Podcast: Birth Plans with host, Megan Rossiter

Birth Plans with host, Megan Rossiter

Season 3, Episode 13

It's a solo episode from me this week, talking in detail about birth plans.. let's explore together-

Can you really plan for birth?

Why bother?

What to include?

How to write one?

What to do with it?

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Podcast Transcript (AI Generated)

Hi everybody.

Welcome back to the Birth-ed podcast.

In today's episode, I want to explore the idea of a birth plan with you, whether you should make one, how to actually write one, what to include, what you should actually do with it if you've got one.

But I wanted to kind of kick off by exploring the language around the term birth plan.

You know that language that we are using around birth, our bodies, our choices is really important to me.

Because of the impact that it can have on our subconscious, the power we feel we hold, the way we understand or feel emotionally about our experiences.

And when we talk about putting together birth plans, or you see in the news or on social media, or there's kind of conversations between friends around the idea of putting together a plan, there is often a bit of resistance to using the term plan when it comes to your birth.

You might be told, it's not something you can plan for, birth never goes to plan.

I had a plan, but it all went out of the window as soon as whatever happened.

Now, personally, I actually don't have too much of a problem with the word plan.

I'm very used to making plans in my day-to-day life and needing to change plan or making contingency plans.

You know, planned to meet up with some friends on Wednesday, and it was absolutely pouring with rain.

So we had to have a slightly different plan than the plan we had originally made.

I don't know, most people seem to be doing like moving house or major house renovations when they're having a baby.

And how frequently, you know, we have a plan at the beginning of that, we've got a plan for what the building is going to be like, a plan for what we're going to put into it, a plan for how long it's going to take.

And every step of the way, we are kind of forced to change our plan, but it doesn't stop us from having the plan in the first place.

So having an expected idea of what you might like to happen to me feels like a good idea, but I can completely understand how for some people, the idea of having a plan maybe doesn't, the language there doesn't sit so well with them.

So if you really struggle with changes to plans in your day-to-day life, or the word plan makes you feel like you should be having total control over something, then you can absolutely shift the language here to birth preferences, birth map, birth wishes, literally call it whatever you want.

What I don't want to do here, and what so often happens when we're having these conversations is to get so caught up by the semantics of language that the actual aim or purpose of the plan, preferences, wishes, map falls by the wayside.

So I'm going to try and use these phrases interchangeably throughout this chat, but know to me that they are all referring to the same thing.

Now, what is the thing?

What is it that I am referring to?

To me, a birth plan or birth preferences is a set of wishes, probably presented in a document of some kind, potentially just communicated through another person, like a doula or a partner, but usually written onto a piece of paper that outline the key things that you wish to communicate with everybody who may come into your birth space.

And I'm going to talk a little bit more detail about exactly what you might write on that.

But that's what I'm talking about.

When I'm talking about a birth plan or birth preferences, that is what I'm referring to.

So why do you need a birth plan?

And if you do, why do you need a birth plan?

In my opinion, a birth plan is an incredibly helpful tool, incredibly helpful communication tool for you to help communicate and advocate for what it is you want from your birth experience.

So why do we need to write it down?

Why can't we just make these decisions as we go along?

So first of all is in order to create a birth plan, we need to understand what our choices are and what our options are.

Now, when you are in labour, and we talked about this in last week's episode on pain, but the thinking cognitive part of your brain, the bit that you're using listening to this, literally shuts down.

So when that part of your brain shuts down, it does so, so that you can move into the really instinctive part of your brain, so that you can move instinctively, behave instinctively.

And when we are in that part of our brain, we cannot effectively make decisions, communicate or advocate for what we want to say.

And we will also struggle to take on new information.

And if we're making decisions for those decisions to be truly kind of informed and balanced about our care, because the bit of your brain that you need in order to do those things probably isn't working.

So a really key aspect of birth planning, in my opinion, is the education that you need in order to create one.

So almost the magic of the birth plan is in the making of it.

So you can't really make a birth plan that says, I don't want an epidural, until you actually know what an epidural involves, the benefits of it, the potential risks of it, when it might be really helpful to you, when it might be completely unhelpful to you, and understanding what other options you have got to help you feel comfortable when you are in labour.

So putting together a set of birth preferences forces you to do your research.

So in our online course, we talked through the details of all of those specific choices that you might face in labour and birth.

So your pain relief options, your birthplace choices, monitoring, vaginal examinations, all of these things that you might be presented with in labour.

