To not get why a vaginal birth is so important to some people?

[Liketochat1]

Some mothers talk of the trauma and disappointment of not giving birth vaginally. Some say they don't feel like a proper woman or that their body failed them. For many this sounds very traumatic, for others moaning.
AIBU to not 'get' why this is so important to them? I've had 2 c sections and was only intensely grateful that I live in a country and in an age where there are gifted surgeons and resources available to perform these life saving operations. In other parts of the world women are dying in childbirth as they don't have access to these.
Am I so unreasonable to think this?

Just to mention I have had a crappy birth experience both times and post natal depression after giving birth to both my sons. I don't feel that the births helped matter but I don't think that they made much of a difference either. I think I would have had post natal depression even if my births had have been a wonderful experience.

I don't think that the births have affected my children one bit, however the subsequent post natal depression may well have :(

"The reality is that we don't have that much choice in the matter. What happens is mostly not down to our brain or the "research" we've done but (to use the wonderful phrase above) our "animal bodies".

Well - true. But we do know that for healthy women there are certain choices that seem to double their chances of ending up needing emergency surgery in childbirth.

Women need to know that giving birth in a CLU appears to double the risk of an emergency c/s.

I think that's a pretty important variable, don't you?

shagmund, your statements about perineal scarring are crass.

It is not only 'porn stars' who want to avoid perineal scarring. A big wound in that area can cause soreness for years afterwards - not just during sex but walking, running, riding a bike, wearing a towel or tampon. Not to mention continence problems.

And that's after the initial healing period, which for a lot of women is no picnic.

Great of you to share that your 'red blooded' [hhmm] husband doesn't mind your big episiotomy scar during sex. For many of us, perineal injury isn't just about whether or not we are still considered sexually attractive by our husbands.

"She is saying that formula is harmful. I am pointing out that for some babies breast milk is harmful."

Yes - breastmilk may infect the baby of an HIV positive mother. Also some babies are allergic to their mother's milk.

However in the UK the number of babies who can't have their mothers milk for reasons such as this is very small.

"Maybe I have been a bit harsh but from what I have read she seems to see formula feeding as a unnessesery evil inflicted on the poor wee bairns"

Oh goodness, get a grip! No need for emotive language like 'evil'. It's sad you feel the need to distort what I'm saying and make me out to be a fanatic. Is that because it's easier to do this than sensibly address the points that I've actually made?

"I am trying to say that actually in the grand scheme of things formula feeding or breast feeding isn't that important"

You are entitled to this opinion. However, I would suggest that if it is true (as FSIDS says) that ff increases the risk of SIDS, and that it's linked to higher rates of hospital admissions, possibly type 1 diabetes, higher BP and arterial stiffness in adulthood, and higher rates of NEC in preterm babies, then I think it's hard to argue that it doesn't turn out to be a very important issue for some families.

And Panda - most people don't know or care whether their mother ate a totally inadequate diet, drank or smoked in pregnancy, unless they have obvious signs of fetal alcohol syndrome. Does this mean that smoking and drinking in pregnancy are not worth talking about?

but wheresmespecs, I think you'll find that shagmunds comments about perinieal scarring were in response to some equally (eve more) crass comments from blushoes about her 'pristine fanny' as a result of two CSs. Quid pro quo.

Shagmund is, from what I can see neither a nipplenazi or a birthnazi. I think she raises, admittedly sometimes quite vociferously, some very valid points.

There's a difference between optimal and necessary. She is making points about the former, not trying to pass them off as the latter.

As far as I can see...

db
xx

Nelly, good post. When I talk about choice, I guess I mean the things you can choose, like an elective CS or a home water birth.

I think the whole point is that it is pretty much down to luck, each woman is different, each baby, pregnancy, birth etc is different too.

But unfortunately so many people have said that other people's comments (not just personal comments, but really judgemental, value laden comments) have made them feel guilty or weak or stupid or whatever, that I don't think you can really say that it's just people hearing what they want to or expect to.

But, in answer to the OP, I actually don't think you are being unreasonable. If people would stop idolising this perfect birth experience, it would help take the pressure off a lot of women.

That's just my opinion, anyway.

Well, I'll just repeat that I am extremely grateful for my problem-free CS, without which DD3 would not be here and I wouldn't either pre-antibiotics. Oh, and waiting to give birth "naturally" to what would have been her corpse pre-CS and ABs could have taken weeks. Thank fuck I live in a developed country. In Ethiopia I'd have been dead for 3 years.

I agree wholeheartedly with what Shagmun has said in this thread, all points.

I agree with those who mentioned mothers in the 50s being advised against further babies if they had a life-threatening first pregnancy/birth. My friend was born in the 50s, and her mother spent a month upside in a kind of frame after her birth to get all her innards back in the right place. My friend is an only child.

People need to start realising it's not a competition. If you need a CS, fair enough. If you don't, I think I personally would like to aim for a vaginal birth. Why wouldn't i? and thats not because I think it'd make me superior or because it's the 'norm'. It's because I don't want to have major medical invention if I don't need it.

