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Last-Minute Mother's Day Ideas

Got a Birth Plan?

by Momversation on May 06, 2009 — Comments (6)

Monday's episode is all about birth plans. Got one? Need one? Have no idea what one is? The birth plan helps you decide about everything from pain medication to emergency C-sections. Here are some great online resources for free birth plans.

Birthplan.com: Learn about birth plans, and create a custom plan.

Earth Mama Angel Baby Organic Birth Plan: While you're waiting for them to email your birth plan, take a look around at their organic baby and pregnancy products.

Baby Center's Birth Plan Calculator: A quick-and-easy birth plan with all the essentials.

PregnancyandBaby.com Birth Plan Creator: This birth plan allows you to add a personalized, detailed message to your caregivers (includes a sample for you to edit).

Interactive Birth Plan: This birth plan goes a step further by ensuring that your wishes on things such as circumcision and caring for a sick infant are met.

And here are few others to check out:

Keywords

Pregnancy Tips and Resources

6 Comments

Ujjkehus

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Thu, 2010-03-04 10:45

Lymnozml

Wefwjnegjjw

Wed, 2010-03-03 18:11

fishman

Once you have had your child if you need any parenting advice I would recommend Empowering Parents.

Wed, 2009-08-05 12:03

hoppytoddle

This is a pretty emotional one for me, not because of the hormones, but because the concept of writing a birth plan insinuates that you have choices. I don't.

While I agree, the concept of writing out what note of Claire De Lune the doc is supposed to cut the cord on is a little extreme, I think so many women go into labor without fully understanding what is going to or could possibly happen. The process of just thinking about a birth plan will force you to think about decisions you may have to make & you should not only have an idea of where you stand on these things, but take the opportunity to educate yourself on what effects those choices have. Because trusting your doctor to give you objective information is just so incredibly naive. Doctors are going to do what is in their best interests, meaning, what is least likely to get them sued.

I trusted my doctor to help me & ended up with a traumatic cesarean. Just leave it at traumatic. No one told me the hospital I was birthing at had a 52% rate of cesarean. No one told me that there is not a single doctor in 3 counties that will do a vbac.

I wish I HAD looked at that birth plan form just a wee bit harder, because then maybe I wouldn't have let them induce me at 37 weeks.

Tue, 2009-05-12 17:33

lousymom

I always tell people that a birth plan is great, but you really need to work with your doctor to get him or her to put some of your wishes down as orders. Doctor's orders have a lot more push than birth plans and the nurses have a much easier time meeting your needs that way.

As an example; what if you wanted to walk a lot? You may put in your birth plan that you want to walk a lot, but the hospital may have set orders that state "continuous monitoring." That makes it really hard for the nurses. If you come in with orders from your doctor that say, "15 minutes of monitoring every hour until..." then the nurses have to follow that and you get your wish more easily. The time when you are not monitored, you can walk and walk and walk.

Also, make sure you talk to your doctor about how much of your birth plan is applicable at your hospital. For example, I once worked at a hospital where people would want to labor in the bathtub, but there was only one bathtub for all the labor rooms. If that's the case, you may want to look into a different hospital.

http://www.lousymom.com

Sun, 2009-05-10 17:41