This content is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for individualized medical care. Talk with your healthcare provider about recommendations specific to your pregnancy and birth.
What Should I Be Doing in the Third Trimester to Prepare for Labor?
Third trimester labor preparation has a funny way of moving up your priority list once birth suddenly starts to feel very real..
You’ve probably started washing tiny clothes, setting up the nursery, ordering the car seat, and wondering whether you really need everything on that hospital packing list.
But there’s another kind of preparation that matters just as much:
And no, that doesn’t mean trying every trick on the internet to get your baby out faster.
It means understanding what may happen, knowing your options, preparing your body, and making sure the person supporting you knows how to actually support you.
As mother-baby nurses and lactation specialists, these are some of the things we want women thinking about before labor begins.
1. Learn what labor actually looks like
If your entire picture of labor comes from movies, social media, or stories from friends, now is the time to fill in the gaps.
Learn about:
- Early, active, and transitional labor
- What contractions can feel like
- Signs labor may be beginning
- When your water breaks
- When your care team recommends calling or coming in
- What may happen when you arrive at your birth location
- Common procedures and interventions you may encounter
You don’t need to memorize a textbook.
The goal is simply to make the environment feel less unfamiliar when you’re actually in it.
When you understand what’s happening, it’s much easier to participate in conversations and ask questions instead of trying to process completely new information between contractions.
2. Learn your options before you’re asked to make decisions
There may be more decisions during labor than you realize.
Depending on your individual situation, conversations may involve fetal monitoring, cervical exams, IV access, pain-management options, induction or augmentation methods, breaking your water, pushing positions, delayed cord clamping, newborn procedures, and more.
You don’t need to decide today exactly how your birth will go.
In fact, birth doesn’t always follow the plan.
Instead, learn enough about the common options that you can have informed conversations with your care team if they come up.
One tool we love for this is BRAIN:
B — Benefits: What are the benefits?
R — Risks: What are the risks?
A — Alternatives: What other options are available?
I — Intuition: What is your gut telling you after hearing the information?
N — Nothing/Not now: What happens if we wait or do nothing right now?
There may be situations where a decision needs to happen quickly, but when there is time for discussion, having a framework like this can help you organize your questions.
3. Practice labor positions before you’re in labor
You don’t want the first time you try a labor position to be when you’re exhausted and contracting.
During the third trimester, become familiar with different positions and movements you may want available during labor.
Think:
- Hands and knees
- Side lying
- Supported squats
- Birth ball positions
- Kneeling or leaning forward
- Standing and swaying
- Lunging
- Position changes in bed
Different positions can provide comfort, encourage movement, and give you options throughout labor.
You don’t have to create a complicated routine. The point is simply to know what feels comfortable in your body and have several tools to pull from.
If you have pregnancy complications, pain, activity restrictions, or aren’t sure whether a movement is appropriate for you, check with your healthcare provider.
4. Teach your partner what to do
Please don’t make your support person wait until you’re in labor to Google:
“How do I help someone through contractions?”
Your partner or support person should know your preferences, but they also need actual tools.
Practice things like counterpressure, massage, breathing together, position changes, helping you communicate questions, keeping track of what you’ve tried, offering fluids or comfort measures when appropriate, and protecting the environment you want.
And talk about what matters to you before labor.
What helps you when you’re overwhelmed?
Do you want encouragement? Quiet? Touch? Space?
Your support person doesn’t need to become a labor expert. They just shouldn’t be meeting the laboring version of you completely unprepared.
5. Talk through your birth preferences
We like to think of a birth plan less as a script and more as a conversation starter.
Birth is unpredictable. Your preferences may change, and your medical circumstances can change.
That doesn’t make preparing pointless.
Talk with your provider and support person about things that matter to you, such as pain-management preferences, movement during labor, monitoring, cervical exams, pushing positions, immediate skin-to-skin, cord clamping, newborn procedures, and feeding plans.
Most importantly, understand the why behind your preferences.
A checklist you found online isn’t nearly as useful if you don’t understand what the items on it mean.
The goal of third trimester labor preparation isn’t to control exactly how birth happens—it’s to help you feel informed and prepared for the decisions you may face.
6. Prepare for what happens after the baby comes out
This is one of the biggest pieces of birth preparation that gets overlooked.
Birth isn’t the finish line.
Before delivery, learn what typically happens during the first hours after birth and what may change if you or your baby need additional medical care.
If you’re planning to breastfeed, this is also a great time to learn the basics of early feeding—rather than waiting until you’re exhausted, hormonal, recovering from birth, and holding a hungry newborn.
And don’t stop your preparation at the hospital doors.
Spend some time learning about postpartum recovery, newborn feeding, normal newborn behavior, sleep, diaper expectations, and when to reach out for help.
Prepare for the baby, but prepare for the mother too.
7. Stop trying to prepare for every possible scenario
You could spend the rest of your pregnancy researching every possible thing that could happen during birth.
You don’t need to.
The goal isn’t to walk into labor knowing everything.
The goal is to walk in knowing enough to understand what’s happening, ask better questions, communicate what matters to you, and adapt when things change.
Prepared doesn’t mean having a perfect birth plan.
It means you aren’t meeting every decision for the first time while you’re already in labor.
Third Trimester Labor Preparation: Start Before Labor Begins
If you’re reading this thinking, “Okay…but how am I supposed to learn all of that?” — that’s exactly why we created our pregnancy and birth resources.
The Golden Hour Method™ E-Course walks you through pregnancy, labor and birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, and newborn care in one place, with education created by mother-baby nurses and lactation specialists.
Prefer something smaller? Our Shop also has individual trimester and Labor & Birth video + cheat sheet resources so you can start with the stage you’re in right now.