Birth plan

The short definition

A birth plan is a written note of the expecting parents' preferences for labour and birth, given to their care provider during pregnancy.

What it actually means

It is a written plan of the expecting parents' birth preferences. That means what they would like to happen during labour and birth, and what they would not. It is usually discussed with the chosen care provider during pregnancy and given to them.

So it is three things at once: a document, a conversation, and a set of preferences. The conversation is arguably the useful part — writing it down is what forces the discussion to actually happen.

• It is "if you have one". The hospital bag checklist lists the birth plan as a thing to pack if you have one. Not every family writes one, and nothing in Australian maternity care requires it.
• What it means for Dadda. It is the one document that tells him what his partner wants before anybody asks him in a corridor. If there is a plan, he should have read it and know where it is. Having it in the hospital bag is the easy half.

Where Dadda will hear it

At an antenatal appointment, and in every hospital bag checklist he reads. Also from friends, usually attached to a story about how theirs went out the window.

Not to be confused with

• A guarantee of what will happen. It is a record of preferences. The word "plan" oversells it, and "birth preferences" is the term some services use instead for exactly that reason.
• The antenatal card. The antenatal card is the clinical paperwork from pregnancy appointments. The birth plan is what the parents want. Both go in the same bag and they are not the same document.

Also look at

• The full item: hospital bag
• What an antenatal card is