Birth Plan Creating a Plan That Supports Your Birth
A birth plan is a way to share your preferences for labor, delivery, and immediate newborn care. It can be as simple as a one-page checklist or as detailed as you need it to be. Most importantly, a birth plan is not a test you can fail. It is a communication tool that can help you feel grounded, supported, and heard as you prepare for birth.
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Pregnancy Topics
Birthing Choices: Health Care Providers And Birth Locations
What Is a Birth Plan?
A birth plan is a written outline of what you would like to happen during labor and delivery. It is often used to start conversations with your provider and birth team, clarify your priorities, and reduce last-minute decision fatigue.1 Some parents feel comforted by having a detailed plan. Others prefer a short list of must-haves. Both approaches are valid.
The Most Helpful Mindset: Plan and Flexibility
Birth can be beautifully unpredictable. A plan can guide your preferences, while flexibility supports safety if labor changes direction. The goal is not control, it is clarity and support.
A helpful way to think about it: preferences are what you hope for, priorities are what matters most to you, and back-up choices help you feel prepared if the plan changes.
Birth Setting and Care Team
Many birth plan decisions begin with where you plan to give birth and who you want present. Continuous labor support is associated with improved satisfaction and may reduce certain interventions.2
Common settings include hospital, birth center, and home birth in appropriate circumstances. Support team options can include a partner, family member or friend, doula, or midwife.
Learn what birth centers offer and how they differ from hospital and home births
Explore what home birth involves and how to prepare safely
Learn about the roles of doulas and midwives and how they support labor
Labor Preferences
Some preferences you may want to consider include dim lights or a quiet environment, music and movement, walking or showering, intermittent versus continuous monitoring when appropriate, eating and drinking during labor depending on your facility, and use of comfort measures such as massage, warm compresses, and positioning.
Get a full overview of labor progression and what to expect at each phase
Pain Management Preferences
Pain management choices are deeply personal. Discussing options ahead of time can help you decide what fits your goals.3
Non-medical comfort options may include breathing and relaxation techniques, hydrotherapy, position changes, and counterpressure or massage.
Medical pain relief options may include an epidural, spinal block, nitrous oxide, IV medications, or a local or pudendal block.
Explore relaxation techniques you can use during labor to stay calm and focused
Learn patterned breathing techniques and how to use them during contractions
Compare pain management options for labor and find what may work best for you
Delivery Preferences and If-Needed Scenarios
Many people include preferences related to pushing positions, skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth, and delayed cord clamping when appropriate. It can also be reassuring to include if-needed preferences in case induction is recommended, assisted delivery is needed, or a cesarean becomes necessary.
Learn about umbilical cord clamping, cutting, and cord blood options
Learn about delayed cord clamping and the evidence behind it
Learn how labor induction works and what to expect during the process
Learn what assisted vaginal delivery involves and when it may be recommended
Explore delivery environments, birth settings, and what each option involves
Immediate Newborn Care Preferences
Common birth plan topics for newborn care include skin-to-skin immediately after birth when possible, delayed newborn bathing depending on hospital policy, feeding plan, and who is present during newborn checks. Discuss Vitamin K, eye ointment, and newborn vaccines with your provider ahead of time.
Get practical guidance on newborn care in the first days and weeks after birth
Communication Preferences
Many parents find it helpful to include how they want their team to communicate. Examples include asking providers to explain what they are doing before they do it, to offer choices when options exist, to speak clearly and simply if urgency is high, and to speak directly to you rather than only to your support person. This supports calm decision-making, especially in intense moments.
Closing Thought
A birth plan is not about perfection. It is about support. Even if your birth takes unexpected turns, many parents describe a profound sense of pride and accomplishment, because giving birth is real work, and you showed up for it.
Explore postpartum recovery, newborn care, and life after birth
References
1 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Sample Birth Plan.
2 Bohren MA, et al. Continuous support for women during childbirth. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
3 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Medications for Pain Relief During Labor and Delivery.
4 World Health Organization (WHO). WHO recommendations: intrapartum care for a positive childbirth experience.
