AIBU - Are the following demands during *labour* kooky or over the top? You know you got to help me out ?

[snapple]

OK mumsnetters - check out a selection of proposed items on my birth plan - AIBU

Context - I am just over 25 weeks pregnant, will have the baby in a large noisy london hospital, so will be unlikely to have continuity of care.

1. MUSIC if I want it (and yes DH will bring the portable ipod with speakers)

For example some killer tracks, how about:

Are we Human or are we Dancer?

or

I got soul, but I'm not a soldier

with that great refrain:

Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the back burner
You know you got to help me out, yeah

2. Getting in a birthing pool for pain relief.

3. Have the lights down low.

4. Having dh bring in home made pasta if I want it.

5. Asking anyone who enters to use antibacterial gel.

6. Requesting that I only have dh and essential staff in the labour room.

7. requesting a hands off approach by staff as to the baby after giving birth, for those first precious moments.

8. letting cord stop pulsating before they cut the cord

9. requesting natural delivery of the 3rd stage of labour.

I know the above assumes all goes well.

I'd also be interested if anyone did a birth plan that hospital staff took notice of.

It sounds ok, but ditch the thing about the anti-bac gel. It's a bit insulting to the staff to be honest, and you want them on side!

Pasta salad you'll probably get away with (it was fine in my London hospital, although I had their meals). Presume you don't mean hot pasta?

Birth pool - it needs to be available and you need to reach a sufficient degree of dilation without it. Think about what you'll do for either of those.

Otherwise, I would strongly recommend considering what you'll do if things go a bit awry. I wanted a waterbirth, but couldn't have one because I laboured very, very slowly and in the end I needed the synotcin drip to get things going. Don't be too set in your views. The drip meant for me that I needed an epidural (back labour, had been up 56 hours), this in turn means no to natural third stage, and the forceps meant lots of people and checks on the baby. I would really work through your emotions on if this happens before the birth itself. Wish I had as I spent the first three days afterwards really sad about how it went (fine now though ).

Hope it all goes well and you get the perfect birth...

Your list is not unreasonable HOWEVER i would lay money on this being the first baby for you. I am expecting my second and if my experience of the first is anything to go by, i will tell them to "shut that fxxxxxxg music off NOW" insult my mother, hate the waterpool after about fourteen seconds and then demand any and all drugs available, before passing out in a haze until its time to push.

In other words, labour is the one time in your life that you are likely to really want to control UNTIL you are in it, then you will loose all sense of rational - just be prepared to go with the flow, have everything ready as a back up but let it go if you dont want it at the time.

If you go on the midwife led area of the labour ward then you're probably going to be having the low lights/minimal people there anyway.
Just as everyone has said it can all go tits up and you just have to do what you have to do to keep you and baby safe.
I didn't write a birth plan either time as just thought I'd be setting myself up for disappointment if it didn't go to plan.
In fact had been told I wasn't allowed on midwife led part due to my MS and potential need for intervention but with dd2 there was no room on main ward so I ended up on the MLU anyway!
And you probably won't want to listen to the Killers ever again afterwards..

Mine was fairly similar. In the end I didn't want to go in the birth pool. I had Radio4 on which was a soothing distration, don't think I would have wanted music (never got round to sorting any out). I don't remember third stage labour, I had the injection in the end (I think). DH tells me I ate something (can't remember). I had lots of capri-sun drinks, gas and air makes you thirsty.

They were definitly happy to let the cord pulsate and they did check about vitamin K.

Nothing went according to my birthplan but that was fine. The only thing that did perplex me was that I asked for ice to be applied if I had to have an episiotomy. They said that they couldn't do that because they didn't have any ice. Seemed odd to me as there was a kitchen down the corridor! But I thought it was nice because the doctor came round especially to explain why they hadn't done it. By that point of course I didn't care at all and just wanted to be with my baby.

Next day I regretted it though ...

yanbu but I think they could be much better expressed

My birthplan was based round concepts rather than details, iyswim. I think it went:

I would like:
An active labour
A waterbirth if possible
Pain relief on request and not before
No intervention unless medically indicated
Immediate skin-to-skin
A natural third stage

and my MWs followed the spirit of it completely, to the extent of barricading my door against the junior registrar who'd heard there was a high risk mother in and wanted to 'have a look' .
I ended up not having a natural third stage because I bled impressively into the pool and had to be spiked with syntocinin, but that was a clinical decision and the right one.

Put the request for the pool right at the top as it'll be first come first served and if you don't bag it the minute you get through the door someone else will. You can always get out if you decide you don't like it.

