What should be included in a birth plan?

[aamia]

First time around here, and not sure what to include. I'm pretty open-minded about most things...

The NHS Choices website has an online tool for writing a birth plan - here. It goes through absolutely everything so it might end up quite long but even if you end up shortening it you will have considered all the questions that might come up.

I'd say from a midwife POV -

Open minded re pain relief - especially if it's your first or is there anything you know you'd definitely want / not want

If water birth facilities available would you like to use

Whether you'd consent to students present - midwifery / med student

Partner cutting cord

Vitamin K

Baby onto chest as soon as born, some mums prefer baby wrapped first

Third stage - active / physiological

Hmm I'm sure there are more ill add later!

I had a number of headings e.g. pain relief, monitoring, the birth and just a series of bullet points for each, e.g. for me

? I am keen to avoid induction
? I would prefer a natural birth if possible.
? I would prefer to be active and remain upright.
? I would prefer to have my husband remain with me throughout labour.
? I wish to avoid continuous monitoring

? I am happy to use entenox as required
? I would like to be encouraged to use the birthing pool for pain relief and possibly for delivery if this is an option.
? I wish to avoid pethadine.

I haven't finished writing/updating it yet, but it did work for my previous two labours. I don't think it is too prescriptive if you take the approach of what you'd prefer and what you'd definitely want to avoid - I've got to add a bit about SPD and positions to avoid, and want immediate skin-to-skin (assuming all is well). Hope that helps!

The NHS where I offer good support for bf, not just lipservice, but after reading some people's experiences on here I would include a line about the importance of bf to me in any future birth plan.

Above should read "The NHS where I live..." Sorry. (I don't work for them, or offer any bf support myself.)

My main points were

• DH to tell me the sex
• Every time you need to do something, explain it fully to dh and I so we know exactly what is going on at all times

Oh, and medical students allowed.

Everything else was "lets see how things progress"

It depends how much you like making lists and planning. I had a very detailed birth plan which listed what to do in the event of things going off their natural course - I had a plan for everything: natural birth, assisted birth, cs. The only bit of my plan that I veered from was the "No Pethidine whatsoever". After 70 hours in labour I heeded the advice of my NCT lady and realised there is a time and place for pain relief.

One bit of advice I was given was to make it short - one side of a4 - so that midwives are more likely to read it and get the main point. I wrote a long version first with all the details of my choices and went through this with DH (who was my birth partner).

Then I edited it down to just bullet points on things like pain relief, and cut out things which I assumed would be a given (ie I know my PCT is very supportive of bf and skin to skin, so I left that out, and had read that the hospital doesn't offer pethidine routinely so I left that out, too.)

Never got round to printing the short one, and in the end things went differently to how I expected (of course) but knowing that DH was familiar with all my preferences and reasons for them meant I wasn't too worried about the plan, just knew we'd make the right choices together.

Would you like to refuse internals (my experience is you get better care if you do as they have to actually listen to what you say instead of override what you say on th basis of an arbitrary number)?

Woukd you like to wait until the placenta is delivered/had first feed before the cord is cut?

Would you like to 'catch' the baby yourself?

Would you like to deliver the placenta into water?

Would you like to deliver in an unfilled birthing pool for the privacy/barrier it provides if water is not recommended?

What are the circumstances in which you'd agree to a drip?

Do you want silence during the second stage or coaching?

Thanks for the ideas :). Does it need to be typed (would have to email it to someone and borrow their printer) or can it be neatly hand written? I think my basics so far are:

• medical students allowed to watch but don't want them doing anything.
• Nothing to be done without full explanation and permission.
• Would prefer birthing pool if available
• Happy to have vit K and managed third stage, equally to listen to advice in the second stage.
• Not keen on forceps AT ALL
• Intend to breastfeed, asap would be good - just please at least wipe baby clean first!

I can never see the point. I hadn't any experience so I couldn't possibly know what I wanted. I didn't have one for any of the 3 times and had perfectly lovely births. It is much more friendly to talk as you go along than get them to read lots of directives that probably won't crop up anyway.
Since the last one consisted of me saying 'can I push now?' and the midwife said 'yes' it would have been a complete waste of everyone's time!

aamia I would say that hand written is fine. - since I didn't have time to print mine off the only birth plan I had was handwritten notes about my preferences made by a midwife at one of my antenatal appointments. They seemed to work fine.

Mine for DS2 (currently pg) is " I want a csection, I want a calm experience, and I want to go home ASAP" not particularly detailed

For DS1 i wrote that i was to be kept informed of what was going on (induction), was open to all pain relief if I asked for it, and that " Under no circumstances were they to bring forceps anywhere near me, i would rather have a tramps hand up there", this had my MW in stitches but id read a horrid story on keilands and started to hormonally obsess fret haha!