Does Everyone Need a Birth Plan?

Writing a Birth Plan tends to focus you into thinking about the big day and how you’d ideally like things to work. Remember you have choice and control over your birth and a birth plan is your opportunity to voice that. Discussing options with your partner is a good idea so they can understand your wishes and feel fully involved enabling them to support you when the time comes.  

When contemplating your Birth Plan think about it more as ”Birth Preferences”, as Birth can be an unpredictable event or you may change your mind when you’re in the throws of labour. If something is given the title of a “plan” there can then be the tendency to say “things didn’t go according to plan” and this can sometimes have a negative impact on women in the postnatal period.  

It’s important to discuss your preferences with your Midwife during your pregnancy just to make sure that they are realistic for your circumstances and facilities available. For example if you want a water birth but you find out your hospital don’t have birthing pools then you may want to consider a change of hospital or a home birth.  

There are lots of Birth Plan templates on the internet (Avoid the American ones because they don’t do things the same as us!) or you should be able to access one from your own Midwife.