Stop telling women that birth plans are pointless!
Friday, Jan 30 2015 WRITTEN BY Best Daily
How come we can make career plans or weekend plans, but not birth plans? asks Milli Hill.
Getting married next summer? I bet you've got a stack of mags, a Pinterest board that's creaking under it's own weight, and so many lists that you've had to make an alphabetical list of your lists. You know that some of it you can't afford, you know it might rain, and you have a slight unspoken fear that, if you let yourself get any more Bridezilla, it might not actually happen at all, but my god you've got your lists, and you are ON IT.
Or maybe you're not that bothered about weddings, but you've got a clear idea how to take your business to the top, get your product on the shelves, or get promoted or voted or quoted. You have dreams, you have ambition, you have a plan. Whatever you're aiming for, nobody would question that.
Unless you're pregnant. If a pregnant women dares to speak what she wants out loud she will use a shrugging, light-hearted or hesitant tone, and say something like, "Well I want to do things as naturally as possible but you can't really plan these things so I'll probably just go with the flow."
She says this because she has heard this message repeatedly and has begun to accept it as fact against her better judgement. From the outset of pregnancy, at least one person, and usually several, has warned her against making any kind of plan for your birth, because, "Birth is unpredictable".
Birth is unpredictable. Yes. This is indeed correct. But as I am a grown woman and presumably you are too, let me tell you something you already know. Life is unpredictable. It has an unreliable, fickle, and unstable nature that, quite frankly, completely sucks. Anybody who has got past twenty and been let down, bereaved, jilted, done over or disappointed knows this to be true. It might be fair to say we all have an unspoken motto: "Have plenty of sparkly and ambitious plans. Accept majority will get pissed on and come to nought."
But still, grown-up women who know all this are told, "Don't make a birth plan. You will only end up disappointed."
This defeatist, patronizing load of rubbish is actually very disempowering. It encourages people who might normally read, research, think hard and make lists of their lists to instead lie back and let the whole birth thing just wash over them. But whilst 'going with the flow' might feel like a plan in itself, it isn't – it's just being passive and handing over the reins to somebody else.
Yes, birth is unpredictable, but don't let that fool you into thinking the whole thing is just pot luck. There are elements that you can include in your birth plan that will maximize your chances of having a positive experience. They won't be a cast iron guarantee (remember that bit about how life sucks?). But they will maximize your chances.
Birth plans are not just idyllic wish lists lit by pretty tea-lights and trimmed with home-made bunting. A birth plan is a chance to take a detailed look at the huge amount of choices and options available to you, to consider the many ways birth might unfold, and to really make sure your voice is heard in the labour room. "Don't offer me pain relief unless I ask for it." "Keep voices and lights low" "Delay cord clamping" "I don't want V.E's" "Immediate skin to skin" "Husband with me in theatre" "Yes / No to Vitamin K", the list of options is endless and worthy of a great deal of time and consideration.
Even those in the birth industry itself express anxiety about birth plans, with many disliking the word 'plan' and arguing it should be replaced with 'preferences'. But to me this PC-speak just colludes with the social message that pregnant women shouldn't bother trying to take control of their births. As Cristen Pascucci, vice-president of Improving Birth puts it:
"Why do we use language that says pregnant women are expected to defer to hospitals, but hospitals aren't expected to defer to pregnant women - even though pregnant women hold the legal and moral authority over their own childbirths? Maybe we should start calling hospital policies "Hospital Preferences," and our birth plans our "Birth Policies."
The message - that voicing how you'd like your birth to be will only lead to difficult feelings if you don't get what you want - is quite subtly damaging to the postpartum woman. If she feels let-down, shocked, damaged or traumatized, this is of course her fault: she should not have got her hopes up. She might even feel she was guilty, selfish or downright naïve to think her birth could be a certain way. She, and nobody else, is to blame.
This is pretty convenient for her care providers, who become the blameless party, whilst she is left holding not just the baby, but all the bad feelings as well. In fact, what we know about women's birth experiences is that it is how they are treated that has the strongest impact on how they feel after their baby is born, not the actual mode of delivery. If a woman feels traumatized it's quite likely to be true that she could have had better treatment: more kindness, more compassion, more listening, more information, more tenderness.
Make a birth plan, and let your demand for compassionate care underpin it. Learn about your options; consider your human rights. Make it your pregnancy project, and do not let anyone tell you you're wasting your time. Go with the flow at your peril. Plan for the best case and the worst case scenario. Read. Make lists of lists. If necessary, be Birthzilla.
Perhaps we might dream of a day when all of this seems unnecessary. But for as long as birth plans are discouraged, derided and mocked, it will remain vital to make one.
Milli Hill is a BestDaily columnist and freelance writer, and the founder of the Positive Birth Movement. Find her on twitter @millihill. Her book, Water Birth: Stories to Inspire and Inform is out now.
