Birth Plan

A Birth Plan is part of the Maternity notes that a pregnant lady recieves, where the pregnant women is supposed to plan the birth that she wants to have. This will include details such as: drugs wanted, natural birth, bottle or breast feeding, who will cut cord and where you want baby to be placed straight after the birth. I filled in a birth plan with the help of my midwife when I was pregnant with my son - it included the fact that I wanted a water birth,no drugs, my partner was going to cut the cord and I was going to breastfeed straight away. As it turned out the plan was not refered to by either myself or the midwives. As it was my first baby, ...  Read the complete review

A birth plan is basically a guide you write before you go into labour, this advises the medical staff of how you would like your labour to go, ie what pain relief you would like, what position you want to give birth in etc. Therefore when you are in labour and in a lot of pain, you have all your wishes written down on paper, rather than having to remember them. I would highly recommend writing a birth plan as mine was invaluable and my midwifes followed it to the letter. I have the benefit of having a straight forward, easy, quick labour so it was very easy to follow my birth plan. I will definitely be doing another one when I have another baby; in fact I ...  Read the complete review

Writing a birth plan is one of those great ideas that focus on how you would like your birth to proceed and a chance to discuss with your birth partner what you do and don't want so that they can advocate for you. I got my midwife to read through my birth plan and she explained some of the points like I would of preferred a mobile epidural if available but these were not available in the hospital I gave birth at so knew that this would not be available. I would have liked to be able to use a birthing pool but this was never going to be an option as I was going into the consultant led room but if it was an option I would have put this in my birth ...  Read the complete review

I think when you write a birth plan you need to be realistic. The reality is it very seldom goes to plan. Don't be disappointed if you don't achieve all you have written down. I went into my first pregnancy accepting whatever happens , happens but all I want is to come home with a healthy child. I had planned for my mum and husband to be in the room with me and fortunately that went to plan. I never expected to be in labour 3 weeks early and I just went with the flow - the adreniline rush was just unbelieveable. Yes, i was absolutely exhausted especially as I hadn't slept the 3 nights prior to my waters breaking. My contractions weren't coming close enough and with ...  Read the complete review

If you have never heard of a birth plan before , it is exactly as it sounds. It is a written plan of the way you would like the birth to be carried out. This was explained to me when I was expecting my first baby in 2007. I thought that it sounded great. Obviously if there are complications then your plans will have to be adaptable, but it is worth giving it some thought about how you would like to have your baby. Examples of this are having your baby at home , or a water birth , or whether or not you would like an epidural. There is alot to think about, so it is worth doing you research first. I would recommend speaking to your midwife, mine were very useful. I planned ...  Read the complete review