Top 5 Ways to Increase Your Odds of A Positive Birth Experience
If you are pregnant, perhaps you are thinking “How can I achieve a positive birth experience?” Maybe this isn’t your first go around and you’ve already had a less-than-desirable birth in the past. Perhaps all you keep hearing about are others’ horror stories and you know that you don’t want that to happen to you!
Birth is unpredictable and sometimes can be a crazy, wild ride no matter how much you plan otherwise. But, there really are ways to increase your chances of having a beautiful birth story that you will love to share and remember with fondness. Even when things don’t necessarily don’t go as planned, you can better roll with the punches if you do these 5 things!
1. Hire a Doula
Even the statistics agree, having a doula by your side through pregnancy and birth is an asset beyond measure. She is committed to helping you have the best birth possible and will go to great lengths to make sure that you feel supported, heard, nurtured, and emotionally cared for.
Beyond helping you feel empowered, encouraged, and confident, the benefits of a doula also include the following relative risk deductions as outlined by Evidenced Based Birth:
A 39% decreased risk of a C-section
A 10% decrease in the use of pain relief medication
A 15% increase in the likelihood of a spontaneous vaginal birth
A 38% decreased risk of a low 5-minute APGAR score for baby
A 31% decreased risk of feeling dissatisfied with the birth experience
2. Choose Your Care Provider Carefully
When choosing your care provider for your pregnancy and birth, consider whether they share a similar outlook to your own. Ask them what their statistics are for C-sections, inductions, VBACs, and episiotomies. Ask around and listen to the experiences of others who have birthed with that provider and get a feel for what their practice is like.
If you want less intervention, will they be supportive of that? If you want a twin vaginal birth, make sure that you choose someone who has lots of experience and feels very comfortable with it. If you are seeking a VBAC, choose a provider that truly respects that.
Remember that just because a provider tells you that they will do everything you want them to, the reality is that the more research you do about a provider beforehand, the more likely you will find out what to actually expect. If you choose someone who you feel isn’t really listening to your concerns, it’s okay to switch providers.
Also, consider that though you have a choice when it comes to which doctor you want to care for you, if you have a low-risk pregnancy, you may want to choose a midwife instead. Many midwives may better align with the ideals of someone who is seeking a more natural birth, but not all do, so once again... do your homework.
Your provider can make or break your birth experience, so choose carefully. Don’t strictly choose someone just because they are the first doctor assigned to you by your insurance company. Keep your ears open, pick carefully, and follow your intuition.
3. Weigh your Options for Your Place of Birth
Much like choosing your care provider, deciding where you will give birth will make a massive difference in the odds of having a positive birth experience. Different facilities have different policies when it comes to anything and everything about labor.
As you are researching your options of which hospital or birth center best suits your needs, ask lots of questions! Do they have a labor or birth pool? What kinds of restrictions are there? Will you be allowed to walk around or give birth in any position you choose? Will you be allowed to eat and drink while in labor? What are your pain relief options or what can you expect if you need a C-section? How long will you be allowed to labor or push? Etc...
Every question you ask will help you narrow down your choices to only the facilities that you feel will respect your decisions, choices, and preferences. Ask others what their experiences were like when they birthed at the facilities in question or look up reviews online. Does anything make you question whether you will be heard or respected during your birth experience?
Don’t forget that a hospital or birth center isn’t your only option. Some low-risk pregnant women can safely deliver in their own homes. If that sounds like something you would be interested in, do some research and look for a homebirth midwife in your area!
4. Take a Childbirth Education Course
Once you have chosen your doula, your care provider, and your place of birth, the next best thing you can do in preparing for a positive birth experience is to learn everything you can about what birth is really like! Of course, you can learn a lot by reading pregnancy and birth books, or by researching your questions on the internet. But nothing can beat the type of learning you will get by actually attending an independent childbirth education course in your community.
Here you will glean the most up-to-date, hands-on, and informative array of birth physiology, positions, coping methods, and advice on everything from natural labor and birth to interventions and what-to-expect when the unexpected happens.
Even if you’ve given birth before, don’t neglect an updated educational course to prepare you for this time around. Not only will it help you feel more prepared, but it will also connect you with others in the community who will bolster your courage, give you positive encouragement, and make you more confident in your birth journey.
5. Use your BRAIN
Throughout your pregnancy, labor, and birth, you will likely find yourself in a position at least once, if not multiple times, needing to make various decisions along the way. The important thing to remember is that you always want to weigh all your options and give only educated and informed consent, no matter what situation presents itself.
Learning to advocate effectively for yourself is an important skill and will go a long way to helping you have a positive birth experience. For this reason, you will want to be equipped with this very handy mnemonic to remember the steps you can take to ensure that you are an active participant in every decision, intervention, or procedure that you are presented with.
Remember to always use your BRAIN:
B ~ Benefits (What are the benefits?)
R ~ Risks (Are there any risks to this and if so, what are they?)
A ~ Alternatives (What other choices do I have besides this?)
I ~ Intuition (What is my gut telling me to do or not do?)
N ~ Negotiation (Do I have to this now? Can I do it later? What happens if I say no?)
When you ask these questions and get the answers you seek, you stay in control of your situation as much as possible and that alone can help you feel empowered. This, in turn, can help you achieve a positive birth experience knowing that you are the one who is in charge of you and your baby.
Of course, ultimately, we hear that as long as mom and baby are healthy, birth stories don’t matter. But that’s just code for: If you both survive, that’s good enough. However, I don’t believe that we should be aiming so low. Birth experiences are pivotal in one’s life and how you remember and perceive what happens will stay with you for your whole life.
Your mental well-being, your memories, and the health of your psyche really matter and that’s why increasing your odds of a positive birth experience should be one of the main things you focus on during your pregnancy. It may even make the difference between a rough postpartum experience and a babymoon that thrills you.
