Packing Your Birth Bags
I like to be organized. I like checklists. I love checking things off checklists. So it’s no surprise that, for both my hospital birth and my birth center birth, I had checklists for the bags I wanted to pack and bring with me. A hospital bag may look different from a birth center bag for a couple reasons. Typically hospital policy requires you to stay at least one night (sometimes 2 or 3) after a vaginal birth, while birth centers let you go home after a certain number of hours. Also, hospitals typically provide a lot of things such as birthing and peanut balls, diapers and wipes, and postpartum care products like ice packs and diapers. Birth centers may or may not provide certain things. It’s always a great idea to check with your hospital or midwife to determine what will be provided. But keep in mind that, even if an item is provided, you may prefer to bring your own from home. For example, the hospital provides a peri bottle, but the FridaMom peri bottle is elite. I also always preferred to bring my own labor and delivery gown because it was more comfortable and fit me better (and was cute).
Regardless of where you’re planning to birth, I recommend checking out both of the checklists I’ve created. The birth center checklist included more specifics on what kind of snacks and drinks to pack for yourself, while I kept that off the hospital checklist. I also didn’t add swimsuits to the hospital checklist because mine didn’t offer any kind of birthing tub. You’ll also notice that both lists include gifts for nurses/birth supporters (such as midwives, doulas, etc.) Bringing snacks is something I always love to do to show my appreciation! If you’re on a tight budget, you could always bring thank you cards to write and give out later. Again - your situation may be different, so don’t be afraid to combine certain items from the two checklists. I’ve kept both of these documents editable so that you can customize the list for your own needs. If you’re not familiar with Google documents, just make sure you click on file —> make a copy. The copy will be added to your own Google drive and you’ll be able to edit it there!
