AIBU to think Mothers should be honest about birth?

[TheHouseOnTheLane]

To other women who've not gone through it yet? There's so much

"Oh it's different for everyone"

And shilly shallying about around the subject.

I guess a tiny minority DO have "easy" or even pleasant experiences of birth but all the women I know were traumatized and horrified and in agony.

This was inspired by another thread. Sorry if I'm offending anyone as I know it's an emotive subject.

But my own experience was that dreadful I don't think I COULD lie if another woman asked me directly. Yet some people seem to be all coy about this fact.

that there is any value in going without pain relief in a difficult labour, and I couldn't be arsed to explain my very good reasons, and have to deal with other people's general sneering, disbelief, and defensiveness about their own birth choices.

Can you explain here? Genuinely interested as it's the opposite of my own feelings on it.

Of course if you don't want to, I understand

I'm not who you're posting to Tali but I agree with that statement to an extent.

I've only given birth once and I had a straightforward birth and smallish (6.5lb) baby so I wouldn't try to say this applies to anyone else but I was very glad I did it without pain relief. I think (although I'll never know for sure) that the fact that I was completely compos mentis and could feel everything when pushing, combined with a very good and experienced midwife, meant I didn't tear. She gave me extremely precise instructions about pushing a little, stopping etc. which meant it was a very controlled process.

The no pain relief wasn't really planned but I had him at home and by the time the gas and air arrived he was nearly out so I didn't bother. Had it to be examined after and rather liked it though!

splendide thanks that makes sense about pushing

Yeah, I think it helped. But then had I been delivering a huge baby in an awkward position or just if my body responded differently to labour then I wouldn't have spent hours in agony on the off chance that it would prevent a tear.

I think I was very lucky with the midwife - she was a lovely calm older lady who really knew what she was doing. Actually probably the biggest advantage to a homebirth is an experienced midwife all to yourself.

I'm a bit baffled by the OP. When I was pregnant with my first baby I found no shortage of honest birth experiences - both online and by talking to mothers I knew. I didn't find that people tried in any way to sugar the pill. I'm the sort of person who likes to feel in control by learning a lot about things that frighten me, and giving birth did frighten me, so I wanted to read and hear as much about it as I could, and I didn't have any difficulty doing that. I haven't met a mother yet who didn't want to talk about her experience of childbirth; no doubt such women exist; I can imagine if you've got PTSD or similar then it's a different story, but generally I found the horror stories far outnumbered the happy ones.

So I find it hard to believe that there's any sort of conspiracy of silence about what can go wrong. It's very much the opposite in my opinion.

(I should add - I had two very straightforward births - nowhere near as bad as I'd feared)

Reading this thread, so much seems to come down to having birth professionals who are caring and experienced there. People you have faith in.

Seems to make a huge difference to how people come to terms with and remember their labour experiences, even to some extent the very difficult ones.

Do people really hide it? Certainly not on line.
Some of the repeated horror stories on the MN birth board ruined the end of my pregnancy with dread, terror and the idea I was a naive fool. in the end I needed help for panic attacks. I did a bit of hypnotherapy for it thankfully.

When the time came it bloody hurt and I ended up with stitches from front to back...
BUT I didn't find it terrible or scary.
It hurt ... back pain hurts, tooth ache hurts, stack cramps before a big poo hurt. This just hurt more.
After DD came out they had a look and said I'd need stitching up (took a while) and was a bit of a mess down there. But the stitches healed.
I was exhausted.
... but it was, well, giant and yet 'normal' at the same time. Grubby at times. Not this haunting terror no one can describe.

The midwife told me I didn't shit myself.
DH later told me she was a bloody liar.

...oh and I didn't have anything more than gas and air, thinking I could control pushing.

Fuck that. Zero control! Apparently I looked like chopped liver afterwards ... BUT it healed, it still works fine and I don't have to look at it anyway.
I was obsessed that a big, deep tear (mine was on the cusp of 3rd degree) would mess up my body but no. Turned out (luckily) it healed ok. Apparently I have a cool looking scar but I'd get arrested if I showed my mates in the pub.

ZeVite you see I think an operation is far scarier and more impact full than a stitched up fanjo. To me it's the "posh dr lie" the idea a c section is inherently safer and less painful.
I know 2 people with long standing health problems after abdominal surgery and am scared of hospital stays. I'd rather take 24 hr of pain and grunting.

I had an easy-ish birth (it's never easy - it's birthing an actual baby, for crying out loud). I knew enough to know that being sh*t scared will help absolutely nothing. You tense up when you're frightened, and this is right when you need to be loose, as it were.

I took a hypnobirthing course even though my first baby was facing the wrong way and I also had placenta previa so I was more than likely looking at a c-section.

I feel that the hypnobirthing helped me by giving me the tools to keep relatively calm and let the body do it's thing. It would've been helpful in almost any scenario really.

Luckily for me and my story, my baby turned the right way round in time and the placenta issue went away. Also, luckily all the other things that need to happen, happened to help make things move along smoothly.

I would never be smug about birthing. Loads of different variables. Too many to be smug and somehow feel superior. I was lucky and also managed to keep (mostly) calm.

Essentially, making women very frightened and filling their heads with horror stories will not help in any way.

