To labour in my nightdress

[Coolsummer25]

I’m due a baby girl late July. I’m a very private person so would like to labour in a nightdress and with my knickers on. Dh thinks I’m being ridiculous and says he’s never heard of woman doing labour this way and that I will be too hot etc.

I'm very concerned about your husband and how he's going to act while you're in labour. You really need to read him the riot act. He's there to support you and your wishes, he can keep his opinions to himself or he's out of there.

Said with love and kindness......you both are assuming certain things that are wrong. This is to be expected, most people these days have no idea what to expect during labour apart from what they have seen on TV. And that at least is more than women of my age had as we didnt experience our mothers or aunts or sisters birthing at home, and One Born Every Minute would very much NOT have been on TV in the 80's!!

I have had 6 births and I wore something with all of them except one where for some reason I couldnt bear anything touching me at all. So your DH is wrong on that one. The midwives frankly couldnt have cared less what I was wearing as long as the business end was available as and when needed.

That said......taking knickers on and off when full term is a big enough pain in the arse (har har) when not in labour, doing it when labouring and you may not be able to move particularly well (due to epidural, pain, chosen position etc) is far worse. Do it once and chances are you wont want to try and put them back on again, then off again etc. You are coming at this from the POV of a woman who isnt full term and isnt in labour, when the moment comes you will realise that there are more important things taking up your thoughts than whether you have your knickers on.

If there is one thing I can suggest to any couple planning their first labour....dont bother. All the birth plans in the world wont make this controllable. You will not bein charge, your body and your baby will be. I would say that coming to peace with what your body and baby want and need in the moment will help you go with the flow better than trying to plan everything in advance and then being angry or guilty or lost when the plan doesnt happen.

Its scary and human nature is to try and remove the fear by trying to control the outcome, but you cant.

One way or another, your baby will make its way into the world, knickers, sport bra or nightie notwithstanding. You'll do fine xx

I laboured in a nightdress. Kept knicks on until near the end as once waters broke I had to wear a pad while walking around. Do whatever feels comfortable for you on the day.

Sounds like he is frightened, talked to the only people he knows with experience of labouring and they all did it naked and one ended up emergency birthing when she thought she needed a poo.

So he is mitigating the fear by trying to find a solution.....hence the catheter and taking advice from women who have already done it.

I dont think he is a dick, just someone about to enter a situation that terrifies him and is trying to not be terrified.

As a midwife I can tell you that all the women on here are right - wear whatever you want and see how you feel when the time comes.

It would be really worth considering antenatal classes, balanced ones which inform you both of all options / reality. It will hopefully help DH understand the process more and what he can do to help you.

Whatever you choose is right for you x

I kept my pants on until the head was crowning, the midwife then cut them at the side. My nightie stayed on! All quite usual. Maybe DH can hang around in a t-shirt with his bits dangling about while you're in labour.

When I went to hospital I took my clothes but was asked to remove everything and I was put in hospital clothes.

I laboured in a hospital gown with all of mine. Stuffed if I was getting anything of mine manky and having DH have to take it home as washing.

Maybe, I'm not sure if OP is paraphrasing him but if he's calling her wishes over something as simple as a nightie 'ridiculous' I think he's veering from frightened territory into dick territory.

Either way he needs to be told that he's stressing the OP out and is not in the delivery room to question the way the she wants to do things.

Well when he's doing the labour he can have his opinion, you wear whatever you like.

I was put in a hospital gown all three times

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

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 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.

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'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

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 .

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

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.

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 😂

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.

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 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.

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.