Fairy lights in birth hospital bag?

[crumblylancs]

Can someone tell me if this is the new normal? My tiktok is full of pregnancy videos, including women packing their hospital bags with fairy lights/battery operated tea lights for during labour.

I can't imagine getting in to delivery and trying to get a load of fairy lights hung up

Yes, we brought them. My dh put them up. Can’t say I remember them during labour but they were lovely in the post partum ward at night with the baby

I think it would be reliant on you having a space of your own to put them in. I was induced and laboured on a ward of 8 beds, by the time they realised I was ready to move to delivery DDs head was visible and she was born as I was being pushed down the corridor towards the delivery room. Then afterwards I was on a postnatal ward, again with 8 possibly 10 beds. It would have been very selfish to inflict more lights on the other women there when we all already had to deal with doors opening and closing, lights in the nurses station, bedside lights, beeping monitors, chatting, multiple babies crying.......

It's a hypnobirtbing thing for the actual birthing room, not for the ward after, to make it more relaxing. A lot of midwife-led units have started offering their own stuff like this now anyway, with systems to play music, oil diffusers, tea lights, etc.

Oil diffusers, tea lights and fairy lights! I had a jug of water on the bedside table. But to be fair we didn't have birthing experiences, we just went in had a baby, stayed for a week then went home and in the majority of cases just got on with it. But whatever floats your boat.

No one used the term birthing experiences, it sounds like you’re projecting something else onto this?

Ditto 😂

No just normal stuff went in had baby and home with in 6 hours

It is absolutelybonkers

👍
Especially if you gave birth (from how it sounds) quite a while ago

Don't be so bloody daft. STFU indeed 🤣🤣🤣

I’m not convinced it’s the new normal.
The birthing suite room I had most of my labour in had fancy lights, you could change the colours and dim them etc. I was really not paying any attention to the lights though.

The room I finished giving birth in was on the labour ward with bright hospital lights - there wouldn’t have been much point having fairy lights, too bright.

I packed my massage oil and battery-powered tea lights. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I came to unpack the hospital bag...

In my delivery room for DD2 there was a weird colour changing light projecting thing (sort of like a slow disco ball) that the woman before me had left behind and that the midwives had left in there in case anyone liked it. It didn't make any difference to me but it certainly wasn't something there was no room for, or that the midwives minded.

This thread will inevitably descend into women tearing down other women for not just 'getting on with things' like they did in 1972 or trying to make women feel silly for things that might make a difficult and painful time a bit nicer for them.

It wasn't for me, I understand how it can help others. It's not silly or something to be laughed at or anything like that. On one hand we complain about the poor standard of maternity care and women being let down by the system and their well-being not taken seriously while with the other hand we scoff at women trying to make their experience better and suggest they should just 'get on with things'. We all have to get on with things in the end, that's how babies are born.

Crikey. All the stfu and fo 🤣

No, I didn't take fairy lights. If somebody else wants to then that's fine and nothing to do with me

I'm genuinely intrigued at how many people are doing this or how many are packing them after watching tiktok videos of other women pack their bags.

Laughing slightly at the idea of ‘staying in for a week’ post-birth. I was thrown out at 1am after giving birth at 2.30pm that afternoon. No help whatsoever, just here’s the baby, now off you go. My mum got to stay and rest for several days after giving birth - sounds wonderful, tbh.

Yes, why bother trying to make anything nicer when you could just “get on with it” and be a martyr. (I had none of those things but don’t see the issue with them unless they are disturbing others)

No harm in taking anything that makes you feel better. I took a couple of paper backs. What the fuck I imagined giving birth was going to be like, I have no idea!

But they didn't hurt anyone, they just stayed in the bag.....

Funny isn't how different peoples wants can be. My MIL asked me how long I was "booking in for" because in her day women stayed for up to 10 days and you let the hospital know how long you wanted in advance. It gave them time to rest and recover without having to look after the house and other kids.

I looked at her like she had two heads when she said it. I live in an area with a maternity service that's known to be lacking and is under investigation by CQC for baby deaths. I didn't even want to be there for delivery let alone ten days after!!! Just wanted to be at home with my baby ASAP.

Ha ha I also took a paper back book! It was a book by Stuart maconie. To this day I've never read it and that was 15yrs ago!

I think that the women who take fairy lights take them in hope, until they realise that giving birth is a mess.

I got into the birth pool at the hospital, DH put the playlist on, then I was immediately livid, told him to turn the fucking music off and get me on a bed!

Actually you just want the baby out.

I don’t think I’d be taking any “influencers” advice regarding anything let alone birth. Take them if you want but definitely don’t feel like you’ve failed if they don’t make it out your bag..

Same experience here! I want it spend as little time in hospital as physically possible, especially on a ward with other people…