Why does it seem everyone has a bad birth these days?

[Littleigloo]

Just doing my research (but I have a while to inform myself as we are only trying, at the moment). Out of all my friends and family who have had babies in the last 5-10 years, I would say all bar one or two of them had difficult births to the extent. Two needed debriefs and counselling. Inductions that fail and needed forceps, baby was injured as a result. I don’t know if this is just an unfortunate group of people or indicative of a larger sample. All different ages, some first and some second pregnancy, most of them were low risk.

This coupled with hearing that maternity services are struggling with poor staff and low ratings. How do you mitigate any risk to yourself? I understand it’s very much a how long is a piece of string situation and highly dependent on lots of variables but is it as bad as it seems or do the people with bad experiences just talk about it more?

Thanks

I'm attempting a homebirth with my 3rd due to bad experiences. I'd say that my 1st was bad due both to overmedicalisation leading to a cascade of intervention, and understaffing/underfunding meaning I was in a bloody store cupboard at one point actually during labour and my experience of the recovery ward was dreadful, it was like being in a meat factory and I had PPS so was very mentally unwell but was left for long periods of time completely alone and it wasn't picked up on...
My second was better due to being much faster and I was in same room whole time... but recovery ward was again horrific
I just don't think busy understaffed hospitals are a great environment to give birth in now days..
Back in the day from what I've heard it was actually a bit more civilised due to better staffing levels etc
Honestly felt like a slab of meat on a production line in hospital
Despite having a few genuinely lovely midwives the overall experience was Deeply traumatic.
I'm really hoping I can stay at home this time. You get the same midwives the whole way thru, no crowds of strange men staring into your vagina, bright lights shouting, being moved room to room, and you get to rest in peace and quiet in your own bed after

I think there is a lot of truth in this. My second labour stopped dead when we arrived at the hospital as they told us there were no beds. My body just obviously decided it wasn't safe. We nearly went home but DH was determined to get it going again and made me do laps of the corridor until the contractions were regular. FWIW we arrived 9pm, she was born 00:40 , I was home by 3 and walking to the Drs surgery for a check at 11am.

My first went badly when the midwife stopped listening. It had been a long labour, and I wa sun the pool. I was pushing and kept saying it felt like I was pushing baby against something and he wasn't moving down. She said 'oh it always feels like that'. After an hour, she was adamant I was resisting the crowning stage and repeatedly told me if I put my hand down I'd feel his head. I knew I wouldn't. It took ages before she decided to look and realised that as I had been saying, he was much higher up and getting stuck. She went into panic mode, hauled me out the pool and started yelling that I needed to push really hard. In a new position, he moved, but with the demand to push really hard, he came out too quickly, tore me and caused a prolapse. I had nearly 50 stitches, and continue to have issues 11 years on. I was 30, not overweight, did not have GD or any other risk factors. I just feel my birth was badly managed and I was not listened to, and I think that's the same for many women.

I think it is a mix of perception- we are removed from the birthing experience as we don't attend each others births like we would have a few generations ago so we don't really understand what to expect iftms.

Also, there are a lot more medical needs within women now then their was as medicine has advanced women who previously wouldn't have been able to conceive now can and though I think this is great I think it has also had an impact on birth experiences. there is a medicalisation of the physiological process with the way we now monitor during labour, how quickly we offer induction how if a woman isn't progressing fast enough according to the text books we end up putting them on the drip and ramping up their contractions etc. I think in a bid to make birth safer, which it arguably is, women have lost the autonomy they should have over their bodies during birth which has a negative impact on them mentally.

I had a successful birth on paper but I don't consider it so because I was sent home and ended up giving birth in the car, despite begging them to keep me in because my previous labour ten years ago had been so fast (when they did keep me in when my contractions started).

I had my dd 20 years ago and I was asked if it was ok to bring in some midwifery (or medical I can’t remember) students for a bit as they don’t get to witness a “textbook” birth very often.

I was traumatised by my birth because I was denied pain relief for most of active labour, and I really needed it, and I unfortunately also suffered bad tearing (which was subsequently surgically repaired under GA).
I was advised to attend a debrief to help me to process it and the midwife who conducted the debrief was a bit baffled as to why I had requested it. She said "you had a great birth you know". I felt completely invalidated and stupid. I remember thinking: omg if that is a great birth then what constitutes a normal one?!

I had an instrumental first delivery but my second was a breeze!!

Gosh, sounds like they got someone very random and unqualified for doing debriefs. The midwives who do debriefs in our trust have done extra training to specialise within the area of in advocacy/ birth options and can’t imagine them saying anything like this

@Mia45 I just reread my post and it comes across like the MW was being dismissive and unkind, but she wasn't at all. She actually said it very gently, it was like: I'm sorry you are struggling with what happened, you had a great birth you know, you did amazingly. She was trying to be reassuring. I assume she thought it was good because it was very quick? But yeah it made me wonder what she would view as a bad birth.

Sorry OP to have deviated a bit from your original question with my own anecdote - I was thinking about this thread last night and realised that I talk about having a bad experience with birth on anonymous forums like this, but never IRL (except with medical people and that particular MW). Maybe that's another reason you hear more about "bad" births now, because people are free to elaborate with details anonymously online, whereas in the past women felt less comfortable talking about such private matters in person.

