As a midwife extraordinaire, what are your top tips on what to pack and when to start packing? Okay, so, I would feel the packing of your hospital bag is like a 'moment'. You finish work and you pack your bag. As midwives we would recommend, from about 36 weeks, to start packing your bag.
So what do I need to put in it? Right, what you have to remember Cherry, is that hospitals, if you are having a hospital birth, or even if you are planning a home birth, we always recommend you still pack a hospital bag.
Your midwife will have recommended this. Hospitals are approximately the temperature of the sun! They are absolutely boiling. Yep. And they need to be warm for babies. So, you do really do not need to pack these huge fluffy dressing gowns and thick jumpers. You need to think, more like, spa. So, with these bad boys!
This is a nice button down one so that's great for afterwards when you are breast feeding or if you have had a c-section as well. You want something loose across your tummy. That's cute, I like that! Or even your partner's big t-shirt is great. But basically, you want cotton, because you want to keep cool.
I always really recommend music, so a playlist or if you have been practicing hypnobirthing you might already have that downloaded. So you want some kind of musical device. A phone, and headphones. These are my big, big, I am absolutely obsessed with people having headphones. So, if you're playing your labour playlist or listening to your positive birth affirmations. A pair of headphones. I do like, a little compartment.
Tens machine, you can hire them, you can buy them. You can borrow them, you can buy them second hand. Get your birthing partner to check that it works. Nothing worse than a broken tens machine. Oh my god. Imagine. That would be awful!
- Breast pads. Great for afterwards, if you're in long enough for when your milk has come in. Always good when you are having a random leaky boob.
- Nipple cream! It's also very good as lip balm. I shall use mine! Yes, it's brilliant, isn't it? That's in the little clever compartment.
- Hairbands! You want everything, just, off your face. If you have a big fringe like me, get a wide headband and everything off of your face.
- Lip balm. All of these little things that are so useful and important.
What about food? Very important. So important, for you and your partner, don't forget, they need to eat too. Oranges are great as they won't get too bruised in your bag, and bananas are fantastic. Potassium. So important, drinking is so important during labour.
What about sports drinks? Sports drinks are fine, you just don't want to go crazy on them because they have a lot of additives. I always think water or coconut water, yes, are my absolutely favourites. And I would always recommend using a sports bottle like this, because it's super easy to drink.
You don't know what position you are going to be in. These are lovely actually, I think these are the caesarian section support pants that you can buy. I wish I would have had these. I know, they are so lovely. So they have this extra layer of support that would go across where the c-section scar is.
We recommend as midwives, after your baby is born that you always place a hat on baby, because babies get really cold after they are born. They are born really wet, so we dry them quite well with a towel but pop a little hat on your baby because it will keep the heat in.
Tiny little gloves! Mittens. Yep! Also, a lot of these babygros, which is really good, have these built in covers. Like that. So, you can do one or the other. Newborn sized babygros, i would say is a great one. Unless you know you are going to have a premature sized baby. (Before 36 weeks) So you can buy tiny baby, most stores sell them.
Cotton pads or wet wipes? Baby skin is really delicate when they are born, we recommend that you use warm water to clean the baby's nappy. And something really soft like a cotton wool ball or a pad like that. You can now buy these, which are, 99.9% water and 0.1% fruit extract. They are really good for when you are out and about with a new baby because you are not going to want to take your bottled water. But you can pack both, and they might be quite useful for mum.
Okay, nappies, tiny tiny nappies. How many do you put in your hospital bag? I get asked this all of the time! I would take twenty. Why not? You don't know how long you are going to be in for, also, if you run out the hospital are going to have some spares. Or your partner can nip home and get them. Everywhere sells nappies.
Muslins, these are amazing. Mopping up milk, mopping up your tears. Two more things. This is called a cellular blanket, so it's got little holes in it. We don't recommend fleecy blankets because they are not very breathable, these are lovely because they are really soft. And they are breathable. And you can actually just tuck your baby in their little cot. We always recommend that you leave the hospital with a car seat, so when the baby is in the car seat, it's always nice to have a slightly warmer, heavier blanket to wrap around your baby.
So! My last tip. Unpack it. Lay it out on your bed, on the sofa. And get your birthing partner to pack it. Why? Right, this is - this is a true story! I was looking after a woman, she was in labour, in between contractions. And she's like. "I just need the hairband. The hairband." And the partner is like, "right, right, I'll get the hairband" And he is literally like this, he cannot find the tiny hairband anywhere at all. He is literally pulling out everything, and of course it's in the neat little washbag. If he had packed the bag, he would have known where it was. So our bags are packed, and ready to go.
Is there anything that we have missed out, anything essential that we need in here? Probably the most important thing, your maternity notes. So, always make sure you have got those with you, they have all your information about you and your health. Your baby. All the scans you've had. Your blood tests and pregnancy. When you go to hospital on the day, you know, the midwife will be looking after you and she can see all of that without having to ask you so many questions.
Also, your birth preferences. Used to be called a birth plan. It did used to be called a birth plan! Why is it not called a birth plan? It's called whatever you want to call it Cherry, I like to call it a birth preference because I don't think you could ever plan your birth for example, It gives you a false sense of security, yes! That you've made a plan and it will happen like that.
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