Getting Ready for Labour – Three Tips to Make Life Easier

Having a baby is a life event without comparison. It is one of the most important events in your adult life and one of the most impactful events your body will ever undergo. As such, pregnancy can be at once a thrilling and worry-inducing time, both for the changes you’ll personally experience and the wonder of the life ahead of you.

Still, the final step between you and life with a new life is delivery – or labour, the multitude of hours that see you bringing your baby out into the world. It is only natural that you feel trepidatious going into the final few weeks of your pregnancy; what can you do to make your life easier as the due date approaches?

Create a Contacts List

Pregnancy is a medical situation that brings with it a number of heightened risks – to say nothing of the risk of unexpected delivery! As such, your first step should be to collect all your important contacts in one place, enabling you to ensure you can get in touch with everyone you need to when the time comes. 

Creating this list is also important for a less savoury reason: the increased potential for negligent care in and after delivery. You want everything to go right for you during your delivery, and the odds are very much in your favour – particularly in a world-leading country for accessible healthcare. However, medical negligence cannot be ruled out, and you may need quick access to the right representation in the unfortunate event that something does go wrong for you.

Write Up a Birth Plan

Giving birth is at once a monumental family event and an intensely personal experience – the latter aspect of which can make the fuss you experience around your third trimester all the more discomforting. This is where the writing up of your own birth plan can give you some comfort in retaining control over some key decisions regarding your pregnancy and birth.

Quite simply, your birth plan is an idealised list of what you would like or need up to, during and after pregnancy. In particular, it defines who you’d like to be there with you, in the delivery room or transporting you there – as well as medical decisions, such as whether you’d like to opt for anaesthesia during delivery. Certain aspects of your birth plan may be impossible to guarantee, but having it all written out can be a significant help, nonetheless.

Practice Yoga

As for more practical pre-delivery considerations, one of the best things you can do for your body in the run-up to your due date is to practice yoga. Yoga is a brilliant discipline to get on board with as your baby grows and for multiple reasons too. For one, yoga can help you relieve any physical tension in your muscles, particularly your pelvic floor – hence potentially rendering your labour a little shorter and easier. Crucially, though, yoga can also help reduce mental stress and anxiety, giving you a clearer head as you move towards the biggest day of your life. 

This is a collaborative post.