Support During Birth: How To Prepare Your People

Birth is the most intense and empowering process a person could experience. It requires you to go to the very edge of yourself and push the bounds of your capabilities farther than you ever thought possible. 

It is essential that you get prepared. Whether you are planning an unmedicated birth, or an epidural–a hospital birth or a home birth–or any other wishes you have for your birth–GET PREPARED!

I don’t just mean your hospital bag and the baby’s name. I mean prepare for the different stages of labor because at minimum you will feel early labor and will likely not get an epidural until some point during active labor or transition. 

Prepare your food for before and during, prepare for postpartum, prepare your people. 

In this article, my goal is to shed some light on the things I believe you should prepare your support person for in order to have them be exactly what you need during labor and delivery. 

Whether it’s your husband, your mom, a sister, a grandma, a doula, etc., there are some things that you will want them to already know and be able to trust that they can take on whatever responsibility you give them. 

You Need To Be Zoned In

They need to keep you fed and hydrated so that that is one less thing you have to worry about. 

If you can’t ask for what you need or don’t know what you need, they need to be trying different things until they find something that works. 

You want your support person to be active and present. They are NOT just a bystander watching from the side lines. They have a job and they need to be prepared to do it.

Transition Is Their Time To Shine

Transition will rock you and this is really the point where you are probably going to need them the most. 

This is the last stage of labor before you start pushing and it begins around 7-8 cm. It is the most intense part of labor with contractions getting longer and closer together. For me contractions would not fully go away before another would start. 

During this phase of labor, a lot of people begin to panic and doubt their ability to do this. In reality though you are in the quickest and last stage of labor and you absolutely can do it. 

Your person comes into play here because they need to know how to ground you and infuse you with confidence and love. That will make a world of difference in helping you conquer this phase. 

Decision Making

Birth can be one big wild card and there could be decisions that need to be made. Make sure they know what decisions you would make so that if need be, they can make it on your behalf.

This could be a very serious decision or something as simple as what flavor tea you would want and any severity in between. They need to know how to be your advocate as you are going to be a bit busy.

Final Note

This is your experience and its all about you and the beautiful baby you are bringing into the world. It is intense and amazing and beautiful and inspiring. Do not hesitate to speak your mind, ask for what you need, and hold any and all boundaries. If anybody takes it personally or creates problems because of it then that is their problem. For me I just said “I can’t care about that right now”. I had enough going on and so do you.