And if we gather that information whilst we are pregnant, then we can actually form an informed opinion about whether or not they are something you would like to have or prefer not to have in your birth.

So that is the first reason is that it is literally forcing you to do your research.

The second reason, the second benefit of making a birth plan or set of birth preferences is to do with the way that it impacts your mindset.

So right now, if you are pregnant and possibly even if you're not pregnant, you will, whether you care to acknowledge it or not, have some idea in your mind of what you would like to experience when you give birth.

If we haven't taken the time to visualize or acknowledge what that looks like, then the chances of getting anywhere close to that kind of birth are pretty slim.

When we take the time to pause and consider what we really, really want, there are a few things that then happen within our brains.

So the first thing that happens, so let's imagine you have literally paused, you got to the end of this episode, you've turned it off, you're going to lay there for 10 minutes and you're just going to think, what is it that I actually want?

What do I want to feel?

What do I want to experience?

What do I want to happen?

So the first thing that happens is the acknowledgement of desire, literally the thought, there is this thing that I want, and that could be anything.

That could be a home birth, it could be a planned Caesarian birth, it could be to be left completely undisturbed, it could be to have your older children around, it could literally be anything.

And it could also be things that you really don't want, ideally.

I don't want an epidural, I don't want an instrumental birth.

Now, this doesn't mean that we can guarantee that we will or will not have these things, but it does take us a step closer to making them more or less likely.

And that is where the next step, I suppose, of what is happening in our brain comes in.

So once you have acknowledged what it is you want, what your desire is, then comes the exploration of that.

So looking more deeply into what is actually needed to make that likely to happen.

So this might be that you realise you need to do more research and weighing up of statistics to help you kind of feel confident in your decision.

It might be that you need to have a conversation with your midwife or a doctor in order to request something or to ask for more information.

It might be that you feel like you need to hire a doula or find somebody in your network who would be a very good advocate for you.

It might be learning some tools and techniques to support physiology and birth.

It might be that you need to build up your confidence, and those are the kinds of things that the course can really help with.

It might be that you need to have a really deep conversation with your partner.

Again, it could literally be anything, but once we acknowledge what our desire is, then what we need in order to make that happen becomes much clearer.

So until we have acknowledged that, it's much less likely to happen.

And so the third thing that happens in our mind, so we've got literally acknowledging it, then we have got exploring it and actioning it, and then the third thing that comes is visualization.

So once you know what you want and you have explored what things within our control we can do to make that most likely to happen for ourselves or not happen for ourselves, depending on what it is you want, then we can start to picture ourselves actually experiencing it.

And this can be really, really powerful mindset work in terms of building your confidence to ask for what you need and building the trust you have in yourself to actually go and do it or get it.

So that's the sort of the second reason why we might put together a set of birth preferences is all to do with how it is actually going to impact our brains ahead of our births.

And the third reason why I would recommend putting together birth wishes, birth preferences is to do with communication.

So having a straightforward document is one of the simplest ways to ensure that everyone you interact with in your birth knows what it is you want.

What is it that you want to tell them?

It is very, very easy as you're listening to these podcast episodes during the birth-ed course to kind of sit there and be like, well, everyone wants a water birth on a birth center.

I can assure you they don't.

So if you want the kind of support and care that you are receiving to match the kind of support and care you think you need, then you need to be quite explicit about that when you first meet the people that are caring for you.

So that might be if you feel nervous and you want somebody really, really holding your hand cheerleading you the whole way through.

You might need to kind of be clear about that.

If you want your midwife, your care provider to almost kind of blend into the background and leave you almost completely undisturbed, you need to be quite clear about that.

And we are all very different in our personalities and our circumstances and our backgrounds and everything.

So what we are asking for is going to be very personal and very unique to us.

And getting it down on paper and sharing it with whoever is looking after you in labour is, I think, the simplest way to communicate that.

So this kind of leads me on nicely to what to actually include in a birth plan.

And you might have been listening to everything that I've been saying so far thinking, yeah, Megan, that's all well and good.

But what about when it doesn't go to plan?

What if I've got this medical condition?

So what I want doesn't even feel safe or possible.

What if they won't let me do X, Y or Z?

And I want to start by just reiterating two things.

So first of all, this is your body and your baby.

And no one else gets to make choices about what happens to it than you yourself.

And that includes your partner, your mum, your midwife, your doctor.

It is ultimately, in terms of the law, your decision, what is happening to your body and your baby whilst they are inside your body.

