To labour in my nightdress

I wore a long t shirt first time and second was in a pool but I still wore a long t shirt. Im
quote shy about my body so wouldn’t have wanted to be naked!!

Reading this thread has been fascinating, things do seem to better than when I gave birth many years ago. I was made to wear a hospital gown, no knickers allowed. I had a vile midwife who was verbally abusive, told me I was "silly and stupid" "fussing about nothing" when I was fully dilated and starting to push, told me to "Stop that silly noise" when I was sobbing in pain and fear, the birth was a messed up nightmare that left me with PTSD and I had therapy for it many years later. It would seem that in the main that women are listened to and respected a fair bit more, I never had another baby due to the way I was treated in labour. It mentally scarred me

OK, tell DH he can take all the drugs offered to you 😂😂 catheters are usually post birth when you can't wee!

Bless him, his hearts in the right place but he's been reading too many birth horror stories on reddit

Do you really want to 💩 in your knickers @Coolsummer25

On the other hand, my sister had her baby in maternity triage, her pants were on (she was told to dress to go to the labour ward) and offered to only element of control to the proceedings…

I wore a cotton t-shirt dress with no knickers. I actually showered in maternity triage because I felt dirty from my water breaking. I was 0cm and then 10cm in 28 minutes. It's better to have your pants off in case you progress quicker than expected.

Wearing a nightdress is absolutely fine...I wore the same nightdress to give birth to 3/4 of my children (the one came so fast I was still almost fully dressed!).

Re: knickers: no reason you couldn't keep them on if you wanted but there will almost certainly be lots of bodily fluid (show, amniotic fluid etc) long before baby's head is crowning and to be honest, they just get uncomfortable and in the way, and you'll probably feel different about that closer to it. However, it's nothing to do with your partner at all!!

Wear whatever you want, but at some point your knickers will come off... probably much before baby's crowning! Just after arriving at the labour room, I stood up and my waters "tumbled out", all over my legs and the floor. Bye-bye knickers. It's better not to have any fast and hard expectations because there are so many variables. Baby was also monitored with something attached to the head inside me.

IMO all this specialised labour clothing is a money scam. I wore my nightie, changed to hospital gown for epidural, then post-labour wore my usual jimjams and just lifted the t-shirt to feed baby. After pooing on a bed in front of lots of people, I don't mind if someone catches sight of me feeding baby.

That isn't what I said he should do though...read it again. I said he should chat about his worries with his sisters (it's fine to seek out support from family if you've gone barmy enough to think the hospital should whack in a catheter upon arrival). He shouldn't be raising these anxieties with the woman giving birth or offloading on her due to his horror birth story research. That isn't fair.

Who gives a rat's arse about his sister? OP can tell her DH to keep those suggestions to himself too, and yes, stop disclosing information about OP's birthplan. My main point was about OP's DH. OP said he has been doing a lot of research into awful birth stories and stresses at anything and everything concerning the baby.

Easier said than done I know, but I wouldn't get too hett up on it until the big day arrives, and just know in your mind what you'll be comfortable with... obviously whilst ignoring your partner! 🙂

Chances are you'll be in so much pain you won't know what your name is, let alone if you're knickers are on or off, or complications will arise and it'll all be thrown wildly out of your control.

Just chill, stick to your guns and silently acknowledge his stupidity for trying to get involved in an area that is nothing to do with him 😁

I did this too.

I got a couple of cheap ones from tesco and cheap underwear.

I threw out the one that looked like something from a horror movie and put on the fresh one after birth once my dignity started slowly returning.

It is always worth having something one and then taking it off later on if you feel like it.

I wouldn’t start off in just my bra as you could be in labour for hours and will want to be covered up at first.

I started off in a short sleeved nightie from Mothercare, kept it on right through to when they changed me into a gown for emcs. Once I had epidural during induction I had my dressing gown on backwards as the adrenaline in epidural made me shiver & shake. I was sat on incontinence pads & after the epidural they kept on putting a catheter in to empty my bladder, so no point in knickers.

Oh hell no!

Not that the hospital would agree to it anyway unless it was actually necessary (eg if you were getting a section).

The cases where people have their babies in the toilet are EXCEPTIONALLY rare, and are generally where people don’t actually realise they’re in labour. If it was so painless that you didn’t realise you were in labour you’re not going to be in the hospital anyway so it’s a moot point.

