The Importance of Postpartum Planning

For a lot of folks, pregnancy can be an overwhelming and exciting time of planning; where to give birth, who your provider will be, choosing a doula, planning a baby shower and more. What most folks don’t realize is that the planning we do for birth is for a that moment. Whether the birth is vaginal of surgical. Whether the birth is medical or unmedicated. Whether it takes a matter of hours or days.

The birth of a child is the starting line, not the finish. Everything that comes next - that’s what we need to shift our focus on.

When I became a doula ten years ago no one really understood my job. I’d say I’m a doula and people would either presume I was a midwife or didn’t have any idea about what my job entailed. When I tried to explain it, people would wonder why I was needed when there were nurses in hospitals.

Thankfully today people understand the importance of having a birth doula, but when thinking about postpartum it’s still quite a mystery.

I think this is to do with the fact that most folks who give birth don’t talk much about what happens next except for scrubbed for social media images of happy babies, cute outfits, and beautiful toddler meals. We don’t usually get to see the intrusive thoughts, the relationship strain, the ways our bodies are changing and healing, the struggles with our parent identities. These are the things that I find the most important to plan for postpartum.

So, how are you planning for postpartum?