Birth Plan

A birth plan is a tool that can be used to communicate your hopes and desires for your upcoming birth to your health-care team.  A birth plan assists the health care team in understanding your preferences for labour, birth and the immediate postpartum time period. It provides an opportunity to:

• discuss  pain management options during the pregnancy, and discourages a first discussion of these plans from happening in labour;
• discuss options for labour and infant feeding;
• clarify any misconceptions and promote realistic expectations;
• encourage women to be active participants in their care (preferences are considered antenatally by patient and are documented and communicated);
• offer a woman’s interdisciplinary team a communication tool to allow for ongoing discussion.