Your Birth Plan: Fill & Download for Free

For my pregnant patients, my top two desires and plans for their pregnancy are in this order.to have a healthy/safe/alive mother at the end of itto have a healthy/safe babyAnd if I can only choose one, I'm picking number one.That being said, I mostly want what my patients want. I want them to have a good experience. There are cases of posttraumatic stress disorder occurring after deliveries where patients felt out of control and felt like everything went contrary to the way they had envisioned.If they have a specific vision of how they would like delivery to proceed, as long as it does not run contrary to my top two concerns, I'm all for it.Most patients are extraordinarily reasonable with their birth plans. As it turns out, their primary goals are usually also mine.I like to review these birth plans with my patients in advance of labor preferably. There are websites where you can generate your own birth plan, and honestly sometimes these result in birth plans that don't make a lick of sense.I have had patients bring to me birth plans indicating that they want an epidural as soon as possible, but they refuse an IV. Well that is not going to happen at any hospital.I had a patient bring me a particularly strange and nonsensical birth plan. When I asked her about each part, it turned out that she didn't have a strong feeling one way or the other, she just thought I would think she was an apathetic mom if she didn't generate a birth plan based on what she had read on some mommy websites.I don't mind if you make a birth plan or not. I do want to know what things are important to you and what are not.Many things on birth plans are my standard care anyway. I believe skin to skin is best. I've been delaying cord clamping for years now.I always tell patients about my personal primary C-section rate and reasons why I would recommend that. I also tell them reasons why I would consider forceps or a vacuum and the risks and benefits of both. I've been delivering babies for 12 years, and I can count on one hand the number of episiotomies I've cut. But when I did them, they were absolutely necessary. I want to make that clear to patients as well.I also want patients to be aware that the ethical principle of autonomy means they are ultimately in charge of anything that's done to them. They can refuse anything even if it results in their death or the death of their baby. Of course my preference would be items one and two.I also want my patients to be aware, that just like weddings, usually something does not go as planned on the birth plan. But just like a wedding, I believe the marriage is more important than the wedding day. And I believe that a healthy mommy and a healthy baby is more important then the delivery. If you are prepared for that idea in advance it's usually better.Also, I get paid a little under $100 more for a C-section versus a vaginal delivery. I promise, no one is recommending a C-section because it's lucrative. It's not.

I’m a labor and delivery nurse and I have written a lot about birth plans. If you would like my two cents, here it is.As a nurse and a mother, I can tell you more often than not, birth plans often go up in flames before a vernix smeared baby is lain swaddled in mother’s arms. Critics want to point fingers at doctors, hospitals, and unwarranted interventions for deliveries that end up with complicated endings. Many can surely shoulder some of the blame, but I’m here to tell you that birth is a complicated process. It is beautiful. It is natural. It is savage. No one can predict how your labor will progress. We can make plans but we cannot guarantee your body will honor them. You and your plans are simply along for the ride.My first baby was born via unplanned c-section. I am a labor and delivery nurse. I know deep in my bones that our childbirth stories are not ours to author. I have been witness to so many births and I know the expectation that fills women when they enter a labor and delivery suite. Their dreams are bubbling over the rim, filling the room with each building contraction. They dream of round healthy babies with edible toes. They dream of the raw power of natural childbirth. They dream of skin to skin breastfeeding, sharing nourishment and their womanly vitality with their newborn. I had dreams too.As a nurse, it almost felt like having a beautiful vaginal delivery was a right I had earned and a rite of passage for my profession. How could I counsel women if I could not give birth myself? I had dreams and knew their folly. I told myself I knew better. I told myself, I only wanted a healthy mom and healthy baby. I told myself my birth story was out of my hands and I was at peace with surrendering myself to forces of fate. I knew birth never goes as planned. Yet, as I found myself flat on my back being wheeled into the operating room, tears flooded my eyes. I felt grief for my stolen dream. I felt robbed of an opportunity I felt sure was mine. I felt like I had failed as a woman at the most primal level.Giving birth is the embodiment of womanhood. The experience, the pain, the climax, the strength, and the blooming metamorphosis into motherhood that heralds its end. There is a self actualization that comes with using the strength of will and body to expel a baby from your womb. When that fails to happen, it leaves women feeling bereft, their power stolen. While I knew there was no logic to these feelings, I could not deny their power. I had been witness to many a delivery that culminated in a c-section. I had counseled these women. I spoke the “healthy mom, healthy baby” mantra and failed to grasp the point.Women need space to process their birth. The good, the bad, and the surrender. There is a turning in for all women after a baby is born. A time for taking stock and balancing accounts. Even the most beautiful birth experience requires an ultimate surrender: a supplication of mind and spirit before the triumph of new life. With this surrender, a mother is born and she is more powerful than the women she left in her wake. Women, regardless of the details of the birth need to come to terms with their surrender before they can embrace their strength. For the power that is born of childbirth is not solely comprised of labor, it is knit together from the love and responsibility that cloak our babies as they slip into this world.Motherhood is about power too. It takes strength and power to raise little people up in the world. To guide, to protect, to nurture, to sacrifice day after day takes more endurance than the longest of labors. Only when I embraced my strength as a mother was I able to forgive my perceived weakness during birth.Birth may be about the embodiment of womanly strength but motherhood is the actualization of power born of love. No more will I counsel mothers with “healthy mom, healthy baby.” I will tell them no birth is a failure. You may need time to come to grips with the reality of your birth story and how it compares to the birth of your dreams. That's okay. It takes time. Just remember, your birth experience doesn’t define you or your future as a mother. Birth is just the beginning and the best is yet to come.For more about Birth Plans and how they fail women read my post When Birth Does Not Go As PlannedFor more on my person experience with an unplanned c-section read http://bornandfed.com/informed-birth-grieving-my-birth-experience/#bornandfed-Informed Birth, C-Section

You are not Scottish, Irish or English.You are American.In the future, whenever you are confused about your nationality, look at your birth certificate or passport.