Birth plans - did you have yours signed by your doctor?

M

mamamau

Registered User
I'm going to show my birth plan to my doctor this coming week. I notice that on a lot of the sample birth plans, people ask for their doctors' signatures at the bottom. I'm not sure how doctors in Hong Kong would take that idea... Has anyone asked for signatures before? And, are signatures necessary and binding? I've heard that some people just gave birth plans to the hospital only. What are people's experiences?

Thanks!
 
I wouldn't think that a doctor would agree to sign a birth plan as anything can happen during delivery and he/she would not want to be responsible for a breech of your contract. While being informed in advance of how you would like your delivery to be is great, I would just advise you that you must be also be incredibly flexible in adjusting that plan according to the circumstances at hand.
 
My doctor signed my birth plan. I wasn?t expecting him to but he made the offer himself. Unfortunately we couldn?t keep to the plan because of an emergency. I had also listed what I wanted to happen with the baby about breastfeeding and although again I wasn?t able to follow through completely it allowed my wishes to be taken into consideration.
 
I was so naive and created this unrealistic birth plan - no drugs, walking while in labor, mirror so I can see the baby being born!

OMG I wasn't prepared for the intesnity of the contractions, I begged for a epidural, I was pushing so hard my eyes were closed so didn't use the mirror. There was something else....can't remember now.

The nurses at the Adventist were super and did their best to follow my birth plan.
 
Thank you, all!

Rani - are we making the same birth plan or what? ;)


rani said:
I was so naive and created this unrealistic birth plan - no drugs, walking while in labor, mirror so I can see the baby being born!

OMG I wasn't prepared for the intesnity of the contractions, I begged for a epidural, I was pushing so hard my eyes were closed so didn't use the mirror. There was something else....can't remember now.

The nurses at the Adventist were super and did their best to follow my birth plan.
Click to expand...
 
unfortunately.. i was not very lucky with my birthplan.. it was very very very bad accepted (not in HK though but very close).. they took it like I knew more than them and how can a 'simple' mom know more than 'well educated, graduated male doctors'?

anyway .. it seems that i also had the same as you rani, or any similar.. and was lucky to stick to it at 85% maybe.. but not at the hospital..

anyway, the best is to see with your gyn...
 
I used a birth plan at Queen Elizabeth and it was great. I didn't have it signed as you just get whatever doctor is there at the time to deliver your baby, but everyone who came into the room read it over and made sure they knew what I did and did not want. I didn't want an episiotomy, which they usually do for all first time moms, and they respected this. The nurse helped me start breastfeeding within 45 minutes from when my baby was born as they knew this was my preference. I said in my birthplan that I would let them know what kind of pain relief I wanted and when I talked to the doctor about having an epidural she advised me on when to have it.

I think that at the local hospitals they are used to having foreigners come with birth plans, but not locals (at least that was what they told me). They understand that maybe you want things different because of where you come from and they respect that. It's a great thing to have!

At this website: http://birthplan.com/cgi-bin/plan.pl you can create a birthplan, save it and then modify it if needed.
 
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