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8/17/2024 0 Comments Confident Birthing ChoicesWhen we first wrote this blog post it was the start of the corona virus pandemic. That was a time when lots of things changed very fast and we often didn't know from week to week what would be on offer in terms of healthcare for labour and birth. Since then we've been told that everything has returned to normal. But in our experience, we've not returned to the way things used to be, there's still a lot more uncertainty and last-minute changes than used to be usual. From what we can work out this is mainly due to staff availability in maternity and ambulance services. It's generally not an issue for anyone planning to birth in the labour ward. However, those planning a home birth or to birth in the stand-alone birthing centres are still being warned there is always the possibility they will be asked to come into the labour ward (or sometimes to the alongside birthing centre) on the day. For anyone having an induction of labour, this can also affect how long they will need to wait between being advised to have their labour induced and when they are invited into the hospital to start that process as well as how long that process may take.
So thinking about what is inside and outside your control when you're making a birth plan remains a good way of planning.
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Birth is just the start. This post is about planning for your birth and beyond in the context of planning for the fact that birth is just the start of the rest of your life. It's a bit like a post on planning your wedding that is mostly about planning for your marriage. Your birth and parenting experience is a journey into the great, exciting, unknown. You can't control everything, some things will happen that you're not expecting but you can give yourself the gift of support and knowledge that allows you to not just survive but thrive.
There's a saying: "It takes a village to raise a child" and that used to be naturally built into our daily lives. But modern-day parents are increasingly finding themselves coming into parenting with the expectation that it's all on them. We see parenting reflected in the media and on social media as something done inside a small nuclear family. We get the impression that we're expected to be able to meet all our children's needs by ourselves and even, if we're doing it "right", to find that experience blissful and fulfilling. You and Information - Best Friends for Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond. 1. Information is Not Advice.  Everyone has their own life experiences and opinions which may colour the way they present information and make it seem a lot like advice. Sometimes our own understanding of the world, or previous experiences, can make us feel pressured to make choices that feel implied by the information someone has selected to give us. An important thing to be aware of, and a skill to learn during pregnancy that will serve you very well as a parent and through life, is how to filter what you hear so you can spot the information and separate it from the advice so that you can decide what the right choices are for you. One example of this might be when you’re offered an induction of labour. You will be given information about why you are being offered an induction of labour by your care provider. Some of this may be in the form of advice to take up the offer. You might then think "I’m not sure if this is the right choice for me" and want to chat through with a friend. Your friend may have had an experience of having labour induced and may have negative memories from that. The information about her experience may also feel like advice. You might then also look up information on the internet about induction of labour (if you decide to do this, you’re very welcome to ask in our Facebook group if anyone knows any reliable sources of accurate information) and you may find that information is presented from many different perspectives. Ultimately, however, you will find some things resonate with you and this information is useful for your own decision-making process. Then you are able to discard the other information and advice which isn’t helpful or relevant to you. This can help you feel really confident in your own decisions and is a life skill which can help with your confidence as you learn to parent and throughout life.
6/4/2024 0 Comments Owning your birth environment In some senses, we're all birthing within the same environment. We're all living in the same culture and most of us are being cared for by the same medical system. Some things are outside of our control like how well-funded our local maternity services are or what the priorities of the management teams are. We see headlines in newspapers and form an expectation of what's "normal" from the births we see in television dramas. Pregnancy is a time were we can really start to reflect on how our cultural and family environment has affected us and our expectations and about what is in our control to change within ourselves. If you didn't even know you had choices about your birth we hope this information will get you started thinking about the things inside your control and what choices you really want to make.
6/4/2024 0 Comments Help your body birthInformed Birth Planning Knowing how your body works can help you work with it and your baby to feel positive and confident in your birthing decisions and experiences. There's no one type of positive birth. Neither is a positive birth only possible if all your hopes and plans come true exactly as you wish. A birth you can look back on and feel positive about means one where you knew you were supported by those around you and when you were given the chance to make the best fully informed decision for you whatever the circumstances on the day. You can have a positive home water birth, a positive planned c-section birth, a positive hospital labour ward active birth, a positive birth with an epidural, any kind of birth that feels like the right choice for you.
We're called Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond because we want everyone to have access to the information they need to make their own decisions. We're there to support you to make your own decisions we're not interested in telling you what those decisions should be. We often talk about shifting your focus from what is out of your control to what is in your control and how this may help you plan for a positive birth regardless of what's in the news or how hospital policies may change. Now it's time to get practical we've been collecting ideas about what practical activities and ideas can help to raise our positive birthing hormones and help us switch off our worried brains and let our bodies get on with the work of labour and birth. What can we do that is within our control. 6/3/2024 0 Comments Making a birth plan"Your birth plan will only end in disappointment." We hear it said so often birth is unpredictable, you can’t plan a birth, making a birth plan is just setting yourself up for disappointment and feeling guilty. But in our experience of working with families, it is precisely because birth is unpredictable that having a birth plan is so important and can often be the thing that prevents feelings of guilt and disappointment. Maybe people don’t like the idea of birth planning because they think making a birth plan means writing down your ideal birth and thinking positively and then all your wishes will come true. If you can plan a holiday you can plan a birth.
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AuthorPosts by team members who are doulas, antenatal teachers, placenta specialists and birth nerds among other things. Archives
March 2025
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