you should speak to the nurse at the doctor's office that you are thinking of using to deliver your baby. Some doctors perform more c-sections and others may want to induce your labor if you go past your due date. If you have strong objections to these procedures and others, speak with your doctor and add it to your birth plan.

Once you find an obstetrician that you are happy with, write down as many things as you can think of that you want during your labor and delivery in your birth plan. If you want to walk around instead of laboring in bed, if you do or do not want an epidural, and if you want the baby to stay with you from right after his birth until you leave the hospital, talk to your doctor about it. Also, ask your obstetrician if there are other options that you haven't thought of in your birth plan. Surely there will be some. Some things that you will need to think about when creating your birth plan are:

Do you want to avoid being induced?
Do you want a c-section or do you want to avoid it if at all possible?
Do you want to labor at home as long as possible or come to the hospital immediately?
Do you want to be able to walk the halls in the hospital, or do you want to stay in bed?
Do you want to avoid I.V. fluids (some doctors/hospitals won't give you this option)?
Do you want to have your baby in a birthing room or a regular delivery room?
What are your wishes for anesthesia or analgesia?
Do you want to avoid having an internal fetal monitor?
What are your options for staying hydrated?
Options for staying comfortable - your own nightgown, massage, pillows, etc.
Do you want the doctor to break your water to speed up labor or wait until it ruptures on its own?
Do you want to avoid an episiotomy?
Can the doctor avoid using forceps to help deliver the baby?
Can your husband or partner cut the umbilical cord?
Do you want to hold the baby right after birth, or have him cleaned and warmed first?
Who do you want present during the birth? If you have to have a c-section?
Are videos and/or photos permitted?
Do you want the baby with you 24 hours or in the nursery some so you can rest?
Breastfeed, bottle feed with pumped milk, or bottle feed with formula?
Do you want photos taken in the hospital?

As soon as you get your birth plan written the way you want it, take it to your next doctor's appointment and give the doctor a copy for your chart. As before, make sure that all of your wishes are possible. Maybe you want your older children to be in the room for the birth, but the particular hospital where you will be delivering your baby doesn't allow it. Your obstetrician can tell you the things on your list that you may need to change.

Bring a few copies of your birth plan to the hospital and give one to the nurse upon getting settled in your birthing room. If the nurse wants to do something that your doctor has already said that you didn't have to have (such as an I.V.) then refuse the treatment, show the nurse your approved birth plan, and insist she talk to your doctor before proceeding.

You should also be prepared to change your birth plan as necessary. Above all else, the most important thing during the birth of your baby is that both you and your baby are healthy after it is all said and done. If the baby's heart rate drops or if your cervix isn't dilating properly during your labor and delivery, you may have to have a c-section, anesthesia, an I.V. or some other procedure that you hadn't planned. You should remember that the outcome is more important than the process. After all, everything that happens before your baby takes his first breath is so much more insignificant than everything that happens after.