Am I allowed to do that in birth?

While Doing Laundry

Let’s talk about care expectations! You can set your own care expectations regardless of where you are on your health journey: whether you are pregnant, post-partum, planning on pregnancy or addressing any other health concern. Knowing that you have the right to set care expectations is a real game changer, so let’s dive right in!

• Imagine you have spent the last several months planning a huge party
• You have planned out every detail right down to your favourite restaurant and your perfect hair and shoes
• You arrive at your party, and your friends and family are there, and then this person you have never met takes over everything
• This person tells you “we’re not ready for you” and tells you to go “wait over there”
• Next, this person tells you there is nothing left for you to eat or drink
• Your friends and family are there but nobody knows what to do so you just go along with whatever is happening
• You are defeated
• Obviously this scenario would never be ok in the hospitality industry
• Why do we not hold our birth experience to the same standard?
• The profession of nursing is built on the therapeutic nurse-client relationship
• The therapeutic relationship must include trust and understanding, unbiased support, belief in the individual's autonomy and providing informed options for that client to make their own decisions.
• Somehow along the way, we mixed it up and in labor and delivery - the job and core value focuses on the baby instead of the birthing person
• Why is the client not treated as the expert of knowledge and keeper of the answers when it comes to pregnancy and birth?
• As the client going in there to give birth, you have every right to set clear expectations about how you want to be treated and how your nursing staff and the rest of the care team is to treat you based on their own practice guidelines
• You are not being difficult, you are not asking for too much, you are simply highlighting that you are aware of what their professional responsibilities are
• It’s not your fault that the system is broken

Establishing care expectations with the background knowledge of what your nurses should be doing creates a powerful tool to be heard and to be treated the way you deserve to be treated during your birthing journey.

Download your FREE Care Expectations PDF here.

If you're interested in learning more about how to define your care expectations and have them met, don't miss next week's episode. I will be diving into the top three ways to ask for what you need. See you then!