Birth Plans are so important. As you make a Birth Plan you think through what you want and don’t want at your baby’s birth. Writing a Birth Plan requires that you think about what is important for you and your partner during your baby’s birth.
There are thousands of websites that will give you both suggestions, samples, and templates for your Birth Plan. That is not what we want to talk to you about. We want to talk to you about the importance of having TWO Birth Plans. No kidding. What you want and how you’ll behave are apples and oranges.
What exactly is the purpose of a conventional Birth Plan?
Your Birth Plans is NOT a wish list
In other words, you cannot actually choose the birth you will have. Right now you’re most likely to be told: ‘Plan for the best, expect the worse’. In other words, once Birth Plans became popular in the 1980s the hope that women know what type of birth they want and can write that down for others to follow just has proven not to be as successful as hoped and expected. In other words, too many Birth Plans fail and women end up feeling bewildered by birth.
Now you’re most likely to be encouraged to make a short and clear Birth Plan of only the minimal requests and demands. On the other hand, some Birth Plans are pages long. Whether your Birth Plan is short or long, your birth will most likely be nothing like you hoped or planned. Remember the old adage: ‘There’s no way to know what your birth will be like’. That sentence is followed by … ‘And therefore, there’s really nothing you can do to prepare for it’. Birth Plans were designed to give you control while you’re preparing for your birth.
Just keep in mind that your conventional Birth Plan needs to be a framework but not a wish list or like picking menu items.
There are three parts of how to make a conventional Birth Plan
- There are the practical elements of what type of medical care you want or don’t want. This aspect of your conventional Birth Plan is directed to your midwife or obstetrician. For example, you might not wish to be induced or use medical pain relief.
- The subjective aspects of birth and shortly after birth. For example, you might want to play music at your birth. Or, you might want your midwife, staff or obstetrician to ask your permission before they do any tests on your baby once born.
- What you want to do such as walking and eating during birth.
Your Skills-based Birth Plan
This type of Birth Plan is the ONE no one told you about. This one is all about the skills you and your partner will use throughout your baby’s birth. This concept is so important for you to understand. Every pregnant woman must ‘do’ the birth. Birth takes time and you have to fill that time ‘doing’ something. Birth and birth-coaching skills give you and your partner something to ‘do’ to fill the time it takes for your baby to be born which is another way of saying … while you give birth.
As a pregnant woman you’re probably asking several questions:
- How do I make a skills-based Birth Plan? First, write down what you’re feeling about your coming birth. Second, think about what skills you have already that you can use to birth your baby if birth happened today! Nothing like a good dose of imagination. What skills do you have right now to work through your baby’s birth?
- Are there simple skills-based Birth Plans? All skills-based Birth Plans are simple. You just want to make a list of the skills you and your partner can use such as breathing, relaxation, teamwork, touch. Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation will give you heaps of skills but ‘keep it simple stupid’ and just make a list that you give your obstetrician or midwife. You don’t have to be too specific.
Why should I use Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation Online Course?
You probably already might know that there are a number of skills-based resources: Lamaze and Bradley, Hypnobirthing or Hypnobabies or Active Birth. These have been around the longest since the 1960s and best known. They all focus on breathing and relaxation. They also focus on achieving a natural birth so many pregnant women feel left out because they want, need or are pressured to have a more medical birth. Birthing Better skills are for ALL births because you are birthing your baby so become skilled.
Active Birth has been around since the 1980s and based on Yoga and positions.
Hypnobirthing and Hypnobabies became known in the 2000s and focus on self-hypnosis.
Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation Online Course was actually developed in the early 1970s by hundreds of ordinary fathers and mothers. but this resource is not as well known and has two components. None of the other resources focuses so much on these three components. Start from around 24 weeks.
- Prepare your pregnant body to become a birthing body. In the video segments, you’ll learn all the skills to create space, to open and remain soft inside your pelvis in order to give room from your baby to move down, through and out of your body. You’ll also be able to find positions that keep you open and benefit your baby.
- Birth and birth coaching skills that focus on more than just breathing and relaxation. You’ll also learn about the 5 Phases of contractions, Teamwork, Deep Touch Relaxation, Communication, The Bell-shape of contractions and how to use your skills in every type of birth.
- Prepare your baby’s birth passage. Start about 32 weeks. This is an audio resource and teaches you and your partner exactly how to prepare your vagina.
The importance of your skills-based Birth Plan cannot be underestimated. Birth is unknown until it unfolds and it will unfold. Having skills to work with the physical and emotional sensations you have will make the difference between feeling in control or overwhelmed. It’s that simple.
Which Birth Plan works best?
This is the reality. What is ‘my Birth Plan’ is all about your choices. That sounds great. Every pregnant woman wants to have a positive birth and certainly a safe and healthy mother and baby but there’s no way to know what your birth will be like. Choices often change. The unexpected happens and suddenly all your efforts to prepare a Birth Plan suddenly go down the drain. What are you going to do? Will you have planned for the best and now facing the worse? Don’t let that happen.
Your Skills-based Birth Plan is entirely different. No matter where you birth, with whom or what is happening to or around you just use your skills. You might love or hate what’s happening … just keep using your skills.
Keep repeating … ‘I will use my birth skills, I will use my birth skills, I will use my birth skills, I will use my birth skills’. In other words, hope for the best and use your birth skills as best you can. You’ll never be disappointed.
The end result?
You’ll feel empowered. You’ll WOW your midwife or obstetrician. You’ll be proud of yourself. Your birth partner will actually know how to help you. You’ll feel more confident with your newborn. You’ll deepen how you’ll use your skills next birth. You’ll never regret your ‘choice’ to write two Birth Plans. You’ll certainly never regret your ‘choice’ to become skilled and used them while you might just toss your conventional Birth Plan out the window.
Birthing Better skills were developed by moms and dads in the early 1970s in the US and used by many thousands globally in all types of birth. Birthing Better online birthing classes are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.