And we have got a really great podcast episode way back in series one with Becca Savage, who's a consultant midwife, about how to seek what would be described as out of guidelines care.

And this episode is really worth listening to if you're facing any resistance in any of the things that you're asking for.

So, I don't know, you're wanting to turn down antibiotics or you want a planned cesarean birth, and there isn't any kind of clinical reason as to why, or you want a home birth, but you've got gestational diabetes, I don't know, whatever it is, something that doesn't fall into what has been immediately recommended to you.

If you are asking for something that is like that, then it's really worth trying to have these conversations well ahead of the birth.

And if you are able to have those conversations well ahead of the birth, then ideally what you want to then be created is what in the system would be described as a care plan.

And ideally you want that to be written into your notes, whether they're paper notes or an app, and sort of signed off by somebody who is in what I would describe as a position of power.

So this might be a consultant midwife, head of midwifery, a birth choices midwife.

Sometimes there's a role called professional midwifery advocate, and sometimes they fill that role.

Because whilst I'm aware, I've just said everything is your choice, in terms of how most people listening to this are probably birthing within the maternity system in some way, you're not just going to be able to phone up in labour and be like, oh, I think I'd like a home birth, or turn up for an induction and expect direct access to a birth pool or a birth centre.

Now, you should still be able to do these things, but in reality, you will save yourself an awful lot of trouble by setting the wheels in motion for those things before birth.

And so that means when you turn up in labour, if you've gone, I don't know, you're planning a VBAC, but you want to be on the birth centre, you're not then having to repeat that conversation with somebody in triage, in early labour when you're actually trying to focus on being in labour, but you can just kind of direct them to this plan is written in your notes.

So if there is anything out of the ordinary that you're asking for, get this care plan written into your notes or one headed paper that you can kind of copy and then attach to your birth plan.

This just saves that potential argument or rehashing of this discussion in labour.

So that would be my first caveat.

And the second one is just to confirm what I'm sure everybody knows is that, of course, we don't have total control over birth.

Of course, we don't.

What happens is going to be influenced by so many things like where you are, the environment that you're in, the preparation that you have done, who is with you, the actual clinical circumstances, the kind of care that you're receiving or the kind of care that you are not receiving.

And, of course, Mother Nature herself will all have an impact on the way that birth unfolds.

But a lot of those things are within our control.

And what a birth plan enables you to do is to really, really keep hold of the aspects that are in your control.

And one of the really core values of the birth-ed approach is that everything that we talk about is presented from a place of almost neutrality, so that if you decide in labour that you want an epidural or you feel like an induction or a cesarean birth would be the right or the safest or the best thing for your circumstances.

When we're talking about these, we're not presenting these with an air of inferiority, as I know can sometimes be the case with other antenatal courses.

But what we are doing is giving you the power to make those decisions for yourself.

And sometimes those decisions will be welcomed changes of plan that you are all too happy to make.

Sometimes they might come with a real conflict of emotion where it's really not what you wanted, but you feel like it is now the best or the right choice for you and your baby.

And occasionally, and this is most often due to poor communication or poor listening or caring skills from the health care providers, sometimes it can feel like stuff happened to you without you being part of that decision.

And that latter one is what we are absolutely trying to avoid.

And why such a huge focus of the work that we're doing at Birth Ed, in our courses, on the podcast, is helping you to understand maternity system culture and structure, building your self-confidence and your advocacy skills, and giving you tools to aid that decision making, so that even if things go off plan, you are able to maintain a sense of control.

Now, the final thing to say on this is that you don't actually have to have an opinion on every single birth choice that you might have to make.

I'm often supporting people, and they say, well, how do I know if I want an epidural?

I've got no idea what labour feels like.

So as long as ahead of the birth, you have a clear understanding of the potential risks of an epidural and the potential benefits that an epidural can bring you, and you have been provided with a toolbox of techniques to make you feel as comfortable as possible in labour.

And if you haven't listened to last week's episode on labour pain yet, definitely go back and listen for some tips on that.

Then ultimately, you don't need to mention it at all.

You might want to write that you are undecided about what kind of pain relief you might like, or you might just choose not to mention it whatsoever.

This document, these birth preferences, this birth plan is ultimately there for you to communicate whatever it is that is important to you.

So there is no wrong or right things to include.

Some people will have very detailed, very long birth plans, birth preferences, and other people will have very, very short ones.

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So some of the kind of practical things that you might want to consider, feel free to grab a pen if you haven't got one, you might want to jot these down.

