The Perfect Birth Plan

Birth plans, one of the most popular topics in my office. I know many of you have probably seen the memes, or heard jokes about them, or maybe you've never really heard of them at all. Today I am going to help y'all make the ultimate birth plan that will make your obstetrician, family medicine physician, or midwife proud. First off, it doesn't have to be color coded. It does not have to be laminated. It doesn’t have to be notarized either. Yes Mommas, there have been notarized birth plans. LOL.  It just has to useful. Let this piece of paper speak for you when you can’t. It’s not about what essential oil you want to have in the diffuser or what music you want playing while you labor. You want the people taking care of you to look at this paper and say, “We know you and we know how to keep you safe”.  Yes Mommas, you can have a birth plan that help the physicians and the nurses take better care of you. 

So, let's get into this birth plan. Now I don't want to say this plan will give you complete control because labor is so uncontrollable and it is so unpredictable. I don’t want you to feel this magical piece of paper will know all things and control what will happen. I am definitely one of those people that feel that you can manifest things. I feel that mindset really does help guide events in ways that can be for you if your mindset is positive or against you if it is negative. I do understand when women feel that this birth plan is going to help them get to the end goal that they have had in their head since they first peed on the stick and saw positive. I don’t want you to think of this as a contract written in blood and it’s something that can’t be altered. Again, this is more of a CV of your pregnancy and medical history. You have to be open to things changing because the pregnant body and babies just do whatever they want. If you are so adhered to every line on this birth plan you could also put you and your baby in an unsafe situation. 

What do I mean by this? What I mean is women get so attached to the words on their birth plan that they lose focus in the moment of what's happening while they are in labor period and they miss out on cues that their body and their baby is telling them that something else needs to be done period an oftentimes moms will actually hide things that are happening because they know that if they voice certain things then that means that they won't be able to have the experience that they have written down on this piece of paper period what I told women is their birth plan is kind of like a guideline written in pencil period and it should be able to be changed at all times period and these changes should facilitate the endpoint of healthy mom and healthy baby period there are 2 people that should always be focused on during labor and delivery. Some of my mom's feel that once they get into the hospital that the focus primarily becomes baby and no one cares about them period and that is not true period we are thinking of 2 people at the same time period and we cannot make 1 sided decisions because making one sided decisions could mean severe injury or death to the other patient. So mom's obstetricians family medicine physicians and midwives 100% see you and we 100% want to give you the experience that you desire period but we are at the mercy of a baby that's in an environment that we cannot 100% control.  What we need is a relationship built on trust so we can work as a team to get a happy and health mom AND baby leaving the hospital in 2-3 days. 

Tune into this episode to learn how to write your perfect birth plan. And guess what…if you don’t want to make your own, you can find the perfect template at www.drsanbirthplan.com