What to Pack in Your Birth Bag For a Mindful, Empowering Birth

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Pregnancy is a whirlwind of emotions of excitement and anxiety for the up and coming arrival of your new baby, that’s managed with resilience and clarity when you know what to pack in your birth bag. 

The immense information, resources, and stories a woman is given in her pregnancy can lead her to feel overwhelmed about what the ‘best’ way to birth and bond with her baby is, including how to birth her baby.

The truth of the matter is, no one on this earth knows how to birth your baby than you do. 

Consider What Makes You Feel Safe, Connected and Comfortable When Planning Your Birth Bag

From the moment of your own creation within your mother’s womb, an innate wisdom was imprinted within you. 

These clues ingrained in your body, along with your instincts are there to tell you what makes you feel safe, comfortable and connected.

Anything that goes against what your body is telling you, or if your needs aren’t being listened to (by you, or anyone else) can lead to your survival mechanisms to be alerted: your fight, flight and freeze responses.

When this alarm system has been set off in your body, it becomes a challenge to birth your baby with mindful ease, because the stress hormones inhibit oxytocin, the hormone that creates the surges that help to guide your baby and placenta down the birth canal. 

This is all the more important when you’re considering how and where you feel called to birth your baby, which will help you decide on what you will need on your birth bag packing list. 

The foundation of planning anything for your birth bag essentials, is what makes you feel physically, mentally, and spiritually (if this is important to you) safe, connected and comfortable.

In order to support you with a birth that revolves around only your needs and wants, a good place to start is to ensure you first have a birth plan.

When it comes to your birth and postpartum wishes, consider your holistic self (mind, body, soul, physiology) as well as your environment, resources, survival needs, and any teachings/practices you want to bring in (like Hypnobirthing) which you can read more about this here.

Consider your dream birth, and create it for yourself with vibrant colours:

1. Write a list of all the things that help you to feel safe.
2. Write a list of all the things that make you feel comfortable (mind, body and soul.) 
3. Write down all the things that make you feel connected. – To yourself, to those around you, the world and your baby.

Consider aspects like what environment you’ll be birthing in. Do you feel the most comfortable with birthing in a hospital, at home, or at a birth centre? What resources will they have there? Do you want access to a birth pool? If you’d like to use a birthing ball or stool, will you need to bring your own? Will it be dimly lit?

What Health Conditions Do You Have, and Would You Like a Medicated Birth? 

Have you done your research and made informed decisions on medical intervention? 

What Nourishing foods and hydrating fluids will rejuvenate you? 

We will be going deeper into all the aspects to consider, but for some inspiration, I will place my personal birth plan as an example, which will give you a detailed idea on what to put on your birth bag checklist.

Birth Plan Example

You are more than welcome to use this as a template of your own birth plan and birth bag packing list, but I’ll be going deeper into the aspects to consider for you to have a safe, comfortable, connected birth below. 

What to Pack For Your Birth Bag CheckList

1. A Supportive Birth Partner – although you won’t be packing them per-se, they are vital to bring with you!

Having a supportive birth partner through your birth, whether you’re having a home birth, a hospital birth, a birth centre birth, or a c-section is absolutely crucial for your needs to be met.

They are with you to ensure you feel safe, connected, grounded, and to ensure all staff involved are reminded of your needs when your thinking brain starts to shut down, as you birth your baby. 

You can find more details on the importance of having a birth partner, and how they can support you here.

2. Your Birth Plan 

Whether you’re leaving the house to go to the hospital or birth centre, or are staying at home, ensure your birth plan is close. I put mine on the wall in my living room, gave a couple to the midwives, had one in my file, for my partner and my family! 

This is so they can support you and remind themselves of your unique needs when offering their care to you and your child. When you’re within your birthing cave with oxytocin flowing and focusing on the art of pushing your baby down, your thinking brain will close off, to give all of the energy to your primal instincts.

3. Nourishing Foods and Fluids

In order to keep your energy levels up, it’s vital to ensure you pack a vast amount of nourishing foods. Due to the mental and physical labour and the hormones of birth, it can sometimes be hard to stomach a proper meal, so try your best to have a proper meal as early on as possible, and pack many energising, healthy snacks. 

Food recommendations are things like:

•  Fresh fruit
• Sandwiches (wholegrain with healthy fillings like hummus, banana and chicken. )
• Energy Protein Bars
• Breadsticks and Crackers
• Frubes/Yogurt
• Nuts and seeds
• Cereals
• Rice Cakes
• Pasta
• Rice

When it comes to fluids, the best option is water, which you can also add lemon and cucumber too, or you could drink broth which has an incredible amount of vitamins and minerals in it for you and baby. 

