Going beyond the B.R.A.I.N. acronym to make powerful decisions in birth

B.R.A.I.N. or B.R.A.N. are two commonly used acronyms that you may come across in your pregnancy journey to help you make informed decisions in birth.

B - benefits
R - risks
A - alternatives
I - intuition 
N - nothing

or 

B - benefits
R - risks
A - alternatives
N - nothing 
(p.s. why did someone decide removing intuition was a good idea?!)

While these are great starting questions and a wonderful guide when discussing things with your care provider, I encourage you to go beyond that and ask yourself some questions too.

Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself:
- Do you have all the information you need to make this decision?
- Does this choice align with your values? 
- In the future, when you look back on this decision, will you feel satisfied that what you chose was the best answer available to you at the time? (Even if it was something you had hoped wouldn't have to happen) Or will you regret that way you made the choice?

- Close your eyes and do a body scan. Are you feeling any tension anywhere or is your body feeling calm? If yes, what do you think is causing it? 

What does asking these questions do for you? Well, it gives you a step back to think about how YOU are doing in this scenario. While it is of course important to know the risks and benefits and alternatives etc, a really big part of the puzzle is YOU. Do you feel like you have the information you need to confidently make a decision? Does this choice align with your values? When you look back on this, will you feel good in knowing that you made the best decision you could with the information you had a time?

When I talk about having positive birth experiences, it doesn't mean that this is only possible if your birth plan goes 100% as you hoped. The reality of birth is that we just don't know. For majority of the time, when allowed to do what it needs to do, birth goes smoothly but sometimes, more is needed. And needing more does not mean that it now becomes a bad experience. The difference between a negative and positive birth experience does not have to do with what exit the baby comes out of. The difference is the way you are treated, if you are respected, if your care team works truthfully and together to give you the best information available and then support you in those decisions.

So before making your choices in pregnancy, birth and postpartum, after you get all the information needed, stop and check with yourself. How do you feel?

I'm going to throw another acronym your way to add to your BRAIN.

FRIES. yum right?

Remember, consent should be:
F - freely given
R - reversible
I - informed
E - enthusiastic
S - specific

Are you pregnant and looking for a prenatal class that will go beyond the basics? Our next My Powerful Birth online group prenatal classes start on June 2. ​​

Learn More