In the UK, people generally have 3 choices available to them when it comes to where they give birth: At home, at a birth centre, or on a labour ward. This blog doesn’t explore the pros and cons of each setting, but so read my other blog here which delves into this in a bit more detail!

What do I need to give birth?

Whether you’re at home, a birth centre, or a labour ward, your body needs the same thing for birth to work. You need an environment where you feel: safe, unobserved, and relaxed. Only when you feel these things will your body produce the hormones in needs to power your contractions and get your baby out efficiently. If you start to feel scared, or just a bit uncomfortable in your surroundings, you’re body will sense that this is not a safe pace to have a baby (even if it’s wrong) and you may find that your labour stalls, or that things just don’t go as smoothly. Also, your labour will be more painful if you are feeling stressed, because your muscles tense up, and get less oxygen, and this makes the work more painful.

So what practical things can you and your birth partner do to get the environment right?

10 practical tips to create a great birth environment:

1. Darkness. A dimly lit room is our natural choice of birth environment. Like any other mammal, we are drawn to dark and small places to give birth because they provide privacy and therefore a feeling of safety. A cat would crawl under the bed or into a cupboard to give birth. You need the same sort of vibe! So get the big light off, and bring some dim lighting such as tea lights, fairy lights, lamps etc (no naked flames if you’re not at home!). In many birth centres they have nice lighting already, but it’s unlikely on a labour ward.
2. Pack torches. This helps with the above point as you can offer the torches to staff if they need to fill in paperwork or do anything that requires more light. Birth partners can offer to hold the torch for staff too if it helps.
3. Black out blinds. Yeah I am still on about darkness. You can buy black out blinds with suction thingys that stick to the window so you can take them anywhere. These are incredibly useful when you have a baby anyway so you’ll use them again! When I looked round my local birth centre and labour ward recently the rooms were incredibly bright on a nice summers day. Lovely, but not great for birth.

4. Hide in the loo! It’s worth considering that we are also naturally drawn to small places to give birth in. They provide privacy and again, a feeling of safety. If planning a home birth, choose a small and cosy room rather than a bright airy one. Birth centre and labour ward suites will have a private en-suite with a toilet and bath or shower – this is a great place to go to for a bit of privacy! You’d be surprised how many women say they went to the loo and just stayed their to have their baby because they didn’t want to leave! This makes total sense because it was probably where they felt least observed.

5. Birth pool. This is great for loads of reasons but on the topic of birth environment, it’s great because it creates a barrier between you (and your naked body parts!) and the other people around you. You’ll feel less self-conscious in there because you are a bit more covered up. You’ll also feel protected from any perceived threats because again, there’s a barrier between you and ‘them’.

6. Cover the clock and ditch the phones. To give birth you need to switch off your human brain, forget about anything happening outside of your own body, and just surrender to the feelings. A clock can only remind you of some other thing happening somewhere else and potentially worry you about it. Also, time distortion (when you have no idea how long you’ve been there) is a beautiful perk of labour that helps a 10 hour labour feel more like a 3 hour labour – constantly looking at a clock will rob you of one of your best natural coping mechanisms! Your phone, and your birth partner’s phone, are also reminders of the outside world. The light they omit is bad for your hormones, and you’ll be annoyed if your partner is killing time scrolling, and that annoyance will turn to stress and will mess up your hormones. So get those phones switched off and in the bag. Be in the moment.

7. Scan the room for scary looking stuff. Honestly, some of the equipment in labour ward rooms looks terrifying. You see it and instantly think ‘danger’. Birth centres are designed with your birth hormones in mind and so much of this equipment is hidden in cupboards and brought out if needed. At a home with this stuff stays in the midwife’s bag. But labour ward rooms are not designed with birthing mums hormones in mind! (I don’t know why – it does seem fairly ridiculous to me!) and so this scary stuff just sits there right in your eye-line, messing with your hormones and ironically, making you more likely to need the scary looking equipment! If I were a birth partner walking into the labour ward, I would scan the room and ask the staff what can be moved or covered up with sheets!

8. Bring in your own nice things! There may be a limit to how much of the scary stuff you can move – maybe there’s nowhere else for it to go, or it can’t be unplugged. So, I would bring stuff in to balance out the scary with the lovely! You need a load of visual aids to help boost your good birth hormones and help you feel happy, calm and relaxed. Photos (not on your phone but printed out) of your loved ones are a great idea. If you have time, why not create a vision board or mood board and bring this in with you.

9. Prepare to get down. Pack your own pillows, blankets, Pyjamas, yoga mat and birth ball. The floor is actually way more ‘natural’ and logical a place to have a baby than on a bed, so get ready to make the floor nice and comfy. If it were me, I’d probably bring a couple of yoga mats and pillows to put under my knees while I lean on the birth ball/chair/bed.

10. Get everyone else to respect the vibe. This is so important. There’s no point doing all the above if you haven’t shared your vision of the perfect birth environment with your caregivers. Write on the birth plan ‘I want a quiet, dimly lit room to help facilitate my oxytocin production’. Also ask for ‘no chatting’ and ‘whispering/quiet voices’ when talk is essential. A sign blue-tacked to the door outside saying something like ‘please enter quietly and keep my birth environment oxytocin friendly’ is a good idea. Or you could have a sign saying ‘please knock and wait’ if they’d prefer your midwife or birth partner to go to the door and ensure the person wanting to enter gets the vibe before they come in.

If you’ve found this useful, I would strongly suggest you ask your birth partner to read this, too! They are the ones who will need to take care of all of this on the day while you relax and have your baby!

I teach lots of practical tips for birth, as well as providing you with a deep knowledge and understanding of how birth works and how to work with the maternity system to get the positive birth you deserve! Check out my 5 star hypnobirthing courses if you’d like to feel confident and prepared for birth!

Thanks for reading! Ruth xx

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