When I was pregnant with Parker, I had looked into getting my own hospital gown, but just never did it. The main thing was that I hated the look of the hospital gowns and having them in all of your first pictures with baby. Plus they don't cover your butt. Why don't they cover your butt! But I never ended up ordering one.
I started looking into them again when I was pregnant this time. I found a company that is pretty local to me. The Guelph hospital was actually the first hospital to use the Dressed to Deliver gowns. These gowns looked better than anything I had found on Etsy. They weren't just better looking than regular hospital gowns, they were really functional as well. They have snaps to fold down the straps for nursing or skin to skin. They also have snaps all the way down the front and back of the gown to provide your midwife/nurse/doctor with any access they could possibly need.
When I was in labour with Parker I got an epidural, plus had to be monitored constantly with the heartbeat monitor since he was preterm. So these snaps sounded great to me because I knew that if the same thing happened, I could provide my midwife with access while staying a bit more covered up.
So I ordered one. Disclaimer: I ordered it and then became a Brand Ambassador, so I actually did pay for a gown and then just had 2 of them. Which actually worked out really well.
I loved the gown while I was in labour. Although I didn't have an epidural this time, I did have to be constantly monitored again. So this allowed my bottom half to stay covered as we just unsnapped my belly area for the monitors. This was especially useful when I was on the exercise ball as I wasn't all exposed for everyone to see. (Everyone was just Ryan and my midwife, but I don't care if that's all that's there, you still don't really want to be sitting naked on an exercise ball...)
The gown did get pretty messy after I had Cooper, as they flopped him on me right away. But at that point, who really cares. They also wanted to take the gown off me since it had gotten pretty wet and they didn't want to Cooper to get cold. So this wasn't ideal, I basically ended up naked anyways...but you do what you have to do. Before we moved me to the recovery room I just put on my extra gown!
I wore my second gown the entire time that we were in the hospital. It was comfortable, I could open it up for the nurses to check my belly, it gave me coverage if walking down the hall, and it was easy for nursing.
My mom took the gown I delivered in home and washed it and it came out as good as new too. So if we decide that we want baby #3, I'm good to go!
I highly recommend buying a Dressed to Deliver gown. Of course it's not a necessity, but it's definitely a nice thing to have. You can also wear the gown before you give birth, it's good for ultrasound or doctors appointments. And of course you can wear it postpartum at home as well as it's great for nursing and super comfortable.
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