The Game

The Game of Birth is available as a tabletop game. The map is printed on a high quality linen tea towel and comes with three stone playing pieces, a 20-sided dice and the game booklet. The game is kept in a drawstring prospectors cotton bag. When playing the tabletop game, we can better demonstrate the power of a confident decision by removing the restrictions within the online version. This game helps us explore the possible pathways and understand which elements we can control and which we can not. Like a choose your own adventure, there are many possible endings. When we create a birth map – we know all the endings and how the pathways connect. This enables us to make confident decisions. No matter what.

The game is designed to go beyond the limits of birth plans and embrace the philosophy of communication and confident decision-making. 
This game is set in The Maternity System in current times. We don’t have control over many aspects of birth; we can’t control or predict how long it will be, how we might feel or what detours may arise.  What we can control, and take ownership of, is how we react and respond.  We can understand various possibilities in advance and determine our options based on the pathways that open up.
This game is about taking responsibility because with Great Responsibility Comes Great Power.  In taking responsibility, we replace fear with understanding.  We identify our knowledge gaps and seek to fill them.  Boldly going, in the spirit of adventure, valuing ourselves and our journey, knowing where we are, who we are and why we are.

This is a game with some random elements and decision-making elements. As we play, the roll of the 20-sided dice will determine our scenario based on overall statistical outcomes and standard care management for normal term pregnancies in the Australian system.
What you do in that scenario is up to you.
To set the scene, this game centres on an uncomplicated pregnancy approaching term.  However, you may like to consider your own decisions for a birth, keeping in mind that there is NO ONE WAY and from one pregnancy to the next, our circumstances differ and we may make different decisions. We consider each pathway, so that when the decision point is reached, we are better able to determine our ‘next move’.

Join the free Member access to play the digital version of the game, to flip through a digital copy of the comprehensive birth preparation book The Birth Map and access resources. 

If you already have your member access play the digital game here

Options are often presented in a smorgasbord way or a pick-and-mix, but this does not reflect reality. 

There are distinct pathways, and the way choices work will depend on the previous choice.

There is no one way.  It is easier to determine the best way if you have a map.