Mini Episode: The REAL Purpose of a Birth Plan

Control doesn’t create a meaningful birth experience—clarity does. We dive into the real purpose of a birth plan and show how to turn a rigid checklist into a living compass that anchors your values, guides decisions, and strengthens partnership with your care team. Instead of chasing a “perfect” script, we focus on agency, communication, and the skills that keep you grounded when labor takes an unexpected turn.

We trace the history of birth plans from the natural birth movement to modern templates and unpack how the purpose got lost. You’ll hear a reality check on pain management—what hospitals actually offer, how relief varies, and why unmedicated goals can morph into pressure. We lay out practical prep for coping: breathwork, positions, movement, mindset, and the environmental choices that help you feel safe. Then we dismantle the myth that staff are responsible for your experience and replace it with a model of partnership in which you lead with your voice while your team supports with expertise.

To move from scattered preferences to a cohesive vision, we offer coaching questions that clarify what you want to feel, which choices matter most, what’s in your control, and who needs to be aligned—your provider, partner, and doula. This value-first approach reduces confusion, improves decision-making under stress, and lowers the risk of birth trauma by keeping you informed, respected, and engaged. By the end, you’ll have a framework to document preferences with purpose and the confidence to adapt without self-blame.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who’s building a birth plan, subscribe for more coaching-led birth prep, and leave a quick review to tell us which question shifted your mindset.

Coaching offer

Kelly Hof: Labor Nurse + Birth Coach
Basically, I'm your birth bestie! With me as your coach, you will tell fear to take a hike!

Chapters

• 0:56 Why Birth Plans Exist
• 1:38 History And Lost Purpose
• 2:44 Plans As Tools For Agency
• 3:37 Misconception: Checklist Attachment
• 4:44 Pain Relief Reality Check
• 6:42 Training For Unmedicated Birth
• 8:16 Adaptability Is Not Failure
• 9:34 Misconception: Outsourcing Experience
• 11:48 Partnership With Your Care Team
• 12:59 Misconception: Fragmented Preferences

