to think that birth is about having a baby rather than some transcendental spiritual experience?

[upsylazy]

The main reason I'm posting this is that a good friend of mine had her first DC 4 months ago. She went to NCT classes and I know that there are some very good NCT classes which don't overdo the natural birth thing but this one definitely DID. She listened to the class teacher and endless other women who came in to describe their labours as the most amazing experience of their life and talked a lot about the spiritual side of birth etc.The walls were all adorned of women in birthing pools at home, holding their baby with a spaced out spiritual look.

My friend was completely hooked and signed up for hypnobirthing and planned a home birth in water.

The reality, for all sorts of reasons completely beyond her control was that she ended up being blue lighted to hospital, needed a crash section under GA. The baby had to go to SCBU due to breathing problems and a suspected infection and friend had a massive PPH which required 2 blood transfusions.

Obviously, she was left traumatised by the whole experience. However, 4 months later, she still can't seem to move on at all from the experience and seems to see herself as a terrible failure which is impacting on her ability to bond with her DD as she sometimes feels that she has let her down.

Her DH is a diamond and is trying to be supportive but is starting to get frustrated as he really doesn't "get" why she is so devastated as, for him as a bystander, being told that he might lose one or both of them, in his mind (understandably) he thinks surely the fact that they;re both fine is what matters.

This isn't the first case I've seen like this and I think that these women are often given unrealistic information about birth. Of course, for some women, labour and birth are almost spiritual experiences but I think they;re quite a small minority. I'm not talking about the actual moment when you meet your baby which is fairly universally wonderful but labour itself also being wonderful.

I spoke to my nan when I was expecting DS1 about the classes I was going to and she simply couldn't believe what I was saying as, when she gave birth, the only hope women had was that they'd both come out alive - her mum died giving birth and so did one of her cousins.

I know I'm rambling here but I suppose I'm saying that maybe we should go back to seeing birth as a means to an end and having a positive birth experience as a bonus rather than an entitlement. Of course it's better to have a good birth than an awful one and I'm not saying that women shouldn't try to prepare or plan if it makes them feel empowered.

My first birth was horrendous beyond my worst nightmares but it didn't leave any great mark on me as my only hope going into it was to come out with a baby. had I psyched myself up to think that I was going to get a beautiful mystical experience, I may have found it much harder to have got over my feelings of disappointment.

How many on here are talking about their babies who have also been rushed into SCBU, though, or do we now tell all pregnant women not to expect a live baby?

I agree with Cogito too, I think mums to be should be informed of what complications might arise, and what their options could be. They should also be made aware that if this happens, it's not their fault. The language used in these situations is also dire - terms like "failure to progress" things going "wrong" a woman's body "not working" or "letting her down". Doesn't give you much of a chance to feel good about it.

You're right FutureNannyOGg... but then you get down to the real nub of the matter which is the type of person you are going into a potentially traumatic situation. The one that makes the best of a less-than-perfect outcome by focusing on the positives, the the sort that thinks if one small thing goes wrong the whole experience is ruined.

Sorry, but why is feeling traumatised after a potentially life-threatening situation for both mother and child to do with wanting bleeding whale music or being "unrealistic" about birth? Who on God's earth prepares for what was described in the OP?

Blue lights
Crash section under GA
Massive PPH
Baby in SCBU with infection

Do you believe, OP, that when people were afraid of dying in birth 50 years ago they weren't traumatised when they nearly did? I had a grandaunt who was institutionalised for life because, essentially, she had "milk fever" aka PND. I would be really surprised if you would find many women who would not be traumatised by that birth experience after four months. The hormones have barely settled at that stage.. have a bit of compassion people.

I don't think the NCT have a lot to answer for at all. Individual teachers may push an agenda, but the general ethos of the NCT is simply that fewer interventions are better for mother and baby, and that being aware of your options and all possible scenarios tends to lead to a more positive experience.

The NCT is often accused of making people feel like failures for not having drug-free, intervention-free births but I think people have to take responsibility about how they interpret the information the NCT provides.

My NCT classes were all about being aware of all possible outcomes, and being aware of how you can affect those outcomes. We were told to ask questions about the suggestions of HCPs, but we were also told that there are times when you just have to accept that things are going down a particular route and that the HCPs need to be allowed to get on with their job. The emphasis was on being able to continue to feel involved in and in control of the situation even when emergencies arise.

Two people could hear this advice and act on it in entirely different ways - person A might challenge the suggestion that it is time for induction/c-section/forceps/whatever, listen to the answer and accept the advice given, and come out of the experience feeling that they did everything they could to influence the outcome. Person B might argue against every suggestion made, resist intervention at an appropriate time, refuse pain relief in an extreme situation and come out of an emergency c-section feeling that they failed.

I think people just need to be informed and then the rest is up to them.

The point the OP is making - and I'm sure they'll correct me if I'm wrong working9while5 - is that the trauma experienced by their friend was made worse because they simply weren't expecting anything to go wrong at all. If they'd been better informed about the down-sides, perhaps they might be still be knocked sideways by the experience and in need of compassion but that they would not be blaming themselves in quite the same way.

I also agree with Cogito.

I do think the NCT is an easy target for women who end up having interventions sometimes though.

I went to NCT and the NHS ante natal classes. The NCT focused far more on natural non invasive pain relief methods such as breathing and massage, but it was quite open about this and I certainly knew what I was signing up for. The other thing I found (and I don't know whether this is universal but it seemed to be NCT policy) was that the course teacher tailored sessions towards what clients in the group requested. Eg one woman was aiming for a water birth but booked into hospital as she said she knew she would request an epidural if she couldn't cope with the pain. The teacher spent one session focusing on the epidural procedure. She wasn't judgemental at all, she simply outlined the process and gave the pros and cons.

Importantly dh felt very involved and as though he had an active part to play in the birth, which he wouldn't have got from the NHS classes (these were day time while i was on maternity leave so very few fathers-to-be attended) but tbh there was not much focus on birthing partners; it was more info on various pain relief, hospital procedures etc

I think the NCT is unashamedly preparing women who hope to have a natural birth, but they never promise you that will be the case! They do however give good preparation and guidance on how to maximise your chance of it. I don't think it's fair for women to blame the NCT if a medical emergency arises, or indeed (and this is the more frequent occurrence) there is no medical emergency but the woman chooses interventions such as epidural or pethidine. The NCT cannot legislate against every possibility. I think it is open and up front about what it is. I completely understand that a woman may grieve after a bad birth experience but IMO its misplacing the emotions to blame the NCT

Do you think so, though? Really? It is an extensive level of trauma and I just don't know how you could prepare yourself for it really. I didn't do NCT etc but did prepare myself well through here and a variety of other sources. Used the birthwise dvd where there was even a section on how to handle stillbirth and the various ways it might happen, MN pages etc. None of that made any difference to the emotional impact of seeing a still, blue baby that didn't cry in the first few minutes - and as I said, my birth was pretty straightforward in the grand scheme of things, just shocking as hell for me.

"You're right FutureNannyOGg... but then you get down to the real nub of the matter which is the type of person you are going into a potentially traumatic situation. The one that makes the best of a less-than-perfect outcome by focusing on the positives, the the sort that thinks if one small thing goes wrong the whole experience is ruined."

In the same way that those who were suffering from shell shock were cowards and the soldiers who have traumatic stress disorder simply aren't 'man enough' to be a soldier?

The OP is guessing as to why her friend is now suffering. Why not just make sure she gets support from people qualified to give it?

The possible after effect of a difficult birth is well documented and researched and can even happen to doctors who have given birth.

Perhaps you should all contact the support group recommended " the traumatic birth assosiation" and tell them there talking bollocks.

I have very mixed feelings about this. I think the NCT did a huge amount to support women when they were a relatively new organisation. In recent years I think the organisation has been hijacked by some very idealistic people who put far too great an emphasis on natural birth and give the impression that medical intervention is poor. It is very difficult, if there are 10 women who might have a risky birth to identify the one baby or mother who might suffer severe life threatening consequences or worse so it does make sense to use caesarians more widely than would have been expected a generation of three ago. Simly because medical staff are more aware of the potential risks.

I do have concerns about some NCT teachers who appear to have had brilliant birth experiences and who unlike most women have not moved on from that stage in their lives and have instead become quite evangelical about providing the same sort of experience for all women. I would like to see the NCT emphasising far more the need for support for women from named midwives in labour, more clinicial midwife support during the post natal period, and more support for women who have not had great births or breast feeding experiences and an emphasis upon their inclusion in the NCT club.
One has to wonder why some of those women do not train to become midwives if they are so committed.

I have sat on a maternity liaison committee and been a non exec member of a local trust and do not make these comments lightly. Indeed I remember one NCT teacher trying to tell the Head midwife at such a meeting that if her midwives had experienced more births it would be perfectly possible for them to deliver babies with shoulder dystocia without the intervention of the medical team. Yes, but what of the births she might have delivered alone before becoming so experienced and the potential consequences for the mothers and babies for whom it went wrong?

Ultimately and most importantly giving birth and breastfeeding are minute, albeit significant rites of passage, parts of being a mother. You can be a very good mother without having a great birth. Children remember love, support, you being their, helping with ther French vocab, screaming from the touchline, giving them a hug when their first love chucks them. You don't need to have the perfect bith or breast feed for two years to do any of those things yet they are the things your children will remember.

Absolutely Birdsgottafly! Very well put.

On balance YANBU.

Your poor friend. What a horrible experience. I think it would be difficult to come to terms with even if she had gone in with no expectations at all.

My first pregnancy didn't end happily, twins, very early, whisked away to NICU straightway, one of my babies didn't survive and my dd2 was in hospital for four months. Tbh, by the end of that experience, I really knew, deep in my bones, that ALIVE is what matters. Truly. The other stuff is nice but it isn't necessary. Alive is what you are rooting for when you go in to give birth. Perhaps there does need to be a little more focus on that point because no amount of candles or lack of pain relief or water or, indeed, anything at all is going to make up for any of you not emerging ALIVE!

I do think it helped during DS1's birth that I didn't want any frills or a spiritual experience, it would have been lovely to have had them, but I really just wanted us both alive at the end of the process. I was very lucky, it was an easy birth.

I do sometimes think that there is too much of an illusion of control around childbirth. It's good to be well-informed, it's good to know what you want. But it's also good to know that you might not necessarily GET what you want. And, if it doesn't quite go according to plan, that is no reflection on you or your abilities as a mother. Birth is just the first little bit, there's plenty of other things to beat yourself up over as they grow older. Believe me.

Maryz I agree. I do think that birth classes or books should include a little bit more information on things that can go wrong. Not that I would want to scare people at all (thus a little bit!) but I know that when things went wrong in my first pregnancy and birth, I felt so alone. As though I was the only person who couldn't do it properly and that isn't helpful when you're already in a tough situation.

Militarywag good for you!

I know that my friend's birth was about as traumatic as they come and she was obviously very affected by not being able to see her baby straight away and she was feeling physically awful after losing half the blood in her body. However, i do think that the very idealised view she had been given about birth certainly didn't help although I totally agree that she would be traumatised anyway. I think she's really struggling because she "knows" rationally that they;re both lucky to be alive and she's deeply grateful to the medical staff and that makes her feel guilty for feeling the way that she does which just makes her feel even more depressed.

I understand that a positive natural birth can be a very powerful and empowering experience and there's nothing wrong at all with doing whatever you can to achieve that. However, I don't think women are told enough about how many factors are beyond their control and which may lead to some kind of intervention.

I think that a movement which began for very laudable reasons - to stop the over-medicalisation of birth and empower women by giving them choices and information now sometimes seems to have the effect of given women something else they have to "get right" and to make themselves feel crap about. I just think it's really sad that so many women's first hours/days /weeks with their new baby are clouded by disappointment and a feeling of failure.

Isn't part of the issue also that most HCPs are very risk averse which by its very nature makes them likely to suggest interventions early to avoid any risk. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that if you want to have a natural birth you will probably need to know what the options are and be a more focused/vocal type of person. Just because there is a risk doesn't necessarily mean that things will go wrong, IYSWIM.

I had shoulder dystocia with my first, a 9lb7 baby girl, but I've since gone on to have two more babies naturally weighing 9lb7 and 11lb7 (!) without any problems. If I had take the consultants advice with DC2 I would have had a planned section and would never have found out if that I could birth naturally, never mind a HUGE baby.

I think birth preparation should focus on helping women to understand abnd interpret the risks and what their options are then.

I couldn't have put it better birdsgottafly. Yes those who criticize the promotion of ideal birth which can be far from reality are right too, but nothing can prepare even the most positive person for a life changing negative traumatic experience. It's too late looking for reasons for the OP's friend's reaction to the birth of her baby, it's about understanding and sympathising with her feelings and trying to help her without pushing her into the help and making the situation even worse.

But what you are describing is a text book reaction to her experience and nothing to do with expectation.

Have you around this area yourself? You will find it is common and as i said has been around longer than the NCT, i can remember wide discussions starting in the media about this in the 80's, it was at a time when i was qualifying as a counsellor and doing a seperate degree. There is alot of academic text on this subject.

With the rise in live birth it obviously expanded to mothers whose babies went through the SCBU process. It is a very particular condition.