But from a kind of practical birth choices perspective, the things that you might want to include here would be where you are, so literally where you intend to give birth to your baby in your kind of ideal world.

So that might be on a labour ward, that might be on a birth centre, that might be at home.

It's helpful to have that on there, even if you don't end up giving birth where you planned to give birth, because knowing that somebody planned to be at home, and they're now on a labour ward, really just indicates what it was you were hoping to get from the birth, whereas somebody who's planning to give birth on a labour ward who has no clinical reason to be on a labour ward, then that might be that they are more interested in having an epidural than somebody who was planning to be at home.

So that can be a little bit of a clue as to the sort of things that you might then further go on to say in your birth plan.

You might want to talk about the environment that you are in, so the actual space that you are in.

And I'm not going to go into details of what would be helpful things to write here, but literally talking about the sights, the sounds, the smells, the actual feeling of the environment that you are in.

You might want to talk through your preferences for various clinical procedures that you might be offered.

So that might include fetal heart rate monitoring, vaginal examinations.

If you have been told you have to have certain things, for instance, some people might be told they have to have a cannula inserted, they might be told they have to have antibiotics in labour, then your feelings on those things, because what we know about language and maternity care is you do not have to do anything.

So anything you have been told you have to do, just rephrase it as we would recommend or we would offer a cannula or antibiotics or whatever it is.

And then go away and treat it as an option, and come back and think, is that an option that I want to accept?

Is it an option I want to decline?

Is it an option that I would accept in certain circumstances?

So those are the kinds of things in terms of clinical procedures that you might want to consider including.

Consider including thoughts and feelings about various interventions that might be offered in labour.

So things like augmentation, that is part of the induction process, but usually for people that have started labour spontaneously, and then for some reason it is being suggested to speed things up with it's usually breaking of the waters or a hormone drip, a centosin on drip in the UK.

You might say it's called pitocin in America.

So any thoughts or feelings around that, your thoughts, feelings around instrumental birth, cesarean birth.

Basically, if your plan shifted to include any of these things, then what do you most want to communicate?

What would be most important to you in those circumstances?

And again, we go into lots of detail on all of those things on the course.

I'm not going to talk through that now, but these are the kinds of things that you might like to include.

Birthing the placenta, any thoughts, feelings, things you want to communicate about that.

Potentially, sometimes people include things that they want to do with the placenta.

You can keep the placenta.

I always think it's really nice to actually be shown the placenta, see what it actually looks like, the thing that has been keeping your baby alive for nine months.

Often it's just kind of whisked away before you've even had a chance to look.

And then thinking about the kind of the hours after birth, the choices that you might face then, that is generally things like thoughts, feelings around vitamin K, weighing your baby, skin to skin, cord clamping, your intentions for feeding your baby.

So those are all of the practical considerations, which for me forms one part of your birth plan, your birth preferences.

And then on the opposite side, well, I suppose intertwined, you've got the emotional considerations too.

And this is where you want to think about, how do you want to be communicated with?

Is there any specific language that you want or you don't want to hear?

Do you feel that you need somebody very present with you and lots of encouragement?

Do you wish to be left relatively undisturbed?

If you've had any experiences in your life so far that, you know, this might relate to a previous birth experience or a previous loss, any life circumstances really, that feels significant in relation to your choices for your birth or the way that you might behave or experience birth, do you feel happy to share them?

Is this something that you feel your care providers need to be made aware of?

So I'm not necessarily talking like really dramatic events here.

For example, in my own birth plan, I had for my second baby, I had two very specific things that I wanted to communicate that had stemmed from previous pregnancy related experiences.

So the first one was in both my, if you've listened to all of the back catalog of the podcast, you'll already know this, but in both of my pregnancies, I had very, very severe pregnancy sickness, hyperemesis, and from which I basically developed an extreme phobia to being sick.

And so something that was really important for me to communicate with the people that were looking after me was this.

So that if anything was being suggested, where there was a, you know, if a drug was being suggested, if an intervention was being suggested, where a potential side effect might have been nausea, that could have been, you know, birthing the placenta or something like that.

They sometimes go along, or pethadine, that kind of thing comes with potential side effect of nausea.

That to me felt very, very significant in a way that it might not feel so significant to somebody else.

And the way that the drugs that I would use to manage nausea were very, very specific to my personal circumstances.

So this was something that I really, really wanted to communicate, not just from a kind of clinical perspective, but from an emotional perspective, also just if I was feeling sick or nauseous in birth, for them to understand how that might be affecting me so extremely emotionally in a way that it might just be a discomfort or an annoyance for somebody else, for me would be a really, really traumatic thing to experience.