Ahh ok, yes maternity staff commonly see births that end in emergency caesareans, instrumental deliveries, severe haemorrhaging, baby’s stuck but will die if not delivered in minutes, resuscitations and the heartbreaking cases where the mother goes through a late termination due to medical issues. It’s not uncommon for a birth to be so quick that pain relief can’t realistically be arranged or would involve more discomfort to the woman for little benefit .
However I remember my first labour and although didn’t have any pain relief due to the speed of it at the end, I remember getting to the stage of having given my life to have something and would of found it horrific if I had been in hospital and asked and someone had just actually said no I couldn’t have any pain relief. Different if literally delivered while they were arranging it or with compassion said it won’t be long and better to just try some gas and air, birthing pool or whatever first. Lack of control and not feeling listened to, and not being treated with compassion is a theme that comes up frequently in birth trauma

@Mia45 unfortunately I wasn't even given gas and air as the MW didn't believe that I was progressing as quickly as I was. When she finally examined me I was 9cm dilated, then I was given G&A. I was in so much pain it was unreal.
Of course I appreciate that MWs see much worse births than mine. I feel awful that it might have come across like I was minimising or trivialising the experience of anyone who has suffered extreme trauma like you describe, clearly much more severe than my own. That wasn't my intention.

Oh no not at all, as I said I would have personally found that very traumatic to just be refused pain relief at the stage of labour I felt I needed it as when your feeling (and are) so vulnerable, scared and in pain you totally rely on the care and compassion of those around you. I’ve seen women go through a long labour ending in an instrumental delivery and then additional complications but they’ve been happy with their experience as they felt respected and well cared for along the way. I suppose it’s like when your really ill, although it’s rubbish if everyone around you is great you with care and trying to do their best for you it makes the world of difference.

Tons and tons of midwives choose home birth- much more than the general population.
hardly any midwives choose elective section without medical reason.

I mean I can only go on what my friend told me. Which is one persons experience obviously. Great that some midwives choose home births, good for them. But this was more in the context of her witnessing induction births (often ending in c-section) and saying she would choose elective section any day over induction.

Environmental. Age of mother, obesity on the rise, more help used conceiving babies to women that basically wouldn’t have had them without help to start with.

Add in lack of staff and it’s a recipe for problems.

The horror stories if heard where instrumental deliveries due to multiples or in my friendship group those that opted for a epidural at 4cm and then just laid in the bed and then everything just slowed right down and out came the instruments.

I had a mat unit birth, home birth, then a water birth. As someone else said though you have to be considered low risk to be accepted. So not too old, not overweight, not a multiple birth, normal blood pressure etc so they tend to have nice easy births apart from when a completely random emergency happens to make it bad rather than there being a high risk to start with because of something to do with mum.

I'm a midwife and finding this thread really interesting, thank you to everyone for sharing their stories and thoughts.
Would like to counteract the idea again that induction helps patient flow or the hospital to plan care, it really really doesn't. It takes a completely unpredictable amount of time and many additional hours of clinician care.

I think it is partly because there are so many older and/or overweight mothers, partly about mindset (people expect perfection) and partly about the care you receive.
On paper my first birth (35 years ago) was a bad birth. My waters started leaking at 38 weeks. I didn't go into labour spontaneously so, because of fears of infection, I agreed to be induced, first with pessaries and then, when that didn't work over two days of contractions coming and going, with a drip. By then I was absolutely exhausted and was advised to have an epidural (which I did). Baby ( who was back back) became distressed and was born with forceps. However, what made all this not just bearable but a really positive experience was the absolutely lovely, kind and supportive behaviour of the midwives and the doctor who looked after me. And afterwards I was so happy and grateful to have a healthy baby.
On paper my second birth was a good one. The baby was born very quickly, despite being 10 and a half pounds and back to back again. But the midwife was vile - kept shouting at me not to move around, didn't realise I had progressed so quickly and told me I didn't know what I was talking about (direct quote) when I said I wanted to push, and didn't notice that the gas and air was empty. Afterwards I felt traumatised by the seriously rude and disrespectful way she had treated me (although I am not the sort of person who normally uses such terms) and it took me a couple of weeks to bond with my baby. The midwife's attitude made all the difference and was the main reason I chose not to have more children.

@SwayingInTime As a midwife, do you have a personal "preference" regarding type of labour? Relating to an uncomplicated/low risk pregnancy I mean.

For me? I was very lucky on paper with three quick easy births but still have long term consequences from the most standard, expected and unavoidable tearing. I'll be very conflicted when I have grandchildren on the way

Professionally I feel very lucky to work for a trust that offers elective section openly when offering induction and openly discusses the do nothing option. We still haven't sorted human induction and early labour environments yet though and it would take so much money to do so. I work with women having any sort of labour, birth or level of care except homebirth and love that about my job.

Sorry, just read it wrong, I understand the question now. Definitely no preference. If it's going on a very long time or there are CTG concerns I do sometimes think an epidural could have been useful but they're not risk free.

Separate the two things, an objectively medically bad birth and a traumatising birth experience. There are all kinds of reasons for the first, but the second is usually the way you are spoken to (ignored, brushed off, invalidated) or a big shocking phrase you hear said about you ("we're nearly out of blood" was one, struck terror into the birthing woman who had no idea that theatres have reserve stocks and back up plans.)

The worst case of birth trauma I ever saw had a physically perfect birth. It would have been avoided if she had been listened to and spoken to like an adult.

Get a doula or a knowledgeable birth partner to speak up for you and challenge staff.

humane not human

There wouldne bad births and births that are called 'bad' because the mother had specific things in their head and didn't get it exactly that way so it was a disaster

I was young, thin, first baby, had forceps delivery, went into pph and very nearly died. in Victorian times neither me or baby would have survived.