Best Way to Finalize Your Birth Plan

Your original birth plan was an outline of the way you’d like your preg­nancy and delivery to go. As the months went along, you may have gathered more information from friends and other sources and amended your plan. For instance, you may have initially wanted an epidural to alleviate your labor pains during delivery, and now you want to hold off on taking pain medication. Or vice versa.

As you near your due date, make final changes in your wish list. Discuss them with your obstetrician, doula, and/or midwife if these changes will impact on yourOBprovider’s care. You’ll feel more relaxed and ready to focus on labor itself if your birth plan is complete. Consider resolving the following items before you begin labor:

•  Do you want a circumcision performed if you’re having a boy?
•  Will you breast- or bottle-feed your baby?
•  Who do you want to have present at the birth?
•  How do you want to document the birth?
• Either before or after you consider the above topics, you can help clarify your considerations by doing the following:
• In your pregnancy journal or a notebook, write down the ques­tions listed above.
• Get your partner to do the same on a separate piece of paper.
• Answer the questions separately in your book or on paper.
• There are no right answers to these questions. They are designed to help you explore and share your feelings about these issues.
• Seek more information on these issues from your doctor or midwife.
• Compare your answers.
• If you don’t agree on some answers, try to decide who will be most impacted upon by the issue.
• Try to find common ground.

Do You Want a Circumcision Performed?

Many couples nowadays know before delivery whether they’re going to have a girl or a boy. If you know that the baby will be a boy, and if you don’t know the sex of the baby, you need to discuss ahead of your arrival at the hospital whether you’d like to have your baby circum­cised. If the answer is yes, the minor surgical procedure can be done by a doctor in the hospital. You may prefer to have it performed by a religious leader of your faith. If you’re having a birthing center birth, you must make arrangements at a different facility because midwives do not perform circumcisions.

Circumcision is an elective procedure. It is not medically or legally necessary. Most families choose this procedure based on religious or social custom. Muslim and Jewish peoples have a long history of cir­cumcising their males. Families practicing these religions usually plan to have the circumcision performed in a religious ceremony sometime after the baby has been discharged from the hospital or birthing center. The majority of males in the world are not circumcised, but the major­ity in theUnited Statesare, though this social custom has been chang­ing here. More couples in theU.S.are now choosing not to have their sons circumcised, because they know it is not medically necessary.