Hospital Birth: Preparing for Triage

As you know, we focus on positive outcomes and only share more ”negative” stories in order to prepare you and strategize about how to approach your pregnancy and birthing so you can better your chances of getting what you want.  The following post by new mom, Katherine, details her experience at the hospital and in triage.  This post doesn’t end up being a birth story, but her baby was born three days later and both baby and mom are healthy.

Her experience gives you some insights into what you may experience and things you should consider if you’re planning a hospital birth.  You certainly may not find yourself being faced with the same things Katherine was, but here are some strategies to prepare you for your arrival in triage:

• Triage is not usually a peaceful place.  Moms often have a hard time relaxing in this environment unless they are adequately prepared for it.
  • Once you’re at the hospital, if you’re not actively giving birth at the moment, it can help to take a moment and collect yourself before going in.  Use your breathing techniques to help you get relaxed, read or listen to a script or two, do a couple colors of Rainbow Relaxation and/or use your anchors.  Get yourself calm and centered to help you maintain your relaxation once you’re in triage.
  • Have a relaxation CD/MP3 playing in triage.  If you’re hesitant about doing this is public, bring along headphones.
• Your Birth Companion should be able to field many of the questions for you.  Have your Birth Companion request that you only get involved in the discussion if necessary.
• Create your birth preferences and have them filed at the hospital.  While this might not help in every scenario, it will help you think through some important decisions and make sure that you and your Birth Companion are clear about what kinds of interventions you want and how you will handle routine hospital procedures.
• Decide on guests ahead of time and how you want to handle them.  In this case guests includes people like students at the hospital.  If you are confident that you can relax and tune out extra distractions, then this may not be a big deal for you.  If however, you need as peaceful a setting as possible to get relaxed, this will be an important one for you.  Also, make sure your Birth Companion explains to everyone in attendance that you are using hypnosis for birthing and you need minimal distractions.  An added bonus is that you may get assigned to a quiet room away from the nurse’s station if you let the staff know you are using hypnosis for childbirth and that you will benefit from having a quiet room.
• Prepare for things like getting an IV and vaginal exams by using your glove anesthesia to numb the areas involved.  You may be getting several vaginal exams throughout labor, so you may want to give yourself suggestions to automatically prepare for them.  Something like, I instantly lose all sensation in my vaginal area whenever hospital staff approaches to do a vaginal exam.  I remain calm and deeply relaxed as I automatically adjust my level of relaxation to ensure that I remain comfortable during all vaginal exams.  Your Birthing Zone CD, track 1, Special Place can help you get relaxed while track 2, Comfort Management can help you create glove anesthesia and move it wherever you need it.
• It’s okay to change your mind, Katherine did.  Just because you agreed to something, like a student shadowing nurses, if it’s not working out for you, let the hospital staff know that this is no longer something you want to do.  Even better, have you Birth Companion relay this information to the hospital staff for you.