Not My First Rodeo

While this isn’t my first rodeo, I think it’s funny this is the exact same plan (with a few updates) that I used with by oldest over 4 years ago. This pregnancy has by far been the hardest, so I’m looking forward to meeting our 3rd sweet girl soon. But during my first pregnancy, I remember looking up other people’s natural birth plan, trying to decipher through the information on the internet and through my own text books, and trying to decide what I thought I was going to do come go-time.  

Whether you are a first time mom or a seasoned mama, I hope you’ll find this information helpful. If you want to make an educated decision about many of the birth plan options, a great book I recommend is called Expecting Better. Topics include everything from epidurals, alcohol during pregnancy, cord clamping, fetal monitoring, birthing balls, etc. Evidence Based Birth is a great podcast and website I’d also recommend – learn more here.

Ways To Get Started

If you haven’t done any of the “birth classes” or new parents classes at your hospital, they really are a great idea to do with your partner. I recommend doing them together because it makes you both talk about your options and what you, as a family, will choose to do.  

Here’s something to remember for any first time moms: it never goes as planned! You can do everything you want to try to make it as smooth as you can, but it’s going to hurt like hell, you’re going to hate everyone around you, be scared to death, and be pissed someone didn’t warn you of something. You just can’t possibly prepare for everything that’ll happen.

Even for myself, things didn’t go as planned. My husband was halfway across the country when I went into labor the first time. The second time I couldn’t make it to the hospital I was supposed to deliver at, so I was admitted through an emergency room. Most moms don’t plan on having emergency c-sections, or dealing with the trauma that sometimes happens for moms during delivery. You just can’t plan for everything. And it’s not your fault.

Know Why You Want a Natural Birth Plan

Why do you even want to have a natural birth plan? I encourage you to think about this. The reason to do it, for me, was because in my previous work environments, I had seen too many cases of epidurals gone wrong. I know that that is not the norm, many friends and family members have epidurals with great success. I also wanted to be able to walk around, use a birthing ball, and do whatever I wanted to be as “comfortable” as possible. Many women don’t want that and prefer to lay in the bed. There is no right or wrong way.

I also know that I have a pretty high pain tolerance. Now, having had babies naturally I know there is no amount of pain tolerance that can prepare you for child birth, but I think that this is something you either know you have or you don’t have. My mom and sister both had natural child births with all of their children, so maybe it’s something in our genes that we have higher pain tolerance? I don’t have science on that 😉

Your Birth Plan is Not for the Hospital

In my opinion, having a birth plan isn’t for the doctors. It’s for you. It’s so you understand your options, to know the pros/cons of all of the options, to talk to your doctor about your options, and to do research about the various birth place locations you can choose from. This will help you make the best decision you can for yourself and your baby, and to share the info with the person who’ll be there with you to support you. Again though, you can’t plan for everything. However, I will say, by looking through a birth plan, you will feel more empowered about your options and feel comforted by having a plan.

I delivered both my girls in hospital settings. Though there are things that I wish I could change about our medical system and the birth process in hospitals, it’s where I feel safest. Knowing that if something went wrong, we have everything needed right there. I fully support women who are having healthy pregnancies, who are not high risk, having home births. However, here is my sample natural birth plan we had for all of our girls:

Baby Sweeney Sample Natural Birth Plan

• Goal: Have a healthy baby and mom at the end of the day.
• Vaginal delivery.
• Avoid a c-section unless in case of emergency. (If I would have needed it, I would have had it. However, a scheduled c-section would not be in my plan due to the babies gut health and microbiome when delivered vaginally.)
• Avoid pitocin if possible
• Avoid any antibiotics if possible
  • I ended up receiving them with Teagan due to my Group-B status being unknown at the time of delivery (I delivered at a hospital I wasn’t meant to be at)
  • What’s a Mom to Do about Group B Strep? Article from Aviva Romm
  • Evidence Based Birth article on Group B Strep
• No epidural
  • My personal reasons for not wanting an epidural were the following: wanting to walk around/move during and immediately after delivery, fear of breastfeeding struggles afterwards, fear of post-dural headaches, and a few more. I had experiences seeing many of the women I have worked with in the past have negative outcomes. So while I know that they are perfectly healthy, normal and most women have no adverse outcomes, for me, I chose to avoid the epidural.
• Avoid other interventions such as forceps, vacuum, etc. if possible.
• Avoid an episiotomy if possible- most hospitals do their best to avoid this these days.
• Skin to skin & breastfeed immediately
• Delayed cord clamping until cord stops pulsating (it’s important to ask the difference between just “delayed cord clamping” which some doctors say is only 1 minute and waiting until the cord has stopped pulsating. With Bella it was almost 15 minutes.
  • More info here.

Main requests:

• I would not like to be offered drugs at any point. Please only make these options known if I request them.
  • I did take the ibuprofen or Tylenol given/offered to me during and after delivery.
• Delayed cord clamping and cutting.
• Hep lock is fine if required, want to stay as mobile as possible and not connected to IV unless needed.
• Allow for intermittent instead of continuous fetal monitoring
• Be permitted to move/walk around and not be confined to a bed (a reason I didn’t want an epidural).
• Be allowed time to progress naturally and not have any labor augmentation (ie. pitocin) unless necessary. (Honestly, my babies came fast and there was never any time to have this conversation.)
• I would like to hold our baby and have skin-to-skin contact right away, and delay any procedures that are not urgent.
• I would like to do skin/skin & attempt to nurse immediately.
• Wait to bathe baby after 1 hour. Would like to do it with help of nurses.
• If stitches are required, use a local anesthetic. 
• Would like to keep baby in room with parents at all times.
• If baby requires urgent care, please allow my husband to be with her at all times.
• No pacifiers or formula.

In case of c-section:

• Allow my husband to be in the operating room for the duration of the procedure.
• Please allow my husband to hold the baby immediately after birth and delay any non-urgent procedures.
• Would like to breastfeed and room-in with baby once in recovery.
• Some moms are looking into vaginal swapping in the case of c-section.

Other things you may want to write down:

• Music (some women like to have special music playing, to me that wasn’t important)
• Lighting
• Mirror? Do you want a mirror nearby to see when the baby is crowning? I can say I never wanted it, but when I felt like giving up, and the doctor told me she could see her head but I didn’t believe her, I used the mirror for a quick peek. And you bet that baby come out super fast (I like to see the results of my hard work haha)!
• Birthing ball or other items?
  • Some moms like to use a birthing ball to help the process. You can find cheap ones like this on Amazon.

What else did you have on your birth plan?! What other questions do you have? Feel free to share below or ask your questions in the Mommy Feeding Family Facebook Community!