What if you had the tools and knowledge to make your birth a positive experience? What would that be worth to you? What if you could make your birth something you feel prepared for despite not knowing how the experience will go?
This is the power of preparing for your birth.
Preparation does not promise any type of results, but it does make achieving your birth goals more likely. So let’s dive into what you can do to start preparing for your birth today!
I’ve also added in some personal insight into a quick list of things I plan to do differently for my next birth at home! You’ll find this at the end of this blog!
Let’s get into it friend!
Seek Out Positive Birth Influences & Stories
Seeking out positive birth influences and stories will help you see the potential there is for your own birth experience. To know that women from all over are having birth experiences that they love and feel satisfied with will inspire you to not be afraid to want that for yourself. When you hear inspiring birth stories you will know that the birth you hope to achieve is more likely to happen than you think. Use birth stories to guide you in visualizing how your own birth will go. I teach visualization in my upcoming birth course (coming fall 2020) and it is a really powerful tool. Your birth experience(s) will be something you remember with great detail for many years to come. Choose only to listen to positive birth influences and stories. Search out birth podcasts, birth books, positive affirmations and focus on that content daily. Your feelings of confidence, excitement and empowerment toward your upcoming birth will soar!
Start Learning About Birth!
The more you know, the less you fear. When you are proactive about learning about birth, you will uncover the best choices for YOU! Birth has the potential to be an event during which, when you know better you can choose better for yourself. (If that doesn’t motivate you to keep learning, I don’t know what will!) Knowledge is out there everywhere to be consumed. Look on social media for birth education, read blogs (like Informed Motherhood!), search online for a birth preparation class that will best align with the goals you have for your birth, ask for birth book recommendations and have conversations with friends who have gone before you that may have wisdom to share. Be proactive in learning about birth and get yourself on a path of having less fear of birth and more freedom through choices in your birth.
Hire A Birth Team To Support The Type Of Birth You Want
Find a provider that supports the type of birth you want and has a low cesarean rate. These are important factors to consider and will tell how the provider manages a mama’s labor. This choice could impact your birth outcome.
Plan to have a labor support person by your side throughout your entire labor. This could be your spouse, a family member, a friend or someone you trust. For this role, I specifically mean for this person to not be a labor professional (more on that down the list). Having continuous labor support from a loved one is shown to impact your overall birth experience in a positive way.
I highly recommend that you hire a doula. This will ensure that you have 24/7 labor support from a birth professional. This continuous labor support from a birth professional has proven benefits. Studies have found that women with continuous labor support (especially from a professional doula) were more likely to:
- Have a normal vaginal birth ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
- Be less likely to have pain medication ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
- Be less likely to have negative feelings about their birth experience
- Be less likely to have a cesarean section
- And that’s not all!! Mamas’ labors are shorter and their babies are less likely to have complications at birth
What an amazing opportunity you have to reap the benefits of hiring the right birth team for YOU! Take your time looking into different obstetricians and midwives until you find one that you feel most comfortable with. Also, don’t forget that you have the right to change providers at any point you choose. They are working for you. So be a team player, promote a partnership and also play an active role.
Pregnancy Nutrition & Exercise: Why It Matters
You may be thinking, “Yes Jerica! I know why my nutrition is important in pregnancy, I am growing a baby!” But, I have more to say here than the obvious. Lily Nichols, RDN, says that modern nutrition recommendations and research tends to look at single nutrients among our foods rather than whole foods themselves. This places emphasis on vitamins and supplements rather than whole foods we should be eating.
So in this section I want to remind you that yes, nutrition is important during pregnancy. You have the ability to nourish your body and your baby in a way that promotes future optimal health and lower your risk of pregnancy complications! Take your nutrition into your own hands. Today is the time to start. Fuel your body with foods that will give you a healthier baby and pregnancy.
What is real food? What are whole foods?
- Food that is as close to its natural form as possible. Fresh, in season fruits and vegetables.
- Minimally processed foods.
- Meats raised grazing on green pastures.
- Wild caught fish.
- Full fat dairy from grass fed cows.
- Foods that do not have a label or that have minimal added ingredients.
I highly recommend you read the book, Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols. It has research based and updated nutrition recommendations and takes into account real moms and our real, busy lives helping us navigate nutrition in pregnancy and beyond!
As for exercise during pregnancy, this too has benefits that are backed by research. It is never too late to start. Go get moving mamas!
Exercise in pregnancy can…
- Help you cope with the discomforts of pregnancy.
- Help your body as your center of gravity changes.
- Help prevent muscle strains and aches.
