By Robin Elise Weiss, LCCE, About.com Guide
Choose a supportive practitioner. No matter whether you use a doctor or midwife, be sure that your practitioner has a lot of experience in caring for women who want to have an unmedicated birth. Midwives usually specialize in this type of birth. How to choose your practitioner.
Select a place of birth that will help you. While home births and birth centers provide you with the best locations for a natural birth because they specialize in natural birth, you can have a natural birth in a hospital setting. Good planning, proper preparation and good support are essential, no matter where you give birth. Birth centers or home birth can be a great option for you.
Have a birth plan. A birth plan is a way for you to effectively communicate your preferences for your birth with your practitioner, the staff who is caring for you during labor and your birth team. How to write a birth plan.
Hire a doula. The use of a professional doula has been shown not only to reduce the requests for epidural anesthesia, but it also cuts the cesarean rates in half and shortens the length of labor according to medical studies. Find out about doulas.
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