The Birth Preferences Workbook

A birth plan is a page. Working out what's on it is the part that takes twenty minutes and a pen.

Most birth plan templates hand you a checklist and no way to think. This one goes the other way round: you work through what matters to you, in your own words, and the one-page version comes out at the end.

It covers the room and what helps you cope. Moving and monitoring, which shape everything else. Pain, where all of the options are valid, including changing your mind. Newborn decisions worth asking about before the day rather than in the hour after.

Then the pages most plans skip. Induction, worth thinking about at 36 weeks rather than at 41. A cesarean becoming likely — thought about once now, so you're not thinking about it for the first time at speed. And the page nobody wants and some people need, for if your baby needs extra care.

The last part is the one page you actually hand over, with a worked example of what a good one looks like. Three printed copies, and one conversation with your provider before the day.

What’s inside

• Labor — the room, moving and monitoring, pain
• Birth, and the first hour — pushing, the first hour, newborn decisions
• If things change — induction, cesarean, extra care for your baby
• One page — how to write it, a worked example, and what to do with it

Good for

Anyone from about 28 weeks. Useful whether you have strong preferences or no idea yet — it starts from context, not from a checklist.