My Favorite Resources To Visualize A Positive Birth
Having the birth experience you want requires planning, education, and understanding. It’s important to know all the whys behind different approaches to birth and navigate what will be best for you and your baby. If you approach birth without knowledge, your birth experience will be whatever your medical professional would like it to be rather than your own preferred experience because unless you give direction, others will take the lead. There are endless resources to understanding and learning all about birth. In order to align with the birth you want, it’s important to dive into that experience. Here are a few of my favorite resources to help learn more about birth and decipher your own ideal birth.
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The Birth Hour Podcast
“The Birth Hour Podcast” is one of my favorite and one of the most accessible resources. I listen on Spotify, but it’s available on a myriad of platforms. It’s important to be aware though that it shares ALL types of stories, including the more negative or more medical focused experiences, but it’s a great place to start in figuring out what you may or may not want. This resource is all about the birth stories and not so much the educational side of things or hearing research behind birth although it does come up occasionally. It’s a great place to start when forming ideas about your ideal birth because you’ll begin forming a vocabulary around birth and hear about all the different things that can come up and the approaches to birth. I think it may be ideal to lay off this resource or be more selective with episodes once you do have a set birth plan to make sure you’re not filling yourself with fear or giving yourself different visions of birth than you would like.
Empowered Birth Project
The Empowered Birth Project was one of the first birth resources I was exposed to outside of my formal education and I was immediately obsessed. I had never seen birth framed as a beautiful and empowering experience before and that’s what the Instagram page is all about. This page shares real stories along with photos and videos, and emphasizes birth education and awareness.
Ok so this one is probably a no brainer, but I think Pinterest a great resource for planning a birth because you can find stories, research, and inspiration for any birth you may desire. I have a Natural Birth Inspiration board you can check out here. It provides a myriad of resources from research to things like affirmations for birth.
Books
Books can be an amazing resource as they go into depth about topics allowing you to gain more understanding and possibly even more skills to prepare you for the birth you want. This is a quick list of a few of my favorites, but I will probably write a separate article shortly to go into more depth about all of my favorite birth books.
Natural Childbirth The Bradley Way
Mindful Birthing: Training The Mind, Body, and Heart for Childbirth and Beyond
In Your Community
Some of the most important resources you will use are those in your community. I personally suggest using a midwife group or hiring a doula (or both). They’re a great resource for natural and empowered birth options. You can also check into local Le Lethe League meetups which is a great moms’ support group for breastfeeding. I also suggest looking into local birth classes, pregnancy support groups, baby-wearers clubs, prenatal yoga, chiropractic, and acupuncture. All are amazing resources to ensure your body and mind are healthy and prepared for natural and/or an empowered birth. You’ll also find the transition to motherhood much easier if you already have a like minded mama tribe through different prenatal groups.
You can also reference My Natural Home Birth Plan for more information and ideas!
Learn how to prepare your body for labor naturally here!
Natural Birth Plan Template!
You may also like: Preparing For A Home Birth, Natural Ways to Prepare Your Body for an Easy and Intervention-Free Birth, A Quick Guide On What To Read For An Empowered and Informed Birth, and The Beautiful, Natural, & Unassisted Birth Story Of Our Second Child
I wish I had found this during my last pregnancy! With my first and third babies I felt pressured to be induced. My first quit breathing in the birth canal (thankfully he was okay after starting to breath again after birth) and my third ended in a c-section. I wish I would have fight harder to go naturally, especially with my third baby. I feel like a midwife/doula would have saved me from the unnecessary inductions and issues. 🙁
Great post – thanks for sharing!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it. I hear that from so many mamas, nut overall it’s just wonderful your babies are well! All we can do is share our experiences with others to hope they can grow from it.
This is a great prompt for someone thinking about a home birth!
Thank you! Hoping to just get the thoughts
flowing and give some examples!
I needed all of this with my last baby 😩😩😩 This is a great resource for expecting mommas.
I feel that mama! It can be so hard to sort through all the options and find resources that are fitting for your needs
I’ve never heard of the Empowered Birth Project, but it sounds like I would have loved it before my boys were born!
Definitely gonna recommend these tips for my expecting friends! The podcast sounds helpful
This is a very helpful article for anxious first time moms! I’m sharing it with my sister in law!
In addition to this awesome resources, I’d suggest feedback from moms who’ve given birth recently. At birthing classes and online, I was able to get some great feedback and reviews from others that helped me to create a birth plan that was amazing.
I didn’t get to do anything like this when I was pregnant. My mindset was just to get it done. These ideas would have been so intentional. I will pass along this information to my fiends.
Oh wow! What great resources for planning your birth. I love the natural birth plan template, super cute and helpful. I haven’t heard of that podcast you mentioned, ill have to take a look!
Great list of resources! I used a couple of them while in labor, and even used some of the methods, however needed in an emergency C-section, you can’t plan everything.
I love this. I have not yet had a child but am planning to try very soon and am very excited about learning and reading all sorts of things like this so that I can be prepared and try to have a natural birth.
I definitely formed my own birth plan from talking to friends/family that had been through it and in doing my own research. I think it’s so important to be flexible though because you never know what will happen!
Gosh! I wish I had read this post before my baby’s birth, you’ve got great resources listed here. I was just googling things and most of what I found ended up making me more nervous and so not helpful. I wasn’t using pinterest then but it’s actually so amazing! i’m totally addicted now! LOL
That podcast sounds great. It’s always helpful for me to learn about different parent’s experiences to help me decide what I may or may not want during my birth. Great tips!
-Jennifer
As a mom who has had one hospital natural birth and a home birth, I agree that planning and education is helpful. Creating a visual board is what I did and the words and images kept me focused on the plan and the outcome. Podcast sounds promising for checking out for my third upcoming birth… thanks for doing what you do to empower mamas!
Great resources. Every mom-to-be should read this and bookmark it and refer back to it over and over until the day they give birth! I wish I would have seen this before I gave birth. Thanks for sharing. 🙂