A birth plan is all about you and your preferences on your big day. It tells your medical team exactly what you want and expect for delivery. Our birth plan template will show you the perfect way to communicate your needs!
Making a birth plan ahead of time can be super helpful. It facilitates communication between you and your medical team, sets expectations, offers back-up scenarios, and may help you feel more in control.
Having a birth plan on hand will let you focus on the thing that matters the most 一 delivering your baby!
What Is A Birth Plan?
A birth plan outlines your preferences for pain management, birthing procedures, who you want in the room with you, and environmental controls. It allows you and your medical team to get on the same page about your expectations for your childbirth experience.
We recommend making your birth plan concise and thorough. It should be easy for your medical team to read while still conveying all of the things you need, expect, and want during your big day.
Expecting The Unexpected
Although they’re great for planning and communication, birth plans are not etched in stone! Things can change pretty quickly during labor and delivery.
It’s always important to remember that your medical team has your and your baby’s best interest in mind at all times.
If there is ever a moment during labor when your doctor recommends deviating from the preferences outlined in your birth plan, trust that they’re doing so in order to prioritize the health of you and your baby.
Your plan helps you keep in mind not only what you want to happen, but what could happen. This way you and your doctors are prepared, excited, and flexible. Like they say — it takes a village!
Sample Birth Plan Template
If you’re not sure where to start with composing your birth plan template, here are some guidelines to help.
Contact Information
At the very top of your birth plan, you’ll want to include the most essential contact information so your medical team isn’t searching through your birth plan in the case of an emergency.
You’ll want to include:
- Your name
- Your partner’s name and phone number
- Your doula or primary care physician’s name and phone number
This helps ensure that your medical team is aware of everyone in the room, how to reach them, and who to go to if they need to give updates about your condition.
You wouldn’t want your partner exploring the dessert buffet while you’re only a few pushes away from your baby’s birth!
Room Environment
If there are any particular things you want present (or not present!) in your delivery room, this is the section in which to outline that.
You can include the people you want in the delivery room in this section as well. Any friends or family outside of your parents and partner, when you would like them to be there (during the early stages of delivery or after the child is born), for example.
You can also provide other details, such as if you would like the lights to be dim, if you would like to play music, or if you would like access to certain things. Birthing balls, a shower, and a squatting bar are popular requests for women in labor.
Some women also prefer to wear their own clothes during labor and delivery. They may also want to walk around the room freely and explore different birthing positions.
Outlining all of these preferences to your medical team will be helpful for them to ensure your room and labor are prepared to the best of their ability. It also helps them know what type of environment they’ll be working in.
Pain Management
Some women opt for a medicine-free delivery. Some women do not. Your preferences regarding this aspect of your delivery should go under this section.
Depending on any unique allergies or health sensitivities you may have, this section could become very specific.
Make sure you outline precisely the things you need, prefer, or cannot receive in this part of your birth plan template, as your medical team will use it to guide potential treatment.
For example, some women request their medical team to suggest intervention if they appear overly uncomfortable. Others prefer their medical team not to offer medicine. And still, some others request no suggestion of pain management at all beyond natural remedies.
What you prefer is totally up to you! There is no right or wrong way to attempt delivery.
If you’re hesitant about pursuing pain management during labor, it might be worth your while to include a note to your doctors to ask your opinion before deviating from what you’ve outlined in your birth plan.
That said, we always want to encourage you to trust your medical team. They will do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of you and your baby.
Communicating your needs, concerns, and wishes is the best way to ensure you and your team will be on the same page when the big day comes!
Other Types Of Intervention
Interventions during labor and delivery aren’t always about pain management. There will be many times during labor when your medical team wants to check up on you and your baby’s progress.
This will often include some sort of electrical monitoring. They’ll often check how dilated you become and encourage ways to further progress your delivery.
Your medical team may also suggest intervals of pushing or certain things to do to further your dilation. Some women are uncomfortable with this and want to control their own progression! This is a great thing to disclose in your birth plan.
Post-Birth
Once your baby finally arrives, so many things will happen in a flash! Your baby needs to be weighed, detached from the umbilical cord, cleaned, bundled, and checked to ensure they’re healthy.
But it’s also important to have those first few moments together. Outlining what you expect to happen right after your child is born is a critical part of your birth plan.
How you would like to deliver the placenta, the announcement of your baby’s gender, cord clamping, the post-birth environment, certain vaccines that you do or do not want to be admitted to your child — the list goes on!
Researching and outlining what you want for your child will help make those first few moments after birth a breeze rather than a chaotic rush!
Also, remember that post-birth procedures are about you just as much as they are about your little one. Make sure you’re prioritizing your health, as well!
Discuss the need for local anesthesia, post-procedure stitching, lactation consultation, and other interventions with your doctor.
And once you’re out of the hospital, the self-care doesn’t stop. Mustela is here to offer you all the things you need to soothe and comfort you on the road to recovery and new-baby-bliss!
Our Stretch Marks Set is the perfect powerhouse duo to support your skin during this wild, exciting journey. From pregnancy to postpartum, our fragrance-free, naturally derived formula is safe for you and your little one and will keep you glowing and hydrated.
A Birth Plan Template And An Amazing Delivery
Our birth plan template should help you get the ball rolling for planning your day of labor and delivery. But we’ve only scratched the surface!
There is no such thing as the “correct” birthing plan. Tailor it to address your needs for your big day! It is all about you (and your baby, of course).
In the time between making your birth plan and having your baby, make sure you’re stocked up on all of the essentials that you’ll need once your little one finally makes their debut!
Our Newborn Arrival Gift set has everything you need to care for your new bundle of joy’s skin. It includes five natural skincare products formulated specifically for preserving your baby’s delicate skin!
We hope our birth plan template helped you understand what should go on into your birth plan and why it’s so important! We know you’re going to be amazing on your big day — your birth plan will make sure everyone on your medical team knows it, too!