What makes a good birth?
Before I give you my own answer, I have some questions:
Is a scheduled c-section good?
Is a medicated “all on your back” birth good?
Is a home birth in a birth tub good?
Is a birth where you’re roaring out your baby as you’re tuned into your own body good?
Is a hospital birth where you fully trust your medical team and listen to everything they recommend good?
If your answer is “it depends on who you ask” you’re right!
You could ask these questions to different people and each person would probably have a different answer. Each of these types of births could be considered good by some and could each be considered bad by some depending on their own knowledge, culture, experience, and personality.
First of course, I want to acknowledge that not all things are controllable in birth. In rare cases, things happen that would be traumatic to anyone. Barring those things (but sometimes even despite those things), there are ways you can help yourself to have your own good birth experience.
Here are my tips for how you would prepare ahead of your birth to have the best experience possible.
1. Self compassion
I would love every pregnant person to lean into self-compassion. This is a mindset and skill that will continue to come in handy throughout your entire journey of parenthood. You will be tested a lot as a parent because it’s a job where there is no “perfect” as is birthing. The ability to stay in the moment, tune into ourselves, and be okay with what we CAN DO is so important. There are enough places to feel shame and it is best to try to keep it out of the birth space. A lack of self compassion is also one of the thought patterns that is very commonly seen in postpartum mood disorders.
2. Mental and emotional resilience
On top of a mindset of self compassion, building emotional and mental resilience is also very helpful. It is almost guaranteed that you will encounter something that is frustrating or disappointing during your birth and early postpartum, whether you have a disappointing cervical check, your water breaks and your body is taking longer to go into labor than you thought, or it takes longer than you expect for your milk to come in. Consider how you personally release your emotions and reset your nervous system to keep going.
3. Consider the biases, experiences, and agenda of others who are giving you information
Everyone speaks out of their own experiences. Here are a few examples of scenarios I have encountered:
Certain medical professionals will speak from their own fear or comfort zones, so if your doctor is saying something to you which is inspiring fear in you or goes against what you are wanting for yourself, please research what evidence says in this case and what a variety of providers would say (not just the one dr), and ultimately know that you are the one whose opinion matters most.
Some friends can be speaking out of the trauma they have experienced in their birth experiences. Your friend’s, mom’s or sister’s trauma is not your own.
There is a big push right now from birth professionals for “natural” or unmedicated birth (maybe it’s a pendulum swing away from the medical authority model of birth). Sometimes birthworkers can be acting out of anger from experiences they have had with medical staff. I can sometimes be guilty of this one as well. So understand the bias of your childbirth educators or doulas and try to be clear about what your own goal is.
4. Your own past trauma
if you have experienced abuse, either physical or emotional, that can come into play during a birth. Having your birth team understand your triggers will be helpful so they can understand what is helpful to say and do and what is not helpful. Some may have triggers about being told what to do with their bodies, being abandoned, being criticized, being ignored. Understanding these triggers and talking about them ahead of time can do a lot to ward off negative experiences.
5. Your own values, quirks, personality, and desires
Understanding what you care about and why is going to help you visualize what looks good for yourself. Also, in my experience when people have the ability to bring in their own personalities and interests into their birth experience, it tends to make it a more positive experience. Here are some questions to ask yourself to get yourself thinking.
How do you communicate and how do you prefer being communicated to?
What makes you feel safe or comforted?
What makes you happy or energized?
What do you want to get out of this birth experience?
6. Reasonable expectations of yourself and others
This one goes hand in hand with both having self-compassion and understanding others’ viewpoints. Sometimes if we expect too much of ourselves and others, we are bound to get disappointed. For example, if you are expecting in a hospital setting to be able to not get an IV port, you may want to understand that the staff won’t be super happy about that as putting in that IV port is part of their job. Also, if you are not someone who love exercise and pushing yourself past your limits and have an expectation to just wing an unmedicated labor, you may be expecting too much of yourself. Managing expectations is so much a part of life and is the same way in birth.
7. Have a team
I repeat this one over and over because this is one of the best ways to help yourself have a good experience. Having others with you as you birth who understand YOU and what YOU want is so important when you are feeling in pain or vulnerable so you won’t be the only one who knows how to communicate what you want or need. And also sometimes it is just so comforting to have familiar and trusted voices surrounding you cheering you on.
My hope is that every birthing person has a good birth experience and transition into parenthood. If you’re pregnant I hope this article can be helpful for you. If you’re wanting to learn more about how set yourself up for the best birth experience possible, most birth doulas are great at asking you questions to help you figure out how you would define a good birth and helping you to prepare for that good experience. Let me know if you’d like to learn more.