Hospital Birth
One pregnancy website asserts that your nine months of pregnancy "are all about choices." This may sound empowering to some and exhausting to others. Nevertheless there are a number of things you can do to ensure that you are on the same page as the staff at your hospital or birthing center. Above all, experts say, you want to be well informed long before birth so that you don't end up hijacked into a whirlwind of routine procedures that you're not comfortable with. You also want to avoid having to argue about the finer points of hospital policy when in labor.
Pregnancy experts advise you to do research before even picking a health care provider to see which hospitals each provider has admitting privileges at. Other tips from the pros include making sure you visit the hospital where you plan to give birth — well before you go into labor — to check out the premises and talk to the staff. Hospital procedures vary widely from place to place on everything from who you will be able to bring into the delivery room, to if they routinely shave women and what happens to the baby once she has been born. Other things you may want to know include your hospital's rate of C-sections and episiotomies as well as their policies on drugs.
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