Theres no way your bladder won’t be empty long before baby is born, all the muscles down there are connected so it’s not really possible to hold one set but push with the others. Try it yourself, next time you need a poo, try to do it while holding your pee. Or better still, get him to try. It’s physically impossible.

I completely understand and agree with you wanting to wear what you are comfortable with. I insisted on wearing a nightie for both of my labours (hospital wanted me in a hospital gown ) so I do get that. People say you won’t care, and towards the end that’s probably true, but at the start it’s not necessarily so. With my first it turned into a bit of a standoff with the hospital asking me to wear a gown, me asking if I had to, them saying I’d prefer it, me again asking if it was mandatory and eventually after them again saying it was a preference, me saying well no then, and wearing my nightie as planned.

However, I think you’ll probably have to concede on the pants long before that point if I’m honest. You will need to be examined several times during labour but it’s really not that easy to move around beyond a certain point so it’s not just a case of ‘I’ll just take my pants off when they want a look and then put them back on’. Even if you intend to have a very active labour, you shouldn’t underestimate the effect of having a giant head moving down your vagina will have on your mobility. It’s not just going to have an effect when they’re crowning, it’s long before then. Realistically I would expect that they’ll have to be gone from the point you start pushing, and also just for realistic expectations, I’d say that if they’re not off by that point then they’ll probably have to be cut off, as again I don’t think it would be tolerable to take them off yourself, so that then obviously prevents them from going back on anyway.

This is just my experience, maybe others will disagree, and absolutely no judgement for your desires at all, just trying to give you a bit of insight into what might be practically possible so you can manage your expectations.

He's just being silly, I wore a nightdress and no knickers. It's been a while since I had mine so I barely remember but wearing a nightdress doesn't make it any harder for them to tell anything, they assess you based on contractions and then check you whenever they need to. They can't tell by looking over at you lying there with no nightdress on 😂

Oddly enough the first sign of labour beginning with my last baby was an inexplicable urge to remove all my clothes.
What I mean to say is don’t overthink it! Take a nightie if that’s what you think you want but be flexible.

This sounds pretty unnecessary if the nightdress will be covering your lower bits anyway

By the way it does sound like your husband is trying to get too involved in your labour , the nurses might find him too intense and it's not his place to decide whether you have a catheter or not he doesn't run the show .They might be better off without him .

I'm a midwife and most women labour in nightdress..even if dh has lots of female relatives, how does he know what they were wearing in labour!

You can wear underwear right up to the 2nd stage (active pushing) but at that stage it will be recommended to take them off as midwife has to be able to see when you are crowning and that head is advancing

I had all three of mine with nighties on, I’d have been excruciatingly uncomfortable any other way, it never even occurred to me to do it any other way. Oh and one of mine was born in 41min labour, my third was 25mins. Your oh needs to give his head a wobble, you do you.

I had homebirths. Hard to.remember now but I was wearing either nightdress or long tee shirts. Wore underwear until it was impractical to do so.

Men have no place in telling you what to do in this process. Follow your instincts and the advice of those caring for you. There is no right or.wrong so long as a healthy baby is born. If you think your baby will need more care than this then follow the advice of those who know your situation.

Congratulations OP!

I had soft cotton joggers and a long baggy t-shirt on as that's what I happened to be wearing when things started happening; but there wasn't really anything I was willing to wear at the end of pg that wasn't soft and comfy enough to labour in anyway. When I got too hot I left the trousers off, by that time self consciousness had departed. You /probably/ won't find you want to push with pants on, it feels kind of in the way at that point. I did most of labour with pants on tho as waters were leaking and I wanted to wear a pad.

Unless there are reasons for medical concern about you or baby you can pretty much do whatever you feel like at the time. Which may or may not be what you plan in advance. I guess you'll likely have some options for after in your bag, so you can always switch things around if you aren't feeling it or find yourself wanting to freshen up.

Are you able to do any antenatal sessions as a couple? Or maybe a friendly book to read about childbirth? so that your DH can see for himself that he's not really on the right page and reassure his concerns.

I thought it was the norm to labour in a nightdress or similar? Tell your husband he's being a weirdo.

Midwife will likely need access well before that to see how your labour is progressing and you are unlikely to want to keep putting your knickers back on.
More to the point, your mind will be focussed on your labouring and what is comfortable for you, not how you look. No-one else cares what you wear.

I was put in a hospital gown all three times