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:28

Hey mama! Today I'm talking about something almost everyone has heard of, but very few people understand. The real purpose of a birth plan. Most people think a birth plan is a checklist or a set of instructions the hospital is supposed to follow, or a recipe for a perfect birth. But that's not what birth plans were ever meant to be. Today we're going to go over the history of the birth plan, how they've gotten off track, and how they should be used to optimize your birth experience. But before we do, comment notes below if you want me to send you my notes for this video. When we look at how birth plans first came into the picture, it gives us a lot of clarity about what they were really meant to do. Birth plans began gaining traction in the 1960s and 70s during the natural birth movement. This was a time when hospital births were becoming more medicalized and routine interventions like forceps deliveries, automatic anesthesia, and epesiotomies were standard. Birthing people had very little say in what happened to their bodies. The vibe was very much lie back and let the professionals take over. So the birth plan wasn't created to control birth, it was created to restore agency. It was a way for families to say, I want to be a part of the conversation, I want to understand my options, and I want patient-centered care that reflects my values. By the 1980s, doulas and childbirth educators began formalizing birth plans as tools, not as goals or mandates. As a tool, the birth plan helps families think ahead, reflect on their preferences, and prepare for communication with their care team before labor even begins. And somewhere along the way, the purpose got misunderstood. People started believing that whatever they wrote in the birth plan was the correct way for their birth to unfold. And if reality didn't match the plan, they either felt like they failed or their provider wasn't listening. But a birth plan is not a past-fail document, and it's not the goal either. A birth plan is a strategy, a tool for thinking, preparing, and communicating. It helps you explore what matters most to you, how you want decisions made, what helps you feel safe, and how you want to be supported when things change, because they always change in some way. When we use the birth plan correctly, we don't get attached to the plan itself. We use the process to understand ourselves more deeply so we can stay grounded, flexible, and confident in any scenario. And it becomes a tool to communicate with our birth team. That's the real power of a birth plan. And that's what I teach in my coaching program and my birth plan workshop. Here are the misconceptions about birth plans that I see most often. Number one, we get attached to a checklist. It's easy to think that checking a box means guaranteeing an outcome. Then when something unfolds differently, we feel blindsided, disappointed, like we failed, or like birth is happening to us instead of with us. Let's use pain control as an example, because this is where a lot of confusion comes in. If a mom hopes for an unmedicated birth, that doesn't mean the hospital can somehow create a pain-free unmedicated birth for her. Hospitals offer specific pain relief tools, and if you choose not to use them, there isn't a secret backup system they can switch to. Here's the truth most people don't realize. Hospitals don't have a way to guarantee a pain-free birth with or without medication. What hospitals do offer are tools to help manage pain. IV pain medication, usually in earlier labor, epidurals, more commonly in later labor, and nitrous oxide is available in some hospitals, usually for transition. If a mom chooses not to use those tools, the hospital can't replace them with something else that removes the pain entirely. And even with IV meds, nitrous, or an epidural, pain relief varies. There are no guarantees. This is where the birth plan can quietly turn into pressure. When an unmedicated birth becomes the goal, instead of one possible choice, moms may feel like they've failed if they decide they want or need something different in the moment. The real purpose of planning isn't to lock yourself into one outcome. It's to understand your options ahead of time so you can make calm, informed decisions as labor unfolds. This is how birth becomes something you participate in, not something that happens to you. There's another piece of this that doesn't get talked about enough. Planning for an unmedicated birth is a lot like training for a marathon. You don't show up on race day and hope your body figures it out. You train, you practice, and you learn what works for you. For birth, that can look like learning different coping techniques, practicing breathing, movement, and positioning, understanding how your mindset affects pain perception, and figuring out what helps you feel safe and grounded under pressure. Those skills don't come from a checkbox on a birth plan. They come from preparation, repetition, and support. And here's what I want to communicate very clearly. Even if you prepare deeply, even if you train, even if your plan shifts in the moment, choosing Ivy Mets, nitrous, or epidural is not failure. Adapting to what your body and your baby need in real time is not giving up. It's informed decision making. As long as you understood your options, you made choices based on your needs in the moment, and you and your baby are healthy, you did not fail. You participated, you responded, and you showed up for your birth. And that is exactly what preparation is meant to support. Misconception number two. People assume the staff becomes responsible for the experience. This is one of the most common misunderstandings I see. We write out a birth plan, hand it over, and without realizing it, part of us thinks, okay, now you know what I want. Please make this happen for me. But birth was never meant to be outsourced. Your birth team, your OB, nurses, anesthesiologists, and doula are there to support, inform, monitor safety, and offer tools. They are not there to perform your birth for you or guarantee a specific experience. This connects directly to what we talked about earlier. A birth plan doesn't transfer responsibility. It clarifies communication. It helps everyone understand what matters to you before decisions need to be made. But the moment labor begins, the plan becomes a conversation, not a contract. Because birth is a living, responsive process. Your body is doing the work, your baby is participating, and your team is responding in real time to what you, your body, and your baby are communicating. That's why preparation matters so much. When you understand your options, practice coping tools, and know what helps you feel grounded, you stay responsive in your birth, even when it's intense or unpredictable. You're not waiting for someone else to deliver the experience to you. You're actively participating, adjusting, and choosing as the process unfolds. And this is the reframe I want you to hear clearly. Being the head of your birth team doesn't mean doing everything alone. It means staying connected to your voice, your values, and your decision making, while allowing your team to support you with their expertise. That's not pressure, that's partnership. And that partnership is exactly what birth plans were meant to support. Misconception number three, the plan becomes fragmented instead of a cohesive vision. Most birth plan templates are built as lists. Intermittent monitoring, delayed cord clamping, no epesiotomy are examples I see on some of these lists. Those details aren't wrong, they're important. But on their own, they're just pieces. What often gets lost is the bigger picture. How do I want this experience to feel while it's happening? When a birth plan stays at the level of checkboxes, it can unintentionally turn birth into a series of isolated decisions instead of a connected unfolding process. And birth doesn't move in straight lines. It shifts, it responds, it changes pace and intensity. A cohesive birth vision isn't about controlling each moment. It's about anchoring yourself to your values, your priorities, and your sense of safety. So when decisions come up, you're not starting from scratch. When you have that clarity, the individual preferences make more sense. Instead of I want delayed cord clamping, it becomes I want to protect those first quiet moments and feel connected to my baby if it's safe. Instead of I don't want an obesiotomy, it becomes I want my body respected, communication before interventions, and time to respond unless it's urgent. That's how the plan shifts from a list to a lens you make decisions through. Because birth isn't something you check off. It's something you move through moment by moment. And when your vision is clear, you're able to stay grounded and flexible at the same time. That's not rigidity, that's coherence. And that's what a birth plan was always meant to support. This is where the coaching perspective completely changes everything. Because the real purpose of the birth plan is to help you create a clear, compelling birth vision. A vision answers questions like what do I want to feel during birth? What will help me feel safe, respected, and supported? What helps me cope? What environment keeps me grounded? What values guide my decisions? And how do I want to show up for myself? When you approach a birth plan this way, it becomes a strategy to clarify your desires, to understand your options, to communicate your needs, to prepare emotionally and mentally, to build confidence and reduce fear, and to stay in your power no matter how birth unfolds. It's not the map, it's the compass. Let's talk about the coaching questions that I use to turn a plan into a vision. These questions shift you from a rigid plan into a grounded, empowered mindset. Number one, what will you see, hear, and feel in your ideal birth experience? This creates emotional clarity, not just preferences. Number two, what specifically do you want? Not a natural birth, but I want to feel calm and confident. I want dim lights, I want uninterrupted time in early labor. Number three, what's your motivation? Why do these choices matter? And what do they represent for you? Number four, what parts of this experience are within your control? And which parts aren't? This question is huge for reducing birth trauma. Number five, who else needs to be aligned with your birth vision? Your provider? Your partner? Your doula? Number six, what resources do you already have, mentally, emotionally, and physically, that will help you? And only after this conversation do we pull out a birth plan template and choose the details? Because the template isn't the vision. It's just one of the strategies to help you communicate the vision. Let's talk about why this approach helps prevent trauma. So many moms feel traumatized, not because something medical happened, but because the experience felt out of control, confusing, or misaligned. A coaching-centered birth plan reduces that risk because it grounds you in your own values, teaches you to lead your birth team, clarifies what's important and what's flexible, prepares you for decision-making under stress, keeps you emotionally centered in unpredictable moments, and helps you separate your performance from the outcome. Birth trauma decreases when moms feel heard, respected, prepared, part of the decision making, and proud of how they showed up. That's what a good birth plan supports. So if you've been stressing about creating the perfect birth plan, you can relax. A birth plan isn't a contract, it's not a guarantee, and it's not a prediction. It's a tool to help you become the virgin of yourself who can say, I was informed, I was prepared, I knew my values, and I showed up fully for my birth. That is the purpose and the power, and it's what you deserve. Remember, if you want the notes for this video, comment notes below and I'll send them to you.