If you’d like to try this, you can find an incredible one here, with no taste, so you can add it to anything! 

4. Birth Ball, Birth Stool and Yoga Mat

Having an active birth is the most natural, primal and comfortable way to birth your baby. You should never be on your back to birth your baby, this goes against gravity, does not support your hips to be open, and leaves your body in an uncomfortable position to push. 

This is not to say you cannot rest, rest is imperative and beautiful for you both, but no matter what someone says, unless it’s absolutely necessary, movement will empower, ground and soothe your mind and body. 

You can find a rich resource on many active birth movements that you can try, here. The most important thing to remember is that your body knows what to do. It will tell you how it’s called to move. Usually this includes any movement that opens your hips and opens the pelvis. 

Using a Birth Ball, a Birth Stool and/or a Yoga Mat really helps to keep your body comfortable and upright.

Any Exercise Ball will do (as long as it’s the right height for you) but here’s the products I used for pregnancy and birth, if you’re interested. A Yoga Mat really helped my knees as I moved my body through rocking and mat poses, and I also used this lovely thick one to just lie down on. 

1. Birth Ball
2. Yoga Mat

You can find evidence on the latest birth positions and a podcast here.

5. Ensure your birth bag includes anything that helps you to feel calm, grounded and connected. 

 This is the soothing part, where you ensure you bring (or have to hand) everything that soothes you holistically. (mind, body and soul).

• Fairy lights for a dimly lit, oxytocin rich environment. The ones I used are here. I loved these, as they also have pegs, which I hung up my birth affirmations on. You can also bring wickless candles!

• Birth affirmations- affirmations help to keep us in the present, bringing us back to our senses, and re wire our minds to think positively and feel empowered. They bring a sense of joy, excitement and a knowing, for the safe and beautiful meeting of us and our babies. 

There’s a wonderful birth affirmation colouring book here. 

To stay up to date with my unique, poetic affirmation cards for pregnancy, birth & beyond, with rich holistic and mental health practices, you can sign up for updates here. 

• A diffuser- stimulating every sense is so important for us to stay grounded within our birth. Aromatherapy is known to calm and bring us back to the present, as well as promote our feel good hormones. The one I have at home is here.

• If you have been learning Hypnobirthing, or something similar, ensure to bring your meditation tracks, affirmation tracks, affirmation cards, Hypnobirthing scripts that your birth partner can read you to induce an oxytocin rich environment, and any oils or moisturisers to be used for massages.
• Music

Toiletries

• Deodorant
• Hair Brush and Hairbands
• Face wash
• Toothbrush and Paste
• Vaseline
• Lotion
• Shampoo and conditioner
• Large Bed Sanitary Towels
• Large Pads for Pants 
• Towel
• Glasses/Contact Lenses
• Any Medications
• Large zip-lock bag
• Any make-up you may like
• Spray bottle with water for cooling you down
• Spray bottle with herbal spritz for healing (research online, or you can read my holistic healing for postpartum blog post, here.)

For Your Baby

• Nappies and Wipes of your choosing
• Sudocrem/Bepanthol 
• Bottles and chosen milk if you’re not breastfeeding
• Onesies and pyjamas
• Socks
• Going home outfit, if you are at the hospital/centre
• Car seat
• Blankets
• Burp cloths
• Hat
• Sound Machine
• Dummies, if you like

For Mamma

• Comfortable Breastfeeding/sports bras
• Easily accessible breastfeeding tops if needed
• Slippers or non-slip socks
• Comfortable clothes
• Pyjamas
• Going home clothes (if you like) I just wore my comfies for weeks!
• Big travel Tumbler
• Long Phone Charger
• Eye Mask
• Your favourite throw
• Tens Machine or comb for natural pain relief, if you like
• Dressing Gown
• Maternity Underwear
• Journal and Pens

For Dad/Birth Partner

• Comfortable clothes and shoes
• Swimming shorts, if having a water birth
• Phone and charger
• Hypnobirthing scripts/things that make mamma feel loved
• Presence

Other Bits You May Need

• If you’re in the US, you’ll need your ID/Insurance Documentation.
• Camera
• Maternity Record
• Doctors order
• Purse/wallet with cash etc
• Laptop
• Pens
• Baby Book

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