Preparing the Hospital Bag

The last few weeks before your due date will certainly be nerve-racking. You’ll be torn between thinking about the sweet arrival of your precious baby and thinking of how awful labor could be. Well, that’s part of the whole pregnancy story. We, women, couldn’t do anything about that, so we just need to focus on preparing for the birth. Other than preparing our body and soul through healthy eating, sleeping, meditating, and praying, the grand preparation should include preparing the things to bring to the hospital on D day.

Pack your bag early

Learn from my story and prepare your hospital bag ahead of time. Since my due date was December 28, I decided to pack my things on the 1st week of December. I thought that was ample time since I was 2 weeks advanced. I gave birth on the 4th of December! Surprise! When the resident doc in the ER told me I was 3 cm dilated and my BP is shooting up (Save that for another blog post!), I knew in my head that I wasn’t prepared! All my bags are not packed yet; I’m not ready to go! So my tip to soon-to-be mommies is ready your stuff as early as possible. You can never tell if you’ll deliver prematurely or baby will arrive as early as the safe 37th week.

Bring only the essentials

Of course, everybody knows that already. The question is “What are the essentials when it comes to labor and child birth day?” I did a lot of online research for that, and Google certainly is a huge help. But since I packed my bags only a few hours before I went to the hospital, here’s the super short hospital bag list I followed:

For Mommy:

Clothes with front opening/easy access for breastfeeding
Comfy undies
Maternity sanitary pads
Slippers
Socks and jacket (just in case you feel cold as most CS mommies feel cold as side effect of the operation)
Breast pads
Nursing bras
Nursing cover
Phone, charger, power bank
Toiletries and cosmetics
Going home outfit
All documents and IDs (For Filipinos – SSS, Philhealth, health card, etc) needed for hospital discharge and payment