Pregnant? Know your birthing options for personalized delivery in hospital

This paid piece is sponsored by Avera.

Your birth plan shares your hopes and expectations with your delivery team in the hospital.

It may or may not go as expected, but feeling empowered and in control is key to having a positive experience.

You’ll have nine months to ask your pregnancy provider questions as well as take childbirth education classes. These are key to learning your options and feeling empowered during your labor and delivery.

Dr. Catherine Schiltz, OG-GYN with Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center, said moms-to-be should bring their birth plans with them to the hospital but also an open mind as sometimes things change course.

“We are patient. We know that some labors take longer than others,” Schlitz said. “We want to take your wishes into consideration and make sure it’s the best possible outcome.”

That’s the experience April Mullin had recently during the birth of her third child with Schiltz as her provider.

“I’ve always been in the driver’s seat, and Dr. Schiltz has always made that very clear,” she said. “That’s always been what’s best for me and what’s best for baby.”

Understanding your birthing options in hospital

Over the years, personalization of a woman’s birth has become a more prominent goal in the hospital setting.

You have freedom to choose what works best for you during labor as long as the baby is not in danger. Here are a few things to consider during birth planning:

• Pregnancy provider choice: OB-GYN, certified nurse midwife, family medicine-OB.
• 24/7 laborists so someone is on-site at all times at Avera McKennan.
• Natural childbirth — minimal or no pain medications.
• Mobility using wireless monitoring systems.
• Labor and pain management resources such as medications, birthing balls, bathtub.
• Skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth.
• Delayed cord cutting to allow additional blood flow from cord to baby.
• Access to a Level IIIB neonatal intensive care unit and remote NICU monitoring.
• Family-centered cesarean sections and postpartum care.
• Use of positioning techniques — called spinning babies — to help with birthing.

Moving, walking during labor for pain management 

There used to be a perception that women would go to the hospital, be placed in bed and not allowed to move. But that’s not the case.

Mobility can help with labor pains and progress the labor. Women are encouraged to move by walking the halls, using birthing balls and even labor in the tub. Even with an epidural, women have the ability to move and reposition themselves.

This is possible because of wireless monitoring devices that allow the team to monitor mom and baby at all times.

“In birth plans, we see that women want freedom and the ability to move around, and we’ve been doing that for years,” said Karrie Garry, a registered nurse and childbirth educator. “What we don’t want is you lying down in bed and not moving. That’s the worst thing that you can do.”

Interventions during labor

The No. 1 priority for the birthing team is to have a healthy birth and baby without a primary C-section, Schiltz said. That’s one reason moms need to keep an open mind because things don’t always go to plan.

Over the decades, the idea that the delivery is controlled by the provider has shifted to a team approach, Schiltz and Garry said.

“We want collaborative care that involves the patient and empowers them to ask questions and puts them in the driver’s seat of being part of our labor team,” Garry said.

That works in conjunction with monitoring baby and mother to ensure safety is always a first priority, Schiltz said.

At the end of the day, the goal is simple: “Our care team goal is to have a happy, healthy delivery; a happy, healthy mamma; and a happy, healthy baby.”

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