The MWs don't need to know if you want The Killers / Muse / pasta / cake - that's DH's job. If you put stuff like that in the birth plan I suspect they will find it less useful and possibly take it less seriously.

None of that seems kooky.

But, like many other on here...

I wanted all that stuff (1st baby) but when it came to it all I wanted to do was walk around and shout and moan and swear and lean against DH. I hissed at anyone who spoke to me. I wouldn't go on the birthing ball, wouldn't go in the bath, wouldn't have music on wouldn't eat. I didn't give a toss how bright the lights were and by the end didn't care (or even notice) who was in the room.

Probably the most important thing is to make sure everyone knows that (within reason) they should just let you do what you want, you know best, it's you doing the work.

Good luck!

Played the Killers en route to hospital. Always think about DS2 delivery when I hear Sam's Town particularly For Reasons Unknown.

I read the title as 'during labour nooky'! Not to my taste but each to their own...!

Hope the birth goes well

Thanks again to everyone for all their really helpful comments, well wishes and sharing their experiences.

The hand hygiene is important to me and is not meant to be patronising to staff whatsoever, so perhaps it is a case of expressing it better and also prioritising my list.

(I don't wish to sound alarmist and without going into details close family members have suffered as a result of poor hygiene in hospitals, eg FIL caught MRSA in hospital and has never regained his strength, and although it was decades ago my mother caught a virus on labour/recovery ward with her first, where it really was touch and go for her).

haha catz!

I think it all sounds fab. I know someone who's DH took in aromatherapy oils and twinkly fairy lights aswell.

Now I am going to add some aromatherapy oils and twinkly fairy lights too - Why not?

Like others for my first baby I had lots of nice plans for labour - when the time came we didn't even get the labour bag opened, I shouted at DP if he touched me (or if he was too far away!) and just took things as they came. Its probably worht thinking abotu which bits on your list are absolutely essential (like the pain relief you want available) and what bits are the fluffy bits on the side that DP can sort out.

For some utterly obscure reason (apart from the fact that I love QOTSA) I had "No One Knows" running through my head in the days leading up to, and during the 1st stage of, labour with DD in April.
With DS it was "Virgnia Plain" by Roxy Music - where the hell that came from I don't know.
Then it all got a bit Ken Russell with DS once I got into hospital.....
Let us know if you were pushing along to Brandon after it's all over!

do they normally haev NON essential staff in the labour room?

Well - Badgers I would hope it was the case that it was essential personnel only - but one tip I had from an experienced MW was to have DH monitor the door and escape to the toilet to get some privacy if you need to, to limit the space and reduce numbers of people in attendance if all going well.

She was quite insistent on this one and how nonessential interruptions, knocking on the door etc can slow down contractions.

Perhaps she was meaning students etc?

None of it sounds unreasonable at all.

One thing I was surprised about when I gave birth was that I didn't want to listen to any music. I was induced though, so if I had gone into labour naturally I might have wanted it in the early stages.

I echo everyone else about the being flexible thing.

The other songs mentioned are inspiring me, the play list will be heavily biased towards Brandon Flowers but here are some others that might be worthy of consideration :

Early on :

London Calling the clash

"the drugs don't work" the verve

Salt in Pepper's - push it

The first time I saw your face - version sung by Jools Holland and the Sterophonics

then, if it all starts going off plan [hmmm]:

Scream - Michael and Janet Jackson

The first cut is the deepest - ouch

and .... if swine flu escalates and after the birth the birth i have to limit visitors for the first 2 months:

"the first time I met the blues" and "damn right I got the blues" by buddy guy.

Sorry to hear about your family history. In that case, how about expressing it something like

"Although I realise that hygiene rules will be followed automatically, due to family history I am really nervous about hospital infections. It would therefore help me relax and concentrate if it could be made conspicuous to me that everyone is handwashing/using the alcohol hand gel. I think otherwise I may become distracted worrying about it"

Something like that is a bit long, I realise, but it explains to the staff why you want the reassurance without suggesting that you are doubting their professionalism...

This all sounds reasonable. I have had 2 natural 3rd stages in busy hospitals at the suggestion of the midwives (at the last birth the MW didn't even ask!).

I have to ask though, if you want all these things for your labour why don't you have a homebirth as you are far more likely to get them at home with no fight.

confused's wording sounds good.

Have to agree with movingoutofblighty, though, I was in my own little world of pain and really NOT in touch with anything outside my own body at all.

the bit about pasta made me snort.

my birth plan was tossed aside with a derisory laugh and a "we are short-staffed you know"

Defiantly have the killers playing, All 4 albums are a must!
Maybe some lovely pictures of the lovely lads as well will help you through? ;0)