The funny thing is that when you’re coming down the final days of your pregnancy, your doctor or midwife will often discuss where to go when you are in labor, when to show up, standard procedures of the facility, etc. But they never tell you what you need to bring…
Yes, ultimately, you just need yourself and your spouse or your birth partner-things will happen no matter what. So you may be wondering, “Should I pack my hospital bag?”
Should I Pack My Hospital Bag?
Yeah, you could always get the husband to go home and get stuff you need after you’ve had your baby when things have calmed down. Or you could rely on just the clothes you’re wearing when in labor and depend on the hospital for the rest of what you may need.
There are pros and cons and personal preferences to either situation. But if you’ve got an emergency and you want the least amount of stress possible, then YES, pack your hospital bag.
Whether you’re having your very first baby, or your tenth, ask yourself these questions at the appropriate times:
- Is your labor progressing quickly?
- Have you had precipitous labors in the past?
- Do you need to travel quite a ways to your birth place and need to save every minute?
- Did you forget something you wanted in the hospital last time?
- Would you rather be in your own clothes or a hospital gown?
- Do you have personal items that can’t be gone without, like medications?
- Were you super bored last time you stayed in a hospital or away from home without any entertainment?
- Are there things you want to use for relaxation through labor?
- Do you want to be comfortable using your own things for recovery?
- Would you like to save some money off your hospital bill?
If you answered YES to just one of these considerations, then you’re better off packing a hospital bag a few weeks before your due date.
What Should Be In It?
Luckily for you, I’ve already put together lists of essentials that you’ll need for your new baby hospital bag, PLUS your labor goody bag that contain everything you’d like while you’re laboring.
Why two bags? They can go in one, doesn’t matter. But some hospitals have you put your regular stay items in a recovery room that’s in a completely separate area from your labor and delivery room.
Sometimes you’ve just got to have two bags because of what you want to bring and it’s easier to put away what you aren’t going to need just yet if your labor turns out to be longer than hoped.
I personally have just one bag this time around because I’ve been there and back twice, knowing what I will want and need already.
So if you haven’t packed yet, visit these posts first, then come back and I’ll show you what’s in my bag. 
Don’t worry about packing a newborn diaper bag just yet. You’ll have that adventure in a few days when you’re taking your baby to their first appointment. But to save some nesting during late pregnancy sanity, you can put it together too while you’re at it.
If things are extreme and you’re the ultimate preparation wizard, may as well get preparing your home for the new baby done. Here are those links too.
Now DON’T get overwhelmed! Just trying to keep my thoughts all in one place for you so that your random ones at 2 am, when you shouldn’t be packing, won’t cause additional frustration.
Take things one step at a time and take care of yourself first. But then you can move on to the rest for better peace of mind.
What’s In Sarah’s Hospital Bag?
So I’m due with baby #3 in two weeks and I put off packing, again. With my second boy, I was packing in the wee hours of the morning after I started going into labor. No big deal, but I would have rather spent the time doing other things.
But I wanted to share with you what I prefer because you’re not going to find all my items in the essentials list. And it may give you additional ideas you maybe didn’t think about before.
Here’s what I packed tonight:
- change of clothes, mainly jammies and one of my favorite pre-pregnancy t-shirts that I know I’ll still be able to wear with a post-belly bump
- robe for when it’s cold
- sports bra and skirt to wear during delivery, no thank you hospital gown
- jammies for the baby
- swaddle blanket for the baby
- lotion
- toiletries like my toothbrush and contact solution, maybe a little makeup if I feel up to it later
- ear plugs, because hospital walls are thin when trying to sleep
- essential oils for labor that I want to try
- my journal, which I noticed today that I haven’t written in for a year (that needs to change)
- my IPOD for relaxation music during labor
- waffle pillow for my sore bum - because they will charge you around $100 for one if they provide it
- *here’s the exact one that I use and it’s much cheaper they work better than donut pillows too!
- *here’s the exact one that I use and it’s much cheaper
- heating pad - the hospital ones use heated water and you have to keep it attached to this darn pump apparatus which I don’t want to deal with this time
- bottled water
- granola bars and fruit leather
- prenatal vitamins, ibuprofen and stool softener - because they’ll charge you $5 a pill there
I don’t know if I’m going to even want the water or snacks. I’ve never had the opportunity to drink fully or eat during labor because I had full fledged OBGYNs previously.
