What do you need from a birth partner?

[Londonmrss]

Hi everyone. I'm currently 28 weeks with my first. My husband will be my 'birth partner' and he is always lovely and supportive, and has my 100% trust. But I do want him to prepare for the experience, just as I am, and am not sure how to tell him what I will need from him.

I am aiming for as natural a birth as possible (although obviously we both have open minds about how it might progress on the day), so I think his main job will be helping me to relax, perhaps speaking on my behalf if necessary. What else?

And what else should I warn him of? Things like 'please don't be offended if I tell you to fuck off, it's not personal', 'Please wipe it from your memory if I accidentally do a big poo in front of you', that type of thing.

Please don't respond telling me a natural birth plan is naive and stupid- I have a positive attitude towards the birth, and refuse to listen to any horror stories!

I found the NCT classes great for two reasons, DH had to concentrate, giving him a book or a website to look at didn't work and because I made friends I still see a lot of and saw at least once a week while we were all on ML.

During labour he fetched the midwife as they often didn't respond to the buzzer and my labour progressed by quickly. Held my hand and cooled my face with a damp cloth. Helped me drink water and understood when I was asking for it. Spoke reassuringly to me and gave me feedback on my progress (the midwife was very non committal and didn't touch to me or speak to me much). Helped me change position.

Most importantly he was my advocate. I was adamant I didn't want pethidine and didn't want the cord cut immediately. He reminded the midwife of both.

I wrote a birth plan and went through it with DH explaining why I'd written each of the things.

E.g. pethidine is an absolute no no because of the effects on breastfeeding. You must ensure that I am not given pethidine under any circumstances - there are alternatives.

Basically DH was there to advocate for me if I was too incoherent to explain my wishes so he had to be clear about what I wanted.

When things went a wee bit wrong he was also there to keep me calm and to ask the questions I was unable to ask or hadn't thought of. He also kept my mum updated :)

I don't have anything to add, but will watch this post with interest as I'm also expecting my first and DH will be my birth partner. All of what you said sounds very sensible and was along the lines of what we were thinking.

Exciting isn't it?!

DH was surprisingly excellent during labour - he stayed cheerful and positive, he didn't flinch at the blood or poo, he didn't mention said poo ever again!!

Probably most useful thing he did was speak up for me re. requesting birthing pool (they were reluctant to go and fill it up ) and pain relief. I found it VERY difficult to make my wishes known so it was great that DH could speak up for me.

He also held the gas and air mouthpiece (v useful!)

I made sure to explain forceps and ventouse to dh well in advance as he didnt realise they might use 'tools' to get tge baby out.

He was

Make sure that he knows if you ask for a sick bowl, you mean IMMEDIATELY.
DH still regales people with how I puked on his lap

Let me list the things they shouldn't do:

They shouldn't offer your precious energy drinks that you got in specifically to keep your spirits up, round to other people in the room - in an attempt to be hospitable.
They shouldn't refuse to stop texting with a phone with incredibly annoying keypad tones, when you're trying to do hypnobirthing.
They shouldn't huff and puff about not being able to find your lip balm.
They shouldn't refuse to leave the room when you ask them to because you're about to have an internal exam.
They shouldn't suggest you push a bit harder because their car parking is about to run out.
They shouldn't down gin like it's going out of fashion during a home birth.
They shouldn't pick an argument with your other birthing partner and refuse to speak to them!

Suffice to say my mother will never be my birthing partner ever ever again.

oh and they shouldn't drop a cannister of gas and air on your foot, mid labour.

Thanks for these ladies, really interesting and definitely helping me to get more of an idea of what to expect!
Queen amazing. Love.