One of the most life changing experiences that you can ever have in your life is through childbirth. It’s going to affect you for years to come, so you want the experience to be as close to what you want as possible.
Birthing experiences can look different for every couple and with every single birth. Whether you’re in a hospital, whether you’re at home or you’re having a planned C-section, the key is to have a positive experience. You may have already seen that birth injury claims are rising, and that means that you want to do what you can to minimize any particular risks that happen during childbirth. The one way that you can do this is to learn how to advocate for the bed that you want and the experience that you want, while still remaining flexible as to what could or would go wrong.
It may not sound like something nice to be ahead of, but knowing that you’re on top of everything will help you to feel calm and relaxed when you go into labor. Advocacy is so much more than just making choices as to whether you want to go with the vitamin K injection or not. It’s about knowing how to speak up for yourself if you’re not comfortable. So let’s take a look at how you can do it:
- Choose your care provider carefully. It’s important that you interview different care providers and doctors to make sure that you get somebody on the same page as you. Maybe you want a midwife rather than a doula, or maybe you want an obstetrician instead of a family practitioner. Some people like the idea of free birthing in the ocean, but others prefer to be in a more constrained environment in a hospital. Either way, you should consider making sure that you are choosing a provider who knows what you want and will happily speak up for you.
- Don’t skip the childbirth classes. One of the most powerful tools in advocating for yourself during labor is to take a childbirth class. Comprehensive classes can equip you with the knowledge that you need to make better and more informed decisions at childbirth. In classes, you can cover everything from basic anatomy in the stages of labor to understanding your pain options. Education is going to make a big difference to what you can expect as you go through childbirth.
- Know the risks and own them. We talked about birth injuries, and the reason that birth injury claims are happening is not just risk to the baby, but risk to you. They call childbirth a miracle because it’s a miracle that you can come through it in one piece after changing your entire Physiology to get a baby from your body. Knowing the risks is not designed to scare you, but it’s designed to help you to own those risks and move forward positively regardless.
- Let everybody know your plan. Birth plans don’t always go the way you hope them to go, but if you have a rough idea of what you want, you can communicate this to your team and I hope that it comes to pass.