This time I have a midwife and she encouraged me to eat if I want to, to keep up needed strength. So we’ll see if I end up eating them or not.
What I know I’ll be taking that I didn’t get in the pic:
- my camera - I was using it, obviously
- laptop and charger because I won’t be able to go a day without it, sitting on my backside especially
- possibly my pillow - but if I feel it’s a hassle at the last minute, I just may leave it home
- my birth plan - I hadn’t finished it when I was packing my bag, but I will have multiple copies for sure
But I feel like I’m missing something…I guess chapstick, but I’ll throw that in from my purse with my phone and wallet when we’re heading out the door.
Get some ideas? If you’re not sure whether you even want to bother, do it anyway because your attitude and comfort is going to change dramatically in a short amount of time. And it can be hard to judge how we’re to be feeling after such a miraculous and intense event.
You’re going to want some things to help your immediate recovery too. The hospital will get you ice packs. But that and the pain reliever really only go so far.
Include Your Recovery Bundle Because You Deserve It
Who knows, next time you hear from me, I may be on the other side-we’re going from a man-on family strategy to being out numbered, the hubby and me. We’ll see.
What’s in your hospital bag? What did you wish you had that you forgot? Cheers!
Excellent stuff. I was pulling together a list for my friend who is due next week, and I found lots of bits of lists everyone, but this is the most comprehensive I have found.
I am going to get a few things for her as she is the last of my friends to have kids, so I am super excited for her.
Any idea of a really nice gift I could get for maybe just after the birth or I dunno, something to keep her spirits up during labour?
Hi Ruth! I’m so glad you asked. Get her some lavender essential oil for during her labor; it’s going to really help her relax.
But I ALWAYS tell mothers to get the Recovery Essentials Bundle , because their bottoms deserve it! Best of luck to your friend. Let me know how things go.
Cheers!
Very helpful article Sarah, I will share it with my daughters and friends so that they know in advance what to carry on their bags. I wish I could have learnt this before because i had real hard time when my step daughter asked me what can she pack for her labour day and I real didn’t know what exactly to tell.
Hi Masele. It seems like if we don’t have anyone to let us know what to pack, we either have way too much, or not enough of the necessities. Also known when to get it ready isn’t thought enough about either. Thanks for sharing. Have a great weekend!
What a great article! So helpful for soon to be Mommys. I wish I would have read this in June before I had my baby! My water broke, but I didn’t go into labor for another 12 hours so I did a lot of waiting around in the hospital bed. I was so thankful that I brought my body pillow with me!! And one thing I didn’t bring were socks, so they made me wear those awful hospital ones!
Hi Nicole! Glad everything went well with your baby.
I have a love hate relationship with the hospital socks. I’d rather only wear them at first until everything is cleaned up. Because with my second baby, I had on my own socks through the delivery and they got so messy while trying to clean up that I just threw them away and went barefoot until we were settled into our recovery room.
I’d much rather have my own pillow in the hospital too. But it’s such a pain to carry everything down to the car when leaving, that I usually opt to leave my pillow at home. Last time with baby #3, my husband had to stay down at the car with my other two boys to keep them in their seats. So my nurse was trying to maneuver two bags while I held the baby and some flowers in the wheelchair. Adding the pillow would have meant taking two trips.
Thanks for your comment! I would love to hear your birth story. Cheers!
Boy, have things changed since I had my first baby almost 29 years ago! Other than books, there really weren’t that many amusement devices we could bring to the hospital, and even then hospital TV left a lot to be desired.
I didn’t see nursing bras on your list of things to bring. Do they still use them? I know I lived in mine for about the first 4 months of my boys’ lives (I also have 3).
Just curious. Will you be writing about when things don’t go as planned? After all, the main idea is to have a healthy baby and mother after childbirth.
I wanted to have a natural childbirth, but it was not to be. After 21 hours of mostly back labor (3 on the inducement drug Pitocin), my first son was delivered by C-Section. He weighed over 11 pounds, so would not fit in my birth canal. My second son’s birth was a scheduled C-Section due to the size of my first, but they would have allowed me to try for natural if I had gone into labor beforehand. My third son was also an emergency C-Section, as he was only 31-weeks gestation & I had toxemia. I spent a week in ICU and he spent a month in the NICU (BTW, he weighed over 4 pounds, very large for his gestational age!).
My boys are now almost 29, 26 and 19 now and are very happy and healthy. So things can turn out well even if they don’t go as planned in the beginning.
Nancy
You’re right, hospital TV is quite worthless. I didn’t put nursing bras in my bag because I know I won’t be using one right after my baby’s born. For the first two days they typically sleep most of the time and I honestly won’t care about just pulling up my shirt in the hospital around nurses who’ve seen it all. Once milk comes in after three or four days, then I’ll definitely be wearing something more supportive.
I will be writing in the future about when things do go as planned. It happens to almost all of us in one way or another. Thus why I encourage mother’s writing their birth plans to always have contingencies and be open to the fact that it is very likely they won’t have their perfect birth. But that doesn’t mean a quite realistic one cannot happen either.
There’s a wonderful story on the Stories Page from Sarah A. about how she was able to accept and love her childbirth experience even though it turned out to be exactly what she didn’t want and had prepared for. I encourage everyone to read it.
Thank you for sharing, Nancy. I’m glad that your boys are well and you have joy in your family. Best!
Hi Sarah,
Great website for modern day mothers to be. I only wish that I would have had such a helpful resource back in the day when I was pregnant. If I remember right, I went to the hospital with nothing but the cloths on my back and was at the mercy of the nurses to provide the essentials (not a good thing).
If I was to ever have another baby, I would definitely pack a bag with all the comforts of home.
Hoping all goes well with the birth of your child and thanks for the great advice.
Sheri
Many women arrive just with the clothes on their back and do just fine.
But having a bag certainly helps. Thanks for sharing! And I’ll definitely let everyone know how this baby birth goes here soon. Best!
Hi Sarah,
You have a long list there. Better to be over prepared than under - right? That’s probably another difference between men and women. I would say pack some clothes and diapers and let’s go.
Good thing for my wife that she decided what was best to bring. She gave birth to both our children naturally at a birthing center with the help of a Doula.
With our first child, she woke up at 2 am knowing it was time. We arrived at the birthing center around 3 am and our son was born at 10:57 am. We ordered lunch to be delivered, but we had everything else we needed thanks to her preparation. We returned home around 8 pm and our lives would never be the same. That was 14 years ago.
Your website is a terrific resource for expectant mothers. Keep up the good work!
Tony
And you’d be perfectly fine with just some clothes. It all just comes down to your comfort level and desires. A bit of experience helps though too.
Glad that your babies came into the world safe and well. You don’t often hear of a birth in the past few decades as being one so calm and in a birthing center.
Thanks for your comment, Tony!
This is a great idea
I love lists, and I’m always making spreadsheets of what I need for various situations. It’s good that through your own experience you can give (probable) first time mothers an idea as to what they will need and definitely not need (pre-pregnancy jeans. That made me laugh!!) once they find themselves in labour. Nice article and great looking, calm site 
Glad to have been helpful, Jyl. I know, isn’t it funny how we wish we would just shrink right back down immediately? We certainly feel like we do with the majority of the bump gone that we’ve grown so accustomed to. Thanks!
I definitely answered yes to more than one of those questions. I don’t like wearing hospital gowns and the last thing I want to do while in labor or giving birth is worrying about packing things I need. Saving money on the hospital is another important factor for me. Thanks for providing a checklist as it’s really helpful, especially for those who haven’t given birth before.
You’re welcome, Martina! Sometimes I think that I opt for the hospital gown because if I get fluids and who knows what all over it, I’ll know that I haven’t ruined my own clothing. But in the end when those things happen, you’re mostly naked anyway and beyond caring. But comfort is very important still. Thanks for your comment!
Sarah, you have a beautiful website. I found it to be informative and supportive. It has a nice, simple layout. I will recommend your site to my friends who are having babies. I wish I had resources like this when I was having babies, but that was before the internet.
I appreciate you sharing. Thanks Jan!