Hospital bag: a checklist split by bag
A hospital bag checklist you can tick, extend with your own items and print. It is split the way the bag is actually packed: documents, labour room, postnatal ward, baby, going home, and a separate one for your partner. The contents change with your answers — a planned caesarean, a birth partner, twins and the season of your due date add and remove items.
How to pack
Enter your due date — the tool will say when packing time arrives.
Set the conditions: planned caesarean, birth partner, twins, how you plan to feed.
Call your maternity unit and check their rules — cross out what they supply.
Tick items as you pack; copy what is missing with “What is left to buy”.
Print the list and put it with the documents — whoever carries the bag will need it.
Pack bag by bag and print the list
The list changes with these answers: a caesarean adds a binder and high-waisted underwear, a birth partner gets their own bag, and the going-home outfit is picked by month.
- Perfume and strongly scented cosmetics — smell sharpens in labour, and scents get in the way of a newborn finding the breast.
- Jewellery and valuables — rings come off before the birth, and there is nowhere to keep them on the ward.
- Clothes “just in case” — most units supply their own, and the extra bulk gets in the way for you and your ward neighbours.
- Your own medication without clearing it — anything taken on the ward is prescribed there, and what you bring may not be allowed.
- Glass containers and thermos flasks — banned outright in many units.
There is no universal list: units differ in their rules about clothing, crockery, bags and what they supply on site. Call yours and ask — this list gives the full base, and what remains is to cross out the rest.
