Step Into Your Power and Radical Responsibility: The BRAINS Tool
“If I don’t know my options, I don’t have any.”
— Diana Korte, The New Pregnancy And Childbirth
When it comes to making decisions during your birth journey, we want you to feel empowered, informed, and deeply connected to your intuition. That’s where the BRAINS acronym comes in! This tool helps you explore your options and encourages you to make choices that resonate with YOUR FAMILY!
What is the BRAINS Decision Making Tool?
The BRAINS tool is a framework that helps you navigate choices during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Whether you’re facing decisions about interventions, tests, birth location, or any aspect of your journey, BRAINS gives you a structure for thinking through your options.
This simple acronym transforms how you approach informed consent, putting you back in the driver’s seat of your birth experience.
How to Use the BRAINS Tool for Birth Decisions
B – Benefits
What are the benefits of the choice you’re considering?
Take a moment to reflect on how this option aligns with your values. Consider the positive impact that could happen right now, in the near future, and long term.
R – Risks
Now, let’s gently explore the risks involved.
Understanding what could potentially happen if you choose this path is part of making an empowered decision. Acknowledging the risks doesn’t mean we’re inviting fear in—it’s about seeing the full picture.
A – Alternatives
What are your alternatives?
There’s often more than one way to navigate your journey. Explore the other options available to you and see what resonates. Trust your instincts! You can use BRAINS for all the options.
I – Intuition
Your intuition is your superpower!
Tune into your gut feelings about the decision. Listen to what your heart says. This is where you connect with your inner wisdom and let it guide you.
N – Nothing
What happens if you choose to do nothing right now?
Sometimes, taking a step back can be the most powerful choice. Allow yourself to sit with your thoughts and feelings before making a decision. Consider what happens if you do nothing at all.
S – Second Opinion
Is there time to get a second opinion?
Almost always. If finding an independent source feels difficult, try asking someone nearby, a senior midwife or consultant, for their thoughts. Sometimes, seeking another perspective is the most empowering step you can take. Consider what happens if you take a moment to ask.
Making Choices That Resonate With You And Serve Your Family
In today’s complex healthcare landscape, where choices abound, embracing radical responsibility for your own body and decisions is a powerful, transformative step forward during pregnancy.
The BRAINS method invites you to take aligned action that truly resonates with you and your family, because ultimately, the choice is always yours.
Questions to Ask Using BRAINS
This approach encourages deep curiosity and empowers you to ask important questions like:
- What problem will this solve?
- How helpful is this likely to be?
- What are the risks and benefits, and what side effects might occur?
- What alternatives exist?
- What happens if this approach isn’t successful?
Above all, it honors your intuition, the quiet wisdom within, guiding you toward decisions that reflect your values and lived experience.
Moving Through Pregnancy as a Healthy Process
Imagine how transformative it would be to move through pregnancy as a healthy process, embraced fully and without fear.
The BRAINS tool offers a way to reclaim your power in a system that often positions you as passive recipient rather than active decision-maker.
You don’t need to be confrontational or oppositional to use BRAINS. Being curious, engaged, and committed to making choices that feel aligned with your values is all you need.
When You Need Support Using the BRAINS Framework
Sometimes having the framework isn’t enough. You might understand BRAINS conceptually but need help applying it to your specific situation. Perhaps you’re facing a decision where the stakes feel high and you want someone to talk it through with—someone who understands both the clinical realities and your right to choose.
That’s where I come in.
Virtual Birth Decision Making Support – Available UK-Wide
I offer virtual one-off consultations for families anywhere in the UK who need support navigating birth decisions using the BRAINS framework.
Maybe you’re being offered an intervention you’re unsure about. Perhaps you’re feeling pressured by your care team. Or maybe you just want to talk through your options with someone who believes in your autonomy and won’t push you in any direction.
What’s Included in a Power Hour Consultation
In a Power Hour consultation (£111), we can:
- Work through specific decisions together using BRAINS step-by-step
- Explore what the evidence actually says about the options you’re facing
- Discuss your rights and options within the NHS system
- Help you develop questions to ask your care team
- Support you in advocating for yourself without confrontation
- Process difficult experiences or conversations you’ve had with care providers
These consultations are available to anyone, anywhere in the UK—you don’t need to be planning a home birth or using private midwifery services. You just need support making empowered choices.
Book your Power Hour consultation, email me directly to discuss your situation.
Private Midwifery Care Brighton, Lewes & Eastbourne
For families in East Sussex, I offer something even deeper—complete private midwifery care where the BRAINS framework is woven into every aspect of how we work together.
What Informed Decision Making Looks Like With Continuity of Care
Unhurried appointments where we explore your options deeply – No 10-minute slots. We take the time needed to work through BRAINS for any decision you’re facing, whether it’s about screening tests, birth location, or navigating unexpected complications.
Time to ask all your questions without feeling rushed – Your curiosity is welcomed, not seen as inconvenient. We explore the benefits, risks, and alternatives until you feel clear.
Support navigating NHS protocols while honoring your choices – I help you understand what’s being offered and why, what the evidence actually says, and how to advocate for choices that feel aligned—even when they differ from standard recommendations.
Advocacy during hospital consultations if needed – If you’re having consultant appointments alongside our care, I can attend with you, helping you use BRAINS in real-time and ensuring your voice is heard.
Continuity of care from someone who knows you and your values – Because informed consent isn’t just about information—it’s about relationship. When I know your values, your history, your hopes for this birth, I can help you make decisions that truly serve YOU.
My approach to midwifery is rooted in trust—trust in your body, trust in birth physiology, and trust in your capacity to make decisions for yourself and your baby. I don’t manage your pregnancy or birth. Instead, I walk alongside you, offering my skills and knowledge when needed, while you remain the expert in your own body and journey.
Whether you’re planning a home birth, hospital birth with private midwife support, or comprehensive pregnancy and postnatal care, the BRAINS tool gives us a shared language for navigating choices together.
Book your free exploration call to discuss private midwifery care in Brighton, Lewes, Eastbourne, and surrounding East Sussex areas.
Ready to Make Empowered Birth Decisions?
You don’t have to navigate pregnancy and birth choices alone. Whether you need a one-off virtual consultation to work through a specific decision, or comprehensive private midwifery care where BRAINS is part of every conversation—I’m here.
Virtual consultations available UK-wide
In-person private midwifery care in Brighton, Lewes & Eastbourne
Contact me directly to discuss how I can support your journey toward empowered, informed birth choices.
