Teresa and Sarah's 5 Tips For Choosing Your Birth Team
In The Zen Mama Guide To Finding Your Rhythm In Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond, Teresa and Sarah walk you through the entire pregnancy process and lead up to the birth! If you haven’t already, you can pre-order here:
Whether you’re thinking about getting pregnant, in your first trimester or your third, one thing you need to think about is choosing your birth team! There are so many things to think about, below Teresa and Sarah share their top 5 tips for choosing your birth team and share some photos of their birth teams. We’d love you to share your tips in the comments!
Tip 1: What kind of person are you? Are you comfortable being open (in more ways than one!!) and vulnerable in front of people? Or do you prefer to keep things private? Do you have a tendency to be shy? How do you feel about family members wanting to be present for the birth? revealing your most intimate moments to people other than your partner? Birth is wild messy, dirty, and animalistic, you need to feel completely uninhibited. So with that in mind, who can you envision having in the birth room?
Tip 2: Once you have that figured out you can think about what role each person is playing. For example in my most recent birth I had chosen 3 of my best friends and a photographer. One friend was on filming/feeding me ice chips/suggestion positions and making sure I wasn’t getting dehydrated, another friend was on making sure my kids who attended the birth felt supported, secure and happy (shoutout to our YZM editor Cass!) and the other was my unofficial doula, she has a history in medical training and has always been really emotionally and physically supportive through my births.
Tip 3: Speaking of Doulas, hire one! We are major fans of having a doula present throughout birth. They’re just another voice that understands your intentions, visions, and birth preferences. Doulas are there to support the mother emotionally, physically, and mentally and to advocate for mama if things start to veer off the desired plan unnecessarily. They do not take the place of your partner and many many partners talk about how incredibly uplifting and encouraging they were to them too so they’re not just a tool for mama to lean on but for your other half too!
Tip 4: When looking for your care provider, ask your friends for suggestions and ask them about their care providers and try to get a sense of the kind of birth support they are. If you don’t have friends with a care provider then meet a few and see who resonates with you, talk about the kind of birth you envision, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Tip 5: What can your partner do to be a support? If you are reading books, listening to podcasts, watching videos and documentaries to prepare yourself for having a baby your partner can do the same. Talk to them about how having the knowledge of what will be going on during the birthing process will actually help arm and empower them to know how to be a supportive partner on the day. Highlight your favorite chapters of our book for them or read them your favorite birth stories. If you read a story about a partner being in a certain position with the birthing mama and that sounds like something you might want to try, share that with your partner ahead of time so they can be more supportive.
For more tips on choosing your birth team, as well as so much more, pick up a copy of The Zen Mama Guide To Finding Your Rhythm In Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond