Honeymoon Fresh

This is really interesting and I agree that 'honeymoon fresh' and 'too posh to push' are disgusting phrases with both manage to belittle virgins, people who have had sex, posh people and less well-off people!

It is interesting to me also that Christine Bleakley hasn't actually had any babies, so she is also being used by media to spew out these phrases which deep down effect all women.

I had a vaginal birth and my friend who had a baby 2 months before me had an emergency section. She had bought into the belief that she had failed and it hurt me to see her look at me and think that I'd done it 'right'.

FWIW, some other posters have mentioned being poorly spoken to by Drs or midwives, I agree. I was in hospital for 15 hours, in delivery room for 13 hours. When DS was born (my PFB) some of the first words out of the midwife's mouth to me were, "that took you a long time, my shift should have finished an hour ago."

sakura, as SinicalSai says, the relation between C sections and maternal death is complicated both by emergency sections but also by elective sections planned because of maternal or fetal complications (such as diabetes, placenta praevia). To make a fair comparison, you'd really need to randomise women suitable for both CS and VB and see the results - and no ethics committee in the right mind would approve that study!

TBH I attended NCT ante-natal and NHS ante-natal (PFB overkill ) and they were really down on intervention, with CS being painted as just the end of the world.

I know this is not the case everywhere! But I wouldn't think that unless there is a huge shift in the thinking of the entire ante-natal industry in the UK that many more women will request CS.

Bertie - we didn't when DD1 was born, and by the time of DD2 I was set on a homebirth. It makes me angry how patchy the provision is.

Going back to the main topic of the thread, I think the whole of this debate in the mainstream media smacks of misogyny and it really gets me cross when I think about it. The whole 'honeymoon fresh' 'too posh to push' business is not only nasty, it is generally a smokescreen hiding the extremely poor treatment of women in childbirth.

Ok, I know a few women (notably those who do not have children yet) who have said to me that they would request a section and think it's an easy option. Once you are educated, you realise there are no easy options. Sections are just hard in different ways, and different birth choices might be right for different mothers. Discounting the terrible handmaiden 'I have to give birth before Johnny goes off to Australia for the World Cup' sporting wives, etc women generally 'request' a section because of mental health issues, family history or horrible treatment/outcome in a previous birth. At every turn those women are let down (for example, by lack of compassionate midwifery in the earlier birth, by lack of counselling) and then belittled and made fun of when they try to make a choice to take back some dignity and control.

I am a strong advocate of natural birth, but I don't believe that for many women that is possible with the poor resources we allocate to birthing and the horrible environment they are placed in. For many women the rational response to that environment is to seek a section (although I went the other way and had a doula and homebirth second time).

Grim!

There's also an unpleasant sense of entitlement there too ... the only reason a woman wants a functioning pelvic floor is to please their man

I'd love a MLU here - unfortunately we don't have one at all. I think they are a really good option. Although someone I know was in the curious position of being too high risk for a birth centre but being allowed to book a home birth (because they can't legally refuse, only advise against it.)

That's interesting thanks secondtimelucky.

Hopefully over time then MLUs will be built on the grounds of the main hosp and then it will encourage more women to go MLU I think.

the first time I heard that loathsome phrase was on Shameless, Frank's wife was discussing her upcoming delivery and said she'd ask the doctor to put another stitch in - 'so it'd be Honeymoon Fresh ' while Franks drink addled ruined tongue lolled from his mouth. cos he's worth it

SardineQueen - a friend who is a midwife told me that (at least in her area) it is the history of how the midwife units came about that means they are often separate. Hers used to be a full consultant led ward with epidurals, sections, etc. However, new guidelines came in - such as having a dedicated operating theatre for the delivery ward - which the hospital could not comply with. To avoid closing maternity facilities completely, it became a MLU.

Purpose built new units (like one in Lewisham) do tend to be with the hospital or its grounds for easy transfer between the two.

Oh and that silly man who talked about honeymoon fresh should be wheeled out and shot.

My family seem to have a history of really difficult first births (probably coincidental). My mum and I both had three-day labours, baby occipito posterior and horrible forceps deliveries that left both of us with major tears and serious long-term problems. My daughter was heading the same way with a 24 hour labour but thankfully had a CS in the end - to help the baby, which was in distress (not to help her!). She was up and about and recovered with no ongoing problems long before my mother and I were.

I said a silent prayer of thanks when I heard she was going for a CS instead of the doctors trying to do heroic stuff with bloody high forceps deliveries.

not sure sakura but I think the c-sections are more dangerous stats are skewed by em-cs, I think if you compare elcs with vb the level of risk is on a par (though the nature of risk is different)

I think C-sections should be avoided if possible because there is a correlation between them and maternal death rate! I don't know why this isn't talked about more. It's major surgery. What annoys me is that C-sections are treated like the easy way out, or the easy option, when in fact the outcomes for the mother's body are much worse.

Obviously I don't like the medicalization of birth, but if a woman feels that a c-section is the best option for her, then of course she should be allowed the choice. Giving birth vaginally is horrendous in many ways (the lack of control! the pain!), and it's completely understandable that some women don'T want to go through that.

