Home Birth Prep for First-Time Moms

In my Facebook group recently a FTM (first-time mom) asked how she ought to go about preparing — if at all — for her homebirth. I’d like to reply to that question here!

How you prepare for your birth will vary depending partly on the sort of person that you are. Are you someone who does great winging things or are you someone who values preparedness? However, I will say that even for those who generally like to “wing it,” birth might be one of those areas where choosing a slightly more proactive approach is valuable.

Read on to get a few pointers for your journey of intentional preparation.

Filling your mind with POSITIVE birth stories is really, really important. We spend so much of our lives passively absorbing frightening and negative imagery and associations of birth from the culture that we’re steeped in, and it takes some intentionality to overwrite those things with something beautiful and true. You might find resources like Holy Wild Birth, this YouTube playlist, and collections of birth stories like this, this, or this series to be really useful toward this goal.

The next thing is childbirth education/classes. I advise you to be careful what you choose here. Some are going to be medical/hospital-focused, which won’t apply to your home birth plans, while others might champion natural birth but be infused with new-age messages that undermine the gospel. You want a childbirth course that teaches you what NORMAL physiological, undisturbed birth looks like because that’s the gold standard and it’s worth focusing on the gold standard! One that bolsters your relationship with the Lord, explores emotional/mental/spiritual aspects of preparation (not just physical), and also is specific to home birth would be especially helpful. I highly recommend this one, but there may be other great ones out there, too.

And practice listening to your body now, while you’re still pregnant, and honoring the messages it sends you. Also practice listening to the Holy Spirit — who has infused your intuition with heavenly wisdom — and walk according to it. These practices will help you immeasurably during labor and also for your entire life as a mother!

Lastly, here’s an open letter I wrote to first time moms about entering the labor process.