My mum told me a few days before labour that her friend was left fecaly incontinent following birth.
After my vbac which ended in a ventouse. The Dr did a rectal examination ( without explanation) but I knew what she was checking for. I sighed with releif when she didn't mention the word 3rd degree tear.
I think if anyone asked me I would say both my births were fairly traumatic with lots if intervention but no long term consequences. The hcps want the best outcome for you and the baby in the end.

Birthing is different for everyone

It depends on age ...pain threshold etc

I HATED being pregnant Some love it

I had a child who wanted to come early ( 36 weeks ) and was a early rare footling breech. I had dreams of a walking epidural and calmness but in the end a emergency C-section was the answer. The hypno birthing, whale sounds shit was not for me but will be for some

I had and will only have one child

Some have lovely calm easy births and have 2, 3, 4 or more children ....not me thanks

I try not to put my feelings onto new mums as like I said everyone is different and will have a different experience

But it is different for everyone OP ... My births (3 of them) were all straightforward and relatively quick. Being in labour was bloody hard work and uncomfortable but it didn't hurt as such. First time round I'd been expecting to be in agony but I wasn't. I felt quite out of it when other women were sharing their horror stories afterwards and that I couldn't really say "it was ok, actually" as either people think you're lying or being smug. I didn't have pain relief because quite simply I didn't need it - if I'd felt the need for it I'd have been demanding an epidural - I wasn't being 'brave' or superior in any way.

But then I had pretty easy births - the babies were in good positions, my contractions were obviously very effective, I didn't have a long latent stage so wasn't exhausted by the time proper labour started, I wasn't running on empty after hours and hours as I'd been able to eat and drink properly before things got going, I was able to use water which helped me enormously and for the first two I knew and trusted my midwife (the midwife for the third was useless but by that time it didn't really matter as I knew what to expect). So for me all the elements fell into place- however if any one of them had been different I expect my whole experience would have been very different too. I certainly done go around telling people that labour doesn't hurt but if asked I will say that it didn't hurt for me

God there's no point being annoyed at other mums, who knows why they don't want to tell their story? It's not their bloody duty to go round educating people, educate yourself!

This op is weird.

I had a fab birth, and yet when I tell people about it they look horrified and say "poor you". I had an induction lasting three days with contractions all the way through, mostly on paracetamol. Finally got onto the drip and had gas and air and just basically danced and sang my way through (singing Hakuna Matata mid-contraction with two midwives and a ward sister; weirdest experience EVER). Reached 10cm but thought I just needed a poo and was embarrassed so I held it in for an hour. Finally the pressure got too much and they examined me and realised I'd been 10cm dilated for an hour. Three pushes, nine minutes and she was out, but I tore very badly and was being stitched up for two hours, lost a lot of blood.

And yet I look back on my birth as a great, relaxed, fun experience. I don't tell people stupid things like "Birth is what you make it" or "It's fine if you relax" - I tell them that every birth is different and unpredictable, but there's no point letting the fear eat you up for nine months of pregnancy when you could have a labour/birth like mine - on paper, it sounds bad, but in reality it was brilliant and I'd have that kind of birth again a million times over.

We can do all these techniques etc but really we don't have a huge amount of control over birth, in the same way that we don't have much control over whether we get gallstones or appendixes burst or we catch a cold. Rather than stressing over it and wanting good stories/bad stories, we need to encourage women to relax and take everything as it comes.

The problem is everyone's truths are different. I could sayvitchurts like fuck but it's over in a couple of hours, recovery is fast and the weight flies back off - because that's MY truth - but it wouldn't apply to 99.8 percent of other people.

My births was very easy. I slept through all contraction and having a gas and air.

It's the truth that every birth is different and every woman experience is different

I can honestly say the births of my DC were the best days of my life. Painful but worth it. Not traumatic but empowering, I felt I could conquer anything afterwards.

I know that's not everyone's experience but it IS different for everyone.

It's hard.

On paper, Dd1's birth was worse because I had a third degree tear and lost a lot of blood.

Having Dd2 in theatre with forceps was very quick. Everything up to that point was horrendous. I would not have treated a dog the way I was treated.

I think there needs to be more honesty all round.

Another one who had a relatively easy birth, but surely if everyone tells you horror stories about birth, you will first of all be suffering with the fear before labour even starts and secondly the fear will induce tension that is more likely to complicate the birth.

Had 3dcs (1 elective section). The other 2 were fine, contractions were horrendous, worse than I could have imagined but once the epidural kicked in everything was fine.
I don't think people want to know the horror stories as they think there's will be differendifferent (and rightlrightly so). I think the best advise is to keep an ipen mind, especially about pain relief and don't be devastated if it doesn't go to plan. I got the impression from all the mwifes that am epidural was a sign of failure and to be avoided at all costs - utter bs in my opinion.

I attended NCT classes and was absolutely shocked by how easy natural and manageable we were told it was. There were two women that had decided to not attend NHS classes as they were sure with positive thinking and breathing they would manage. Both of them did not. They have both said since that the NCT classes did not prepare them at all for how hideously painful and long it could be.

I wrote this yesterday but the post got lost somehow. I did not attend NCT classes, but did go to the tour of the hospital run by NHS midwives. One of the husbands asked why the window were locked so they could only open a little way and the midwife said it was because some women tried to leap out of them with the pain.

That was truly not helpful, nor that likely to be true..... and probably said by someone a tiny bit sadistic. I really REALLY regret not complaining at the time.