Since we were talking about birth plans....

[WVUturtle514]

So I thought I would post this here because I'd probably get the most honest feedback. My due date is this Saturday. My husband and I are really hoping for a natural, intervention-free birth, so we have decided to deliver at a birth center near our house. I really have no desire to deliver at the hospital and I'm going to try to do everything I can to avoid it. However, I know that there is the possibility that if I go extremely overdue and they need to induce me, that I will be required to deliver at the hospital. With that in the back of my mind, I have a few preferences that I wanted to run by you L&D nurses and see if they are acceptable or if I will be viewed as one of those PIA patients. All of my preferences are regarding AFTER the birth of the baby.

Barring any complications and/or medical indication that would prevent otherwise, my husband and I would prefer:

1. Baby be placed immediately on mom's chest after delivery

2. Newborn assessment be done with baby on mom's chest

3. Delayed clamping of cord until pulsation stops

4. Delayed weighing/measuring/shots of baby until mom is ready and/or mom has spent at least 20-30 minutes bonding with baby

5. Baby is to stay in room with mom at all times unless mom asks otherwise

6. No bottles or formula to be given to baby

Are any of these requests TOO far out there? I really don't want to be a "difficult" patient, but these are things that are very important to me and this is why I am opting to deliver at a birth center in the first place. How should I approach this subject with my nurse so that it doesn't seem like I am being pushy or confrontational? Any suggestions and comments are appreciated!!! Thanks in advance!!

[CEG]

These are all reasonable requests, but at my former facility they would have refused most of them and probably kept baby away longer out of spite. I would talk with your midwives from the BC about the hospital's practices-- many times the staff/md's are less than upfront about it. Unfortunatelyy not all hospitals (and none of the ones in my area) practice evidence-based or patient centered care.

[WVUturtle514]

These are all reasonable requests, but at my former facility they would have refused most of them and probably kept baby away longer out of spite. I would talk with your midwives from the BC about the hospital's practices-- many times the staff/md's are less than upfront about it. Unfortunatelyy not all hospitals (and none of the ones in my area) practice evidence-based or patient centered care.

Yuck....sounds like that was not a good work environment....I bet you're glad you got out of there! If I go to the hospital, my midwife will still deliver me there unless there is a major complication and she needs to transfer my care to one of the MD's. So it's specifically the nurses "protocols" that I'm worried about....

[MIcrunchyRN]

Its perfect... we did 1-2 hours of no interventions with baby. There was no issues at all. IF they wanted to do vitamin K etc or eye ointment they did it while I was holding baby. There were no issues with this at all.

Do you have a birth plan related to birth? I remember you were wanting a natural birth? Anything along those lines... like in the event of a complicated free labor and delivery I would like:.... Feel free to PM me if you want a copy of my birth plan... It worked so well for us where I had my son that several friends have used it with their births. Very basic...

[MIcrunchyRN]

I also had these "requests" for my birth, but expect the unexpected!! I had a midwife, and a big 'plan' for natural, bla, bla, bla.... needless to say, it didn't work that way, and at the time YOU WILL NOT CARE! In my future pregnancies, I will have faith in the facility & God and just go with the flow. I understand where you're coming from, but I have never heard of a birth plan going as 'planned'.

Every single thing on my birth plan was followed to a T. Nothing went unexpectedly except he had nuchal hands (no biggie).

It was natural, staff was accepting of it. OB let spouse catch, I labored and birthed whatever way I wanted. No IV except hep lock.

Yes expect the unexpected... but not all births are issues. And.. with my daughter my birth plan didn't go as I wished.. and I DID care. There was no real emergency just no respect from the staff... It saddens me to think I spent my time stressed about the staff than focusing on the task at hand and welcoming my little girl into the world.

... to the OP!! I hope you have the birth of your dreams! Sending you lots of easy labor vibes for when the time is right.

[nkochrn, RN]

Your requests sounds plenty reasonable to me. I'm also expecting and plan to request most of these things to. I'll deliver at the hospital I work at, so I can make my nursing colleagues plenty aware of my requests beforehand. We don't usually delay cord cutting and I'm not aware of all the benefits so I think I'll try to read up on that a bit.