BirthGuide was created by Australian parents who know first-hand how overwhelming birth planning can be.
When I was pregnant with my first baby, I wanted to feel prepared. I read the books, did the antenatal classes, and sat down to write a birth plan with my partner. What I found was a mess of long templates, contradictory advice online, and no clear way to turn my preferences into something we and our care team could actually use during labour.
The plan we had was too long, and it never stayed still. Our preferences shifted right through the pregnancy, and the day before the birth we changed our minds again. We had no printer at home. Every edit meant rushing out to find one and paying to print the whole thing fresh. By the time the hospital bag was packed, we had reprinted that plan more times than we wanted to.
When labour came, the plan got handed over more than once. First as our midwife team took over our care, then again when a new shift arrived with no idea who we were. Each time, my partner passed them the pages and hoped they would read it. They had a minute or two with it at most, in a dark room. What carried our preferences through was that my partner knew the important parts by heart.
After our baby arrived, we kept coming back to that plan and how it could have been better. Before we left the hospital, we asked several midwives and doctors how they actually use birth plans. The answer was always the same:
Too long, hard to read, and the room is too dark to see the page.
So we asked them: what if it was on your phone? They all said it would help heaps, and that they would actually have more time to read if it was on their own phones. There had to be a better way, and now we could see it.
BirthGuide is that better way. It's fully interactive and easy to update. It asks the right questions, skips the overwhelm, and produces a birth plan designed for how labour actually works. Not a five-page document that no one has time to read, but a clear, scannable plan your partner can reference in 30 seconds when the midwife asks a question. Because your partner becomes your voice when you need it most, and that only works if the plan is built for them to use.
Every preference option in BirthGuide is informed by Australian clinical guidelines, including resources from RANZCOG, the Royal Women's Hospital, and the Australian College of Midwives. We are not a medical provider and we do not give medical advice. We help you organise your preferences so you can have a better conversation with your care team.
BirthGuide is proudly built in Melbourne, Australia.