Creating Your Ideal Birth Plan: Step-by-Step Guide & Free Templates

What is a birth plan? It is an outline of how you envision your labor, delivery, and recovery, and a helpful guide to let your care team know what you desire. A birth plan can be a good way to help you organize your thoughts and feelings around labor and delivery, and helps you and your partner or support person align before the big day comes. It may help to role-play different scenarios with your partner as you are planning. For example, what if the doctor recommends you have C-Section? How would you feel about this and what questions might you want to ask before making a decision? Do you intend to chest/breastfeed? Make sure your care team is aware and that you know where to get support. Talking through different scenarios ahead of time with your partner and care team while you are making your birth plan may help you to stay calm and confident during your labor. 

A birth plan can be a great tool to help facilitate communication with your birth team on the big day. Depending on the hospital where you are delivering, your birth team may or may not have the capacity to review a long birth plan. It is a good idea to review this with your care team ahead of time, so you can address any additional questions and concerns you may have about your delivery, or come up with a shorter list of “must-haves” if needed. Remember to be flexible, unexpected things can occur during birth and the ultimate goal is a happy, healthy parent and baby!

Here are two examples of things to include on your birth plan. You are not limited to what is on this list, it is meant to give you a starting point as your delivery date approaches. Congratulations and happy planning!