So that was something I wanted to be sure the people that were looking after me understood.

And the next thing that was really, really important to me in that second birth in particular came from a feeling that I had had in my first birth.

And in my first birth, I reached a point where I felt like the baby was going to be born very soon.

I felt like I was really in the throes of labour.

And that when I expressed that, it was really undermined.

I really wasn't believed.

I was made to really, really doubt myself, to really doubt what I was feeling.

And lo and behold, who was right, me, my baby did come very, very swiftly after it felt like he was coming.

And so the one thing that was so important to me for my second birth, so, so important that it was actually the first thing written on my birth plan, was literally the sentence, I need you to trust me.

And that was ultimately the most important thing that I needed them to know.

And I think I may have gone into a very little bit of detail around why I was saying that.

But that was the very, very first thing.

And by putting it at the top of the, literally it was at the top of the page, I need you to trust me in quite big letters, it made it really, really explicitly clear.

So then if somebody wasn't trusting me, they were essentially choosing to directly ignore me rather than it just being a kind of a doubt that had come up in somebody else's mind.

So that was something that for me was a really important thing to communicate.

So you can absolutely use this birth plan, these birth preferences, as a space to share a little bit about yourself or your story or your backgrounds.

For instance, I supported a mum recently who had found the way that she had been spoken to in her first birth really brusque, and it had really, really affected her, not just in the labour itself, but like for the years going after that as well.

And so we put together a plan together that explained what had happened in her first birth, and that in this birth, it was vital that she was spoken to in a way that was very gentle and very warm.

And that can feel like such a petty, small, insignificant thing to write down.

But these are the things that actually have a profound impact on the way that you experience birth, often actually more so than how it unfolds physically.

So when we write those requests so explicitly, I need you to trust me, I need to be spoken to gently and warmly.

It makes them near impossible to ignore.

And there's also something really special and I think relationship building about connecting with our care team on a really human level.

So rather than it being like a transactional relationship that so much of maternity care is, also definitely so much of health care is, like we in this pot, okay, here's my wee, let me dip it, okay, you're fine.

Like that is so different from actually knowing somebody and actually connecting with somebody emotionally.

And for most of us, we won't have had the opportunity during pregnancy to actually connect with our midwife or our doctor on that emotional, personal, human level.

You know, most people don't know anything about their midwives.

Occasionally, you get wonderful care.

I don't know, you might have a continuity team or somebody that you knew from a previous, they might have looked after you with your first baby and you've started to get to know them.

The chances of that person, even if you've had the opportunity to get to know somebody during pregnancy, the chances of that person then being there when you're in labour, it's such a small number of women that get to experience that.

So this is a really, really useful opportunity to actually basically present yourself as a human, not just another number that is coming through the NHS, not just another set of notes to read, another person to get through so they can get their baby out, but actually a document that is a good way to connect emotionally is a really, really useful tool.

So how do we do this?

How do we write this?

How do we put this together?

And ultimately, there is no wrong or right way.

We have got a template included in the birth-ed course that you can absolutely follow if you want some guidance, but you really don't have to.

You can write it as a letter, as a series of bullet points.

You can use pictures or icons, literally whatever you want.

You can use formal language if you prefer.

Sometimes you might feel like you need to be very clear and very frank about what you are asking for.

And it will depend very much on how you have experienced care, I suppose, in pregnancy, as to how you feel this is best presented.

Personally, this is my approach to maternity care in general.

I like to tear down the boundaries of formality and really use it as a way to show who I am.

Getting yourself seen as an individual person rather than this number coming into the system.

If there was something that I wanted to be very clear or upfront about, then I would switch into the more formal language.

So, for example, in my second birth plan, in my sort of what if section of the birth plan, I had very, very clear boundaries about what kind of monitoring I would and would not accept for my baby if we decided that it was needed.

And so this was a very clear, I do not consent to blah, blah, blah.

I may consent to blah, blah, blah after an informed decision.

And I'm not going to go into detail about what it was that I was and wasn't consenting to.

That's a whole conversation for another day, which hopefully we're going to have in series four.

And we cover monitoring and stuff in the course as well.

But for me, there was a very clear what I'm happy with and what I'm not happy with.

And I didn't want to be gently nudged, talked into a decision that I wasn't happy with.

So sentences like I consent and I do not consent can be really helpful if you want to make something explicitly clear.