If people want to go on about how lovely and 'natural' their birth is, why see it as them trying to rub your faces in it? It's an important time in any mothers life and if she had a good experience, it's nice to hear!

I remember Shagmund on another thread a while back deciding that the difference between women who had VBs and those who had CS's was that someone women want to 'do' and some of them just want to be 'done to'.

Judgemental much?

I also recall on another thread she got irked by women posting positive experiences of CS, and nastily characterised it as women posting saying 'oh, I hardly noticed I gave birth!'

Which, incidentally, no one had said. And which is a pretty poisonous thing to say about those of us who have CS's - as if our births were 'worth' less.

My perspective is, by all means, if you had the birth you want, celebrate it. But don't waste energy shitting on other people's choices and experiences.

That's as maybe wheresmespecs - ut she hasn;t said any such thing on THIS thread, has she...

Wheresmyapace - you have neatly decontextualised everything I have said on this subject to portray my views in the darkest possible light. The 'hardly noticed I'd given birth' was NOT a comment on the significance of meeting your baby but a response to the way some posters were falling over themselves to portray planned c/s as being, in medical terms, scarcely more serious than having your toenails trimmed.

And I think it's absolutely reasonable to differentiate between c/s and v/b in relation to one being active and the other being entirely passive. In fact I though that was about 90% of the appeal of planned c/s for low risk mothers - that it is a process which is entirely controlled by an external agency. What's unfair or unkind about saying that? And what's unkind or wrong about pointing out that v/b is something you do? Half the appeal for women who have strong feelings about it is that they want an active birth.

Shag, do women on other threads really say that having a cs is not more serious than 'having their toenails trimmed'? Or are you exaggerating for effect?

Because that too is dishonest.

Panda, plenty of us know how our mums gave birth. I do mine, and her experiences influenced my feelings. She had 4 sections and has always drummed into me that it's really hard, not at all the easy option some people think.

blueshoes so is deliberately misunderstanding someone to score a point.

But I'm sure Shagmund if perfectly capable of defending herself, so I shall step out of this little bunfight, which appears to have some history...

Designer, I don't know Shag from Adam but her views are clear enough even on this thread.

And yes, she can certainly defend herself.

I have happy thoughts that both my sons were relatively straightforward VBs
I found it a very empowering experience and I have never before or since the first one experienced the combination of excruitating agony and ecstatic anticipation and excitement at the same time. Wouldn't have missed a minute of it.

No, no one on the thread derided as 'hardly noticing' they had had a CS was talking about a CS as being like cutting their toe nails. It is a misleading and nasty misrepresentation.

Women were talking honestly and openly about what their Cs experience was like, including some who (like me) healed easily and quickly. Shagmund did not like that.

btw, Shagmund, you should listen more to women who describe their births if you want to know how they really feel.

Women who have had bad Vb experiences often describe it as being 'out of control', 'helpless', 'overwhelmed'. Some who are traumatised use the language of dissassociation, of being alienated from themselves.

The control and sense of being active about your birth choice can be exactly what you get with a planned CS. It is far from being entirely passive when you are there. I used visualisation and breathing techniques to help me cope with the wait for theatre - meditation to remain calm when I was given a spinal - some people seem to have the very strange idea that such things are only applicable to a vb. But the idea that one is simply 'passive' and 'done to' during a cs is a very narrow perspective.

Someone might argue that a vb is a physiological process which will happen whether or not the mother is active. There are some things you can do to speed it up or slow it down - but it is not the power of your mind over your body that allows a baby to pass out of your vagina. And all the positive thinking and maternal activity in the world will not make any difference to a baby and mother in medical emergency.

but all of that said, I would never judge a mother for feeling a vb is very important to them. Different women have different perspectives and feelings. That much I think is not hard to understand.

DS was supposed to be a lovely calm home birth. He got stuck. I got blue lighted into hospital, had a local down there, was cut, they tried the ventouse twice. It failed twice, DS's head was pushing out then disappearing again with each contraction. So they shoved the biggest set of salad spoons ever up there and yanked him out.

I don't feel cheated, or in any way less of a woman for not being able to birth without medical assistance, just happy that I now have a healthy toddler. In fact, I think I got off lightly, didn't have to do the ring of fire bit!

I am, however, a little nervous about the child I am pg with now, I don't know what to expect.

Well said Specs.

I had 3 vaginal births and only gas and air and I think giving birth is painful and horrible and that it's hormones that are controlling things and buggar all to do with pushing, not pushing, breathing etc.

Had a friend who said she was in some sort of floating ecstasy after the births of her two. This certainly wasn't my experience. Hormones again probably.

Sounds to me like those who feel they missed out by having CS are imagining things are nicer than they are with VB.

Shagmuns seems to over look the fact the you are more likely to HAVE CLC if you have some complication in pregnancy - ergo you would EXPECT a higher rate of intervention

please lets be honest

gordy stats pretty clear on this one :) rates for a study in which all participants were low risk, post adjusted for additional risk factors (weight, age, social status)