Birth Plans and Fine Dining

national | consumer issues | opinion/analysis Tuesday October 09, 2007 12:00 by Tracy Donegan - Doula Ireland tracydonegan at doulaireland dot com

Drive Thru Birth in Ireland

Having a birth plan in Ireland is a necessity if you want to have a normal low intervention birth.

Learn about what's on offer in your hospital and prepare for the kind of birth you want.

Birth Plans – A La Carte or Drive Thru?

If you’ve attended hospital antenatal classes you will have had the set menu or what I call the drive thru menu explained to you. What you probably don’t know is that your hospital has a wonderful a la carte menu available too but it’s not advertised as much due to staff/bed shortages. But why should staffing problems affect your labour experience…..you’d stop going to your favourite restaurant if they suddenly changed the menu and took all of your favourites off because the drive thru menu was quicker and more cost effective……

So what’s on the Drive Thru Menu?

Frequent vaginal exams to make sure you haven’t deviated from the set timetable
Your waters are broken at 3cm or sooner
Drips to speed up your labour if you don’t keep up with the hospital timetable
Continuous monitoring (much harder to move about)
Epidural due to the drip making your contractions extremely painful and stressful for your baby.
Cesarean or Forceps/vacuum to pull your baby out when the epidural affects pushing
Episiotomy/severe tear

(Note – if you choose the set menu you have 12 hours or less to deliver)

Giving Birth A La Carte

Just like any dining experience when you choose a la carte - you decide what appeals to you and if you’re not sure then having a helpful midwife recommend an option to you can be priceless.

Assuming all things are normal there’s no hurry, no rushing....…..no time limits…..you can choose not to have the drip to speed you up and make labour more painful and just labour in your own time. You can decide that breaking the waters so early isn’t for you. Midwives are experts in a la carte birth and are a great resource in helping you choose what’s right for you and your baby – rather than the drive thru menu that everyone else gets.

That’s why putting some thought into what you want in labour is so important. Having the drive thru menu just because it’s all you’ve been offered often results in more intervention than is necessary and a less positive an experience. - especially when you hear the experiences of women who chose the other menu. With a drive thru delivery you’ll probably have your baby quicker (drive thru’s are all about speed) but your experience is less likely to be as positive more painful and include a lot more unnecessary interventions than the a la carte option.

You can of course choose to have the drive thru menu – if speed is your main focus then drive thru can be very appealing.
But having no idea of what you want and choosing to just go with the flow means you let the staff choose the menu for you – that’s exactly what you want if there is an emergency...they are the experts....but as most women have normal labours a la carte is the way to go. Get thinking about your choices and how you can make this experience as positive as possible. Once you’re in the queue for drive thru it’s very hard to get out of it… you just follow the car ahead of you and hope for the best.

Comparing birth to a fine dining experience may be a stretch for a lot of women but ask yourself – do you want a drive thru delivery where you get what you’re given (physically healthy baby and hopefully a physically healthy mum)…..or the a la carte birth where mum and baby are both physically and emotionally healthy?

(I know what Gordon Ramsay would say…)

Tracy