Friday, Jan 30 2015 WRITTEN BY Best Daily
How come we can make career plans or weekend plans, but not birth plans? asks Milli Hill.
Getting married next summer? I bet you've got a stack of mags, a Pinterest board that's creaking under it's own weight, and so many lists that you've had to make an alphabetical list of your lists. You know that some of it you can't afford, you know it might rain, and you have a slight unspoken fear that, if you let yourself get any more Bridezilla, it might not actually happen at all, but my god you've got your lists, and you are ON IT.
Or maybe you're not that bothered about weddings, but you've got a clear idea how to take your business to the top, get your product on the shelves, or get promoted or voted or quoted. You have dreams, you have ambition, you have a plan. Whatever you're aiming for, nobody would question that.
Unless you're pregnant. If a pregnant women dares to speak what she wants out loud she will use a shrugging, light-hearted or hesitant tone, and say something like, "Well I want to do things as naturally as possible but you can't really plan these things so I'll probably just go with the flow."
She says this because she has heard this message repeatedly and has begun to accept it as fact against her better judgement. From the outset of pregnancy, at least one person, and usually several, has warned her against making any kind of plan for your birth, because, "Birth is unpredictable".
Birth is unpredictable. Yes. This is indeed correct. But as I am a grown woman and presumably you are too, let me tell you something you already know. Life is unpredictable. It has an unreliable, fickle, and unstable nature that, quite frankly, completely sucks. Anybody who has got past twenty and been let down, bereaved, jilted, done over or disappointed knows this to be true. It might be fair to say we all have an unspoken motto: "Have plenty of sparkly and ambitious plans. Accept majority will get pissed on and come to nought."
But still, grown-up women who know all this are told, "Don't make a birth plan. You will only end up disappointed."
This defeatist, patronizing load of rubbish is actually very disempowering. It encourages people who might normally read, research, think hard and make lists of their lists to instead lie back and let the whole birth thing just wash over them. But whilst 'going with the flow' might feel like a plan in itself, it isn't – it's just being passive and handing over the reins to somebody else.
Yes, birth is unpredictable, but don't let that fool you into thinking the whole thing is just pot luck. There are elements that you can include in your birth plan that will maximize your chances of having a positive experience. They won't be a cast iron guarantee (remember that bit about how life sucks?). But they will maximize your chances.
Birth plans are not just idyllic wish lists lit by pretty tea-lights and trimmed with home-made bunting. A birth plan is a chance to take a detailed look at the huge amount of choices and options available to you, to consider the many ways birth might unfold, and to really make sure your voice is heard in the labour room. "Don't offer me pain relief unless I ask for it." "Keep voices and lights low" "Delay cord clamping" "I don't want V.E's" "Immediate skin to skin" "Husband with me in theatre" "Yes / No to Vitamin K", the list of options is endless and worthy of a great deal of time and consideration.
Even those in the birth industry itself express anxiety about birth plans, with many disliking the word 'plan' and arguing it should be replaced with 'preferences'. But to me this PC-speak just colludes with the social message that pregnant women shouldn't bother trying to take control of their births. As Cristen Pascucci, vice-president of Improving Birth puts it:
"Why do we use language that says pregnant women are expected to defer to hospitals, but hospitals aren't expected to defer to pregnant women - even though pregnant women hold the legal and moral authority over their own childbirths? Maybe we should start calling hospital policies "Hospital Preferences," and our birth plans our "Birth Policies."
The message - that voicing how you'd like your birth to be will only lead to difficult feelings if you don't get what you want - is quite subtly damaging to the postpartum woman. If she feels let-down, shocked, damaged or traumatized, this is of course her fault: she should not have got her hopes up. She might even feel she was guilty, selfish or downright naïve to think her birth could be a certain way. She, and nobody else, is to blame.
This is pretty convenient for her care providers, who become the blameless party, whilst she is left holding not just the baby, but all the bad feelings as well. In fact, what we know about women's birth experiences is that it is how they are treated that has the strongest impact on how they feel after their baby is born, not the actual mode of delivery. If a woman feels traumatized it's quite likely to be true that she could have had better treatment: more kindness, more compassion, more listening, more information, more tenderness.
Make a birth plan, and let your demand for compassionate care underpin it. Learn about your options; consider your human rights. Make it your pregnancy project, and do not let anyone tell you you're wasting your time. Go with the flow at your peril. Plan for the best case and the worst case scenario. Read. Make lists of lists. If necessary, be Birthzilla.
Perhaps we might dream of a day when all of this seems unnecessary. But for as long as birth plans are discouraged, derided and mocked, it will remain vital to make one.
Milli Hill is a BestDaily columnist and freelance writer, and the founder of the Positive Birth Movement. Find her on twitter @millihill. Her book, Water Birth: Stories to Inspire and Inform is out now.