Birth Map Prints: What to Include (Name, Date, Time, Weight or More)
What to include on your baby's birth location map print
A birth map print should include some core details: your baby's name, the birth location shown on the map, the coordinates if available, the date, and the time of birth, with weight and length as optional extras. That's the short answer. The longer answer, covered in this guide, is which combinations work best, how to find the exact coordinates, what to do when the hospital isn't the place you want to mark, and which details are better left off a print you'll be looking at for the next eighteen years.
The five core details
The strongest birth prints are built on details that are unrepeatable, facts that belong to one child and one moment only. Five carry almost all of that weight:
Name. Usually the first name alone, sometimes first and middle. A full name with surname can read like a certificate rather than a piece of art; most parents keep it warm and simple.
The place, shown on the map. This is what separates a birth map print from every other birth announcement product. The map itself does the storytelling, the streets around the hospital, the town you brought them home to, the village where everything changed.
Coordinates. Latitude and longitude, written out under or above the map. Coordinates are quietly powerful: to a visitor they're elegant typography, but you know they point to the exact place where your world rearranged itself.
Date. Written long-form ("14th March 2026") for warmth, or numerically for a more minimalist design. Match it to the overall style of the print.
Time. The detail parents are most glad they included, and the one most often forgotten in the fog of the first weeks. 03:42 means nothing to anyone else and everything to you, which is exactly what a keepsake should do.
The optional extras
Beyond the core five, three additions come up most often. Each works — the only rule is not to use all of them at once, because a crowded print loses the calm that makes map art suit a nursery in the first place.
| Detail | Worth including when… | Skip it when… |
|---|---|---|
| Birth weight | You love the classic announcement feel, it pairs naturally with the time | You want the cleanest, most art-like design |
| Length | You're including weight anyway and like the symmetry | Space is tight, it's the first detail to cut |
| A short phrase | One line carries it: "Where you began", "The day everything changed" | It starts competing with the name for attention |
A useful test: read the print aloud. If it sounds like a story, name, place, moment, it's right. If it sounds like a form, take something away.
Choosing the location (it isn't always the hospital)
Most parents centre the map on the hospital or birth centre, and that's the natural default, it's the literal answer to "where were you born?". But it isn't the only good answer, and choosing deliberately is what makes the print yours:
The hospital. The classic choice, and the right one when the birth itself is the moment you want to hold onto. City hospitals often sit in beautiful map territory, rivers, parks and old street grids make handsome prints.
Home. The choice for home births, obviously, but also for parents who feel the real story is the place they brought the baby back to, the front door, the street, the first night in the nursery. "Where your story began" doesn't have to mean a ward.
The town or village. Zooming out slightly turns the print from a pin-on-a-building into a portrait of a place. This works especially well when you've since moved away and the map is also a record of a chapter.
There's no wrong answer, only the version that makes you feel something when you walk past it on the landing.
Finding the exact coordinates
You don't need to look anything up. With a Souveno birth map print, you search the location in the live preview on the product page and the map and coordinates update in front of you, you can nudge the pin until it sits exactly where it should, on the maternity wing rather than the car park.
If you'd like to check independently, any online map will show coordinates when you press and hold (or right-click) on a spot. Two practical notes: use the format the design uses (decimal degrees and degrees-minutes-seconds look different on the page), and pin the building entrance or centre rather than the postcode marker, which can sit a street away. Precision is the whole charm of a coordinates print, it's worth the extra ten seconds.
What to leave off
A few details feel tempting in the emotional first weeks but tend to age the print badly. The hospital's full official name usually adds clutter the map already communicates. Surnames make a nursery piece feel like paperwork. Long quotes and song lyrics date faster than you'd expect, and crowd the design besides. And it's sensible to think about what a print reveals: a piece that hangs in video-call backgrounds and photos shared online perhaps shouldn't carry your child's full name, exact birth date and home address all at once. First name, the moment, and the place is plenty of story, and plenty of discretion.
Getting every detail exactly right
The quiet anxiety with any personalised gift is the typo, the 03:42 that should have been 03:24. A birth print is one of the few products where a single wrong digit matters, so it's worth knowing how Souveno handles it. You see a live preview before ordering, so what's on screen is what gets printed. Every order is then checked by hand before production. And orders are held for 12 hours before printing begins, so if you spot a slip after ordering, there's time to fix it, just get in touch. Each print is made to order on premium 200gsm matte paper and arrives within about six days, with free UK shipping.
Frequently asked questions
What details go on a birth map print?
The core five are the baby's name, the birth location on the map, its coordinates, the date and the time of birth. Weight, length and a short phrase are popular optional additions — include one or two at most so the design stays calm and readable.
Can I add my baby's birth weight and time?
Yes, both are popular additions to Souveno birth map prints, and the time of birth is the detail parents most often say they're glad they recorded. You can see exactly how they sit in the design using the live preview before you order.
Should the map show the hospital or our home?
Either works. The hospital marks the literal moment of arrival; home marks the place you began life together. Home is also the natural choice for home births, or when you've since moved and want the print to remember that chapter.
How do I find the exact coordinates of the birth place?
You don't need to, searching the location in the live preview sets the map and coordinates automatically, and you can fine-tune the pin position. If you want to double-check, pressing and holding a spot in any online map app shows its coordinates.
What if I make a mistake in the details?
Souveno holds every order for 12 hours before it goes into production, and each design is reviewed by hand before printing. If you notice an error after ordering, contact the team straight away and they'll update it before your print is made.
Put their first place on the wall
The baby grows will be outgrown by summer. The place they were born never will be. Souveno's birth and new baby map prints turn the exact spot — with their name, coordinates, date and time, into a piece of nursery art made to order in the UK, from £29 with free UK shipping. Preview yours live before a single thing is printed.