I just worry that the side-effects of caesarian are glossed over. A vaginal delivery is healthier, if managed properly, so women should be informed of this ( I realise that incompetent hospital staff often cause problems for mothers when they deliver vaginally, so more effort and cash needs to be channelled into training midwives to make sure women can give birth safely and comfortably)

It's also true that in some countries hospitals make more money from C-sections.

Ann, www.homebirth.org.uk might be a good place to start.

I planned a home birth but ended up having the Domino thing, three years ago. The midwives they sent to me were community midwives, not hospital ones. When I went in I saw someone completely different. I used the pool and entonox and it was fine. I'm slightly concerned that planned hospital births are referred to as a "production line" - I thought that everyone would get the same treatment :(

The only thing I was a bit about was that because I was supposed to be going home after 6 hours or whatever it was, they put me back on the labour ward rather than the postnatal one. By complete chance a friend of mine who was 6 months pregnant was in because she was having complications, and I just thought it was quite insensitive to anyone else who was in because of that. But they might have had no beds on the PN ward, I don't know.

It was lovely to be snuggled up at home in my own bed with DS less than 24 hours after he was born, though.

I agree too Eleanor. I had a home birth with DD and it was wonderful-hard work of course, but wonderful. And I never once felt afraid. I think this was because I was treated like a person and not an inconvenience. My midwife kept in the background most of the time and let me get on with it. As a result, I felt that this was my birth and I was in control. I wish every woman could have positive experiences birthing their babies.

eleanror I agree as well.

The other things that I found odd was that the midwife led places around here are in hospitals with no access to doctory mat services. So if anything starts going awry you have to get into an ambulance and be taken to hospital. And you only have access to a limited range of pain relief. Personally I think that puts a lot of women off. And it makes a real differential between EITHER earth mother natural nicey no pain relief breathe comfy dimly lit room and whale music OR hospital uncomfortable unfriendly surroundings very hospitallly feel and the problems that eleanor describes.

Surely it would be better to put the widwife led units within striking distance of the hospital? At the moment the situation is that unless you are 100% sure you won't want an epidural (who can be sure of that with a first time delivery?) then you have to go to the hosp. Why can't people have the comfy pleasant touchy-feely birth surroundings but with access to the anaesthetists and doctors if they need them? It sets up a "which sort of birth experience person are you" before you're even anywhere near giving birth. It also means that anyone with higher risk cannot access the more reasonable surroundings.

Do either of you know where I can find the costs for, DOMINO, home birth, water births, etc. ?

12 years ago it was available in the part of London I lived, but my MW gave me a tip - she said, book a home birth and then if you want to go to hospital at any time during the labour, you can and you get the DOMINO by default. You can't rely on domino, because if there aren't enough midwives, they will not send one out and will tell you to come straight into hospital. Whereas with home births, they HAVE to send mw out.

It so pisses me off that there is such a shortage of midwives when so many women want to train and so many women need them but the men who run the country just don't consider our lives important enough to invest in them.

MsAnn, that's usually called a DOMINO scheme. Sadly not available in most areas anymore, though they do have it in the Wirral and a few other places. In my third year of my midwifery degree I will get to have a caseload of about 15 women who I will provide that type of care for - it will be great, but it should be standard for all women.

This is why I plan to birth at home, all being well - it's the only way to get OFF the production line.

EleanorRathbone, because my first labour was traumatic and I didn't immediately bond with DD I was nominated by my midwife for the GP scheme for the 2nd birth. Not sure if they are still available as this was 1989 and I was informed they were expensive.
A suite was booked at the maternity hospital, the community midwife who I visited throughout my pregnancy would deliver my baby and take care of baby and me afterwards. A fabulous, stress free labour with entinox towards the end the only pain relief.
Next 2 deliveries were back on the production line and horrendous.

Within the next few weeks I'm a birthing partner for my DD and I have no idea if standards are better or worse than the early 90s ?

I wonder if the rate of injury from vaginal delivery, would decrease if women were treated with dignity and kindness when they were in labour, instead of as if they're a bloody self-indulgent nuisance who should just bloody get on with it?

So much of oxytocin production and labour contractions, are down to the emotion of the time and when a woman enters into a NHS ward where she is treated like a supplicant at best, like shit at worse, that is going to impede her labour - we already know that masses of women who are in full swinging labour, immediately stop contracting the minute they enter the hostile environment of a labour ward, which can lead to the spiral of intervention, I wonder if it can also affect the rate of birth injuries (are they more likely if labour is slowed down? I have no idea about this, am just speculating, perhpas someone with more knowledge about this can shed light on it).

But I have a gut feeling that if women were treated with proper respect when they are in labour, and properly cared for before and after, the rate of injury from vaginal delivery might go down and women wouldn't be so keen on having CS's in the first place.

Sex feels no different to me and no complaints from him after 2 DDs.
CS in an emergency great. Choice of a CS after a traumatic birth, if counciling doesn't help, only humane.
Normalising major surgery as a birthing "choice", sorry that's just wrong IMO

And almost as demeaning to poor weak women as honeymoon fresh.

yes. in the 'unsullied by previous stretching in any manner' form. yik.

does honeymoon fresh mean tight?