If NHS classes were pushing one particular agenda then it would be worrying. Their purpose is to provide a range of information.
You have to remember that the NCT is an organisation set up with different objectives (and if I recall rightly the organisation was originally named natural . It is quite clear about its objectives.

Personally if I had been opting for a hospital birth, and if I'd assumed that I might want heavy duty pain relief, then I probably would not have paid (and they're not cheap!) for NCT classes . But I had a normal low risk pregnancy and I decided on NCT because there was no particular risk factor for why I couldn't have a natural birth. Of course, things could have gone wrong during labour and I could have ended up with interventions, or I could have changed my mind mid labour and asked to transfer to hospital, but in either of those events I don't think I would have been reasonable holding the NCT accountable. I think so long as they are clear about their purpose, no one is forced to attend, and I do believe people generally know what the organisation is about. It's a bit like an insurance policy in a way- you pay for it and there are no guarantees you will get to use it, but you can't argue that it shouldn't exist! Of course there may be maverick individual teachers but you get midwives/ doctors who may not be great too. I still don't see why people blame the organisation for their own feelings about their birth

When I went to antenatal classes the miwife there was what I can only describe as 'soppy' and kept saying that everything would be "lovely". You'd go into labour and it might be uncomfortable but your baby would be there soon and that would be "lovely". She showed us on a plastic model how the baby would come out, which would be "lovely". She told us about breastfeeding, which, unsurprisingly would be "lovely".
She didn't mention that you might (like me) spend 2 days in labour, try to be induced, have an epidural, have your waters broken, have a spinal block administred by a prat of a an unsympathetic male doctor (who said, "I told you it would hurt a bit" when I involuntarily jumped and winced) and eventually after about 50 hours be given a CS. Not quite so "lovely".

There was also an annoying woman in the class who wanted to do it all naturally, with no pain relief, and wanted to be sure she could cut the cord. She kept on and on about it.

I think you need people to be realistic.

On the plus side, I did get to use the birthing pool (for hours like a stranded whale and kept getting cramp) with my own choice of music. It was incredibly calming. If I hadn't had that I think I'd have flipped.
Thankfully the maternity ward staff were sensible and didn't keep telling me how "lovely" everything was - they just made sure I was as comfortable as possible, and we worked through the most sensible options.

YANBU but it is not limited to the NCT. The classes, NHS, I attended when pregnant with DS1 were full of natural, drug free labours an births with no mention of what can go wrong or any information about CS. So when I had to have an elcs with breech DS1 I was woefully unprepared and scared to death!

DS2 is here now and the difference in information was staggering. I felt prepared and ready for anything. Good information for me has meant that even though none of my second birth went to plan I am content with how it all did turn out.

My point is that all information should be available, we need to end this conspiracy of silence that is still disturbingly common.

I was a member of my local NCT for several years, until about 4 years ago. We were continually asking our local hopsital about epidural provision because they are NOT available here, unless it is a planned c-section. There are/were reasons for their decision but we felt that it reduced choices for women.

For what its worth, I had an awful time with my first born as the hospital refused to believe I was in labour and tried to send my husband home. After a fuss they examined me and realised I was 10 cm dilated. (They actually got Sister to come and check as they couldn't believe it.) I only realised I hasn't dealt well with this the second time round when I was admitted with high blood pressure after my due date and panicked when DH was going home in case I went into labour and they wouldn't contact him.

i had an extremely traumatic birth with my DS. No amount of preparing for it (either at the hypnobirthing or the pragmatic end) would have helped me through it.

It's one of my saddest associations with my LO, because I barely remember him being born because I was in so much pain and drugged up to the eyeballs.

To the poster upthread who mentioned younger women have less trauma - it's not because they don't read as much, it's because they are young and the prime age(s) for women's bodies to cope with birth. Our physical evolution has not yet caught up with our societal changes surrounding when to have a baby and our physiology.

I've not encountered a single person (NCT, HCP or friend) who has given me a rose tinted view of what birth could/would be like. You only have to read a few pages on here to see that it's often complicated and always painful!

Aiming for an intervention-free birth is nearly always a good idea, but it's just that... an idea or a hope. As my midwife said with my birthplan, put down your ideals, but be prepared to have any and all of them challenged and changed in the interests of yours and your baby's health.

To the OP's friend, I hope she does seek out some support from professionals; it sounds like she could do with a non-judgmental and professionally experienced ear for this. It might be of help for her DH to be involved too.