- Promotes good body mechanics.
- Decrease leg swelling and prevent varicose veins.
- Help with pregnancy weight gain and weight loss postpartum.
- Offer an emotional boost and improve your sleep.
Most likely you will be able to maintain your current level of exercise in early pregnancy and then begin to slow as you grow, possibly incorporating more low impact exercise. If you’re initiating exercise while you are pregnant, it is wise to build up your fitness level slowly from the start, avoiding trying to do too much too soon.
Here are a few general guidelines [for most pregnant mamas]…
- Continue your usual course of exercise cautioning movements that are more strenuous and are more high impact.
- Always speak with your provider if you have concerns.⠀
- Keep cool! If you’re getting hot, your baby is getting hot.
- Slow as you grow.
- Food and fluid needs increase with exercise. Nourish with extra food for fuel and hydrate.
- When in doubt, skip it & ask for clarification on if it’s safe.
Check out the recommendations on exercise in pregnancy from The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists here.
Plan To Create Your Ideal Birth Environment
Have you thought about what you want your birth room vibes to be like? Create a calm and comforting birthplace for yourself! Give yourself every chance you can to get into and stay in your best birth mindset. Your birthroom can have a big impact on your mindset. Set it up intentionally. When creating your plan, be true to YOU! Do you love playing music? Diffusing essential oils? Want your pillow from home? Want to be in clothes from home? Want to restrict visitors? Want to keep the lights dimmed? Intentionally create the vibe for your birthroom to be one that sets your mind up to be in the right place to birth your baby using tools you’ve learned though preparation!
Here’s a list of what I would do differently to prepare for my next homebirth (in no particular order):
- Hire a doula. At my next birth I want to use the Rebozo sifting technique to have access to more pain relieving positions.
- Hire a birth photographer/videographer. My next birth would be my third and I finally want to be sure to document it because the photos I have from my first two births were very minimal.
- Have my music playing as soon as things get more uncomfortable so I don’t forget to turn it on later. In both of my births I waited too long and soon after forgot about music altogether and never had it playing.
- Order all supplies more ahead of time. I went into labor much earlier than I anticipated and didn’t have a few items that would have come in handy for me to use for distraction and pain management.
- Use a padded mat for the floor to place under the birth tub and also to have to lay on and move on. This would be in addition to any bed or mattress that you might have present to give birth on.
- Place something inside the birth tub to sit on after each contraction. Could be as simple as a large yoga block. I was going from sitting on my butt to then moving up onto my knees to lean over the edge of the tub for every contraction and it got very tiring.
- I would have planned better to have items ready that I can lean on and/or lean over while both standing and sitting (outside of the birth tub) so all my bases are covered for whatever position I want to get into. This is why practicing positions can be helpful before birth. It will identify what type of support tools you need to have ready or what you have in your home that you can lean and sit on.
- Get a fish net to collect any poop that will most likely happen while you are in the birth tub (especially if you plan to birth your baby in the water). During the birth you most likely won’t realize it is happening, but if it happens in the birth tub, the fish net will allow for quick and easy scoop up.
- Have towels ready with the intent to throw them out after the birth because they will be soiled with fluid and some blood.
- An extra set of sheets that you’d even be willing to throw away if you had to.
- An emesis basin or throw up bags so you’re not throwing up into your own mixing bowls or awkward trash bags! I have thrown up during both of my birth experiences. There are actually vomit bags on amazon you can order that are very well shaped and can be easily thrown out after! They have a circular opening with a deep bag attached that is fuss and mess free!
- Plastic mattress cover if you plan to give birth on a mattress. We had one at my last birth, but it would have been nice to have an over sized one that could extend off the bed for additional floor coverage. My water burst open while I was doing gentle pushing with contractions at the end of my labor and it flew quite a ways off the mattress haha.
- Newborn footprint kit so you can still get those sweet new footprints just like you would have with a hospital birth.
To Wrap Up This Blog With a Bang I’ll Say This…
As I said in the beginning of this blog, preparation does not promise any type of results, but it does make achieving your birth goals more likely. I also want to add that just because you have done a lot to prepare for your birth and educate yourself about your options you still may enter into a circumstance where you’re not able to access those options or a provider could use an intervention regardless of if you wanted it or not or even consented to it. This is why I am going to reemphasize the fact that finding a provider whose practices and outcomes match your birth philosophy is a critical component to a satisfying birth experience. You want to be able to walk into your birthplace knowing you can utilize all the techniques that you have learned so you can increase the satisfaction of your birth and feel supported by your provider.
