Need to Change Your Birth Plan During COVID-19 Pandemic? Most Likely.

Need a New Plan?

If you are preparing for birth right now then you are most likely aware of the changes happening as hospitals are working to protect healthy individuals and prepare to help an influx of respiratory patients battling COVID-19 and curb the spread of the novel virus. This means that support people, such as doulas, can no longer attend births and some of you, who have children already at home, may need to birth with just the nursing staff to support you as your partner stays home to care for the older children. Birthing in a hospital has changed for now.

Acceptance

I know this isn’t how you planned to birth. Birth should be calm and beautiful and not filled with fears of a virus or finding yourself birthing without the support you wanted. It’s true: This isn’t ideal. However, accepting what is happening helps us move on. There can be great lessons in here about finding strength you didn’t know you had, realizing that we are (and were) never in control of external circumstances, and that getting clear on what you want and need right now will give you a path to get there. We are not going to let a virus “ruin” your birth experience! 
 
Now that we know the first step in preparing for birth right now is to accept the change in circumstances, let’s begin that process now, if you haven’t already. Accept what has changed about your birth plans. Accept your feelings of anger, frustration, fear, sadness and whatever else you are feeling. They are all very valid and right feelings. You can have those feelings and move forward into a new birth plan. Accept ALL of it, including the messy, uncomfortable, and uncertain feelings by saying to yourself:
 
“I accept these feelings of _____ and I love myself deeply and completely. I accept the changes in birthing and I’m ready to move forward.”
 
You might not believe these words deeply yet. That’s okay, we’ll get there. The most important thing is that you have begun the process!

Reevaluate

After acceptance, reevaluate what you need to have the birth you want. Do you need:
  • More confidence and strength in yourself?
  • More detailed information from your doctors about what will happen and when at the hospital?
  • To learn tools to quiet your mind and enter a deep birthing state where you can work with your body and breath and feel safe?
  • To know how to make a hospital room looks calm and cozy so you feel safe?
  • Or to know that you have access to an epidural and can use all medical interventions that feel right to you?
  • If you have a doula, do you want them with you on video providing encouraging words, tips, and holding space for you?
  • What else do you need?
 
Once you know what you need, you can move into preparing for what you need now.

Eliminating Barriers

In order to start preparing, look at your list of what you need, or think about it if it isn’t written, and think, for just a moment, about what is standing in your way from having these things. Maybe you have very practical barriers. What can you do about that barrier? Is it simply making a few phone calls or sending an email? Is it more birth prep education? What is standing in your way right now? Once it is named, it is sooooo much easier to overcome – trust me!
 
Or perhaps you imagine the barrier as a metaphorical barrier – as if in your minds eye you see a picture of a wall or mountain. If that’s the case, I want you to really really see that image of that barrier and think about what you can do to overcome it. Go with your first instinct. You might think, I can fly over it or I can tear it down or I can build a bridge – whatever or however silly it may seem. Then do it! You are the director of your mind and this mental movie. So, in your mind’s eye, get that plane or wings to fly over it, build that bridge, or go ahead and tear it down.
 
The same is for if it’s a feeling in your body. Experience that feeling, see it as it rests in your body:
  • Where is it in your body?
  • What color is it?
  • What shape does it have?
  • What weight?

Then pull it out of your body and change the qualities of it until it feels just how you want it to. So, if it’s red, does pink feel better? Would it feel better as a sphere? Lighter?, etc. Once the shape looks, feels and even sounds very pleasant, put it back into your body and see how you feel now.

Once you are past the barrier or have changed the feeling to something positive, what do you see or feel now? If there is another barrier or unhelpful feeling, do the same visualization of taking it down or changing it. If the coast is clear and you feel better in your body, congratulations! 
 
Now that the path forward is more clear, it comes time to get that knowledge, or whatever it is that YOU need. Things are not impossible now, just different and you are adjusting accordingly.
 
I am going to offer up some resources and suggestions below that might be of help to you. However, I encourage you to go with whatever feels right for you and to trust your own instinct about what that is.

Knowledge AND Mental Preparedness is POWER, Baby.

 

If you need more mental calm:

  • Calm breathing: This is also known as 2-1 breathing. By breathing in for a count of 4 and exhaling for a count of 8, you let the stress centers of your brain know that all is well (via the vagus nerve), which calms down your body’s stress response and brings you back to calm. Repeat the calm breath at least 3 times. 
  • Meditation: I can’t stress how important it can be to just sit in your body and notice what’s happening. Meditation doesn’t have to be any certain way. Your mind will still think, you may get distracted – that’s all perfectly fine. The benefit comes in observing that you had a thought, and that allows you space to realize that you are not that thought or that worry or that story. YOU are so much more and meditation gives you the space to experience that. It also has a wonderfully calming effect on the nervous system which helps in all kinds of areas of wellness (that’d have to be a separate article).
    • A teacher that I recommend is Susan Piver and her Open Heart Project. Right now, OHP offers four free meditations daily on Zoom. I’ve been attending one a day.
  • Time in nature – staying a distance from others, get some fresh air and walk (also great labor prep). We are inextricably linked to nature and getting out in it can have profound and restorative effects on our nervous system.
 

If you need education:

  • I recommend HypnoBirthing – look for a practitioner near you and check out their online offerings. I offer live online as well.
  • If there’s another class that you are drawn to, email the instructor and see if you can get an online class from them!
 

If you need to drop into your body now and work with movement:

  • Prenatal yoga – In my local area, Britt Fohrman, Yoga Garden SF & BellyFull Birth are all offering online prenatal yoga. 
  • Dance – put on your favorite music and go for it – trust your body to move in a way that feels right to you without judging it. This is also great birth prep.
  • Walk – go out for a walk. Humans are built to walk! 
 

If you need community:

Need Other Resources?

Click here and view the Birth Evolved list of wonderful practitioners and doulas, such as Mama Elena who is offering a Virtual Doula Package.

So, yes, your birth plan will be different and you will most likely need to get some more info and perhaps mindful birthing tools to help you stay in your birthing zone. The good news is that you CAN get more information and you CAN get more tools. You can do this. When you are done reading this, do one thing to move forward like write a to-do birth prep list, and if you like, give me a call. I’ll do my best to answer any questions you have.

I’ll leave you (for now) with a big virtual hug and a knowing look because, I believe in you and, I know you can do this.

Have questions or need help navigating the new birth terrain?

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