As soon as you arrive to the hospital, you are given a bag for your personal belongings and the notorious hospital gown, which is essentially a sheet with snap sleeves and tie strings. Five minutes after putting it on, you realize how annoying they are. It’s not easy to access monitors when the only opening is in the rear. When you walk around, you need a second gown just to cover your bum. After you give birth, you have to pull the top all the way down just to breastfeed. There is nothing discreet about a hospital gown. You have no choice but to pull it all the way up during birth, exposing everything. The only advantage I see is the fact that you don’t have to wash it afterward.
After I had my first, I started researching my options for “next time.” I discovered that many women choose to wear special birth apparel to their hospital or home birth. Many women assume you are required to wear the hospital gown. Some women will put on the hospital gown per the nurse’s instructions when they arrive at triage, then change into their own clothes once they get into the private delivery room. Most hospitals will allow you to wear your own clothes as long as they do not interfere with your care.
Binsi(www.birthinbinsi.com) offers skirts that can be paired with a sports bra or tank top. The benefit of wearing one of these skirts is three-fold. You’ll feel more comfortable, the skirt allows easier access to your belly for monitoring, and the doctor or midwife is able to examine you without exposing you to the entire room. The skirts are cute enough to wear out, flexible enough to accommodate any birthing position, do not interfere with labor or delivery, and are fully adjustable, so you can wear them throughout your pregnancy and after as well. I would have loved to have worn one of these during my delivery.
Another option for the glamorous mom is a delivery gown from Pretty Pushers (www.prettypushers.com). By the looks of this dress, you’d never guess it was intended to be worn during labor, or that it was disposable. At $25, they are less than half the cost of a Binsi, screenprinted with cute designs and are made from 100% cotton.
Would you buy a birth skirt or delivery gown for your next delivery?