But other than that, I do tend to go in the more friendly manner.

But go with whatever makes you feel comfortable.

Now, you will likely find that there is an NHS template in the depths of your maternity notes somewhere.

Now, I'm going to warn you, these birth plans tend to be very, very, what I would describe as tick boxy.

They leave very little space for nuance or personalisation.

Essentially, to me, they epitomise everything that is wrong with the modern maternity system.

And they also then require the initiative of every person entering your birth space to turn to the correct place in your notes and actually read them.

Which, along with the million other things they have got to do that day, might not be top of their priority list.

What I tend to advise is to write it on a sheet of paper.

If you can, keep it under one or two sides of A4.

That's ideal.

If you really, really feel like it needs to be longer than that, then be sure to summarise the most important things right at the top of that document.

Because again, you cannot guarantee that everybody coming into that space is going to look at more than one or two pieces of A4.

Then, everyone, every single person that comes into your birth space in labour, so in triage, in the room that you're birthing in, at home if you're birthing at home, every time there is a shift change or lunch cover or a new midwife or doctor comes in to support or to check on something, ensure that they get a copy.

And when I say ensure, this is not going to be your responsibility in labour.

Hopefully, you have got somebody there with you supporting you that can do that for you, and if not, then just staple a hundred copies to the front of your notes.

But from a birth partner perspective, this can sit really well alongside an introduction.

So, oh, hi, I'm Megan.

I'm Laura's birth partner.

If you're able to just look over her birth preferences first, she would really appreciate it and put it in their hands.

Then, if they don't read it, I mean, they're being very, very rude.

If they don't actually then take it aside and have a little glance over what it says.

And it is the kind of surest way to guarantee that it is being looked at.

Now, the final thing on birth plans, just to be very, very clear, birth plans, birth preferences are not a legal document.

If you write something on it, and then you get to the birth, and you have completely changed your mind, you can.

No one is going to hold it up and be like, no, Megan, you said you wanted to be on the birth centre, and you didn't want an epidural, so we're not going to the labour ward.

So it is not, you know, you're not going to be held to it.

You can change your mind on anything that you want.

And, of course, if circumstances arise that were unexpected and there might now be advice to consider a change of plans, then, like every grown adult is perfectly capable of doing, you consider them and you make your decision in the moment.

But I always recommend having your Plan A and your Plan B and your Plan C so that if those plans do take twists and turns, you still feel like you have prepared to communicate what it is that you want in any circumstances that you find yourself in.

But this flexible birth plan really does have potential to truly shape the kind of care that you are receiving, to save you from having repetitive, unnecessary conversations, which in turn is going to protect your birth space and your mindset in that way, and to contribute to us getting closer to our ideal type of birth and feeling safe and centred in any birth that maybe took a few twists and turns.

So your next step challenges after listening to this episode are number one, to go away and spend some time picturing, just lie down with your eyes closed and picture your ideal birth.

Where do you want to be?

If you didn't have to tell anybody, what would it look like?

Where do you want to be?

How do you want to feel?

What do you want to happen?

Next step, once you've done that, write all of that stuff down.

Get it out, journal it, however you want to do it.

Voice note, record it if you're more of a vocal person.

Then consider what is needed to make that happen.

What do you need to learn about?

Who do you need to speak to?

Is there anything you need to address in your own mindset?

And then go and do those things.

And then, once you've done all of those things, and you've got everything in place, get it written down, taking into account all of the potential suggestions that I have suggested here.

But as with everything, this is your birth, your baby, and it is your birth plan.

So you can listen to everything I've just said and been like, actually, I don't want to include any of that.

I want to do it completely differently.

And that is totally okay.

These are some ideas for you to go away and to explore some tried and tested tips in terms of how they are received, how you can use them to communicate, how they can support your advocacy for what you want in your birth.

Yeah, just my experience of working with thousands of families now who have gone away using the course to support them putting together birth preferences.

So hopefully that has given you some food for thought.

This is the very, very last episode of season three.

And what a season it has been.

Oh my God, if you haven't caught up on everything that we have talked about, there has been some absolute corker episodes.

So go back and catch up.

There's season one, season two, season three.

I don't even know how many episodes we're on now, but there's a lot.

And I'm very excited because we have already got our dates in to record season four early next year.

So hopefully spring into summer, I will be in your ears again with a few more very, very insightful conversations with some really brilliant guests.

Thank you so much for listening to The Birth-Ed Podcast.

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