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.

I can remember being livid with OBEM and hissing to my husband 'it's all LIES!' when it came on after DS was born.

But every birth IS different and everyones perceptions are too - e.g PP said she hasn't forgotten the pain, I definately have forgotten most of what happened.
Just because stories aren't consistent from person to person doesn't mean people are lying.
I also agree that those who had a bad birth experience might need to talk it out. For about a month I felt a compelled to tell my story.

What's prompted your post OP? Are you recovering from a traumatic birth?

I'm pregnant with my first child and terrified - one of the reasons I was resistant to starting a family was the whole pregnancy and childbirth thing. My mother had three very difficult births, lasting 24-36 hours (induced for each one, with many, many stitches afterwards), a colleague broke her pelvis giving birth and had to have years of physio, and my best friend haemorrhaged and had to be rushed to another hospital.

My sister-in-law had a fantastic birthing experience though, which went exactly to plan - water birth, hypnotherapy, no gas or drugs, etc. My other sister-in-law planned similar, but gave birth so quickly they didn't have time to prepare the pool.

I wish we could grow babies in pods, or something. :(

I am entirely honest about my 2 births.

Also, what gives you the right to 'tell it like it is'.

All births are different, I think it's right to keep one's opinion to yourself unless it's close family.

3 births - absolutley great experience. I'd happily give birth again but pregnancy that's another kettle of fish.

I think so many women have a real phobia about birth so that's the reason people lie.
My contractions were agony, I was 10cm within 90 mins so incredibly intense all of a sudden, all I remember thinking was "I need to tell all women I know how painful this is"!! After birth lying there still recalling pain I wanted to text my fellow baby group mums (I was the 1st to give birth) and warn/prepare them about the pain, but DH talked me out of it
But 20 weeks with no2 now and despite knowing hos painful it was, almost looking forwards to the experience again...weird I am.

I am honest about birth, all three of mine were fine, non-traumatic, long and painful but not traumatic.
Tbh I don't know anyone who would describe their births as traumatic.

MrsB I think all women should know the possibility of horror is there. All this beating round the bush is unhelpful. It's worse when you don't know what MIGHT happen

But surely all expectant mothers know that giving birth is painful and hard work? I don't think they necessarily need to be subjected to the gory details of another woman's birth just because it might happen to them!

Lots of terrible things might happen. Doesn't mean we need graphic description of horrid things that can happen in an attempt to psych ourselves up for the possibility of them happening to us.

Also, what gives you the right to 'tell it like it is'.

People need a right to give their experiences?

NCI, to me, my second birth was traumatic.

My birth was also traumatic but not because of pain (cesarean, pain free) but because DS nearly died

I had a difficult birth and a child in NICU but I remain un-traumatised and un-horrified.

I think there is room for compromise on this - it doesn't have to be 'all gory details' vs 'lying'. I am always honest about my birth (long labour, back to back, needed syntocin and epidural but managed to have unassisted delivery in the end) but vague in the details. But I also do stress that a) I got through it, b) I forgot the pain (I really did) and c) when you have a baby at the end of it, it's fine. I think going in with an expectation of 'this will hurt and it may or may not go to plan, but in the end all will be fine' is best, and that's what I try to stress to mothers to be if they ask me about it (I also only talk about my birth if asked!).

So on the one hand, I don't think going on about how 'traumatic' your birth was is really very appropriate, but being honest that it wasn't great is fine. I also do think that 'all births are different' is a valid excuse, because a lot of it is down to luck/baby positioning. I know someone who did the whole hypnobirthing thing, pregnancy yoga, lots of birth prep, wanted a natural home birth etc, and ended up with c-section after long labour and other interventions due to awkward positioned baby. On the other hand I know someone else who I secretly hate for this who did no birth prep, no NCT classes, no yoga, no hypnobirthing, and had a < 6 hour birth with a minor tear and just gas and air.

As I recall the video they showed us in antenatal classes told us everything we needed to know. Not so much the fact that she was screaming and scared, but the fact that this was the good birth that they'd chosen to show us - this was the one where everything went right and it was still clearly horrifically painful. An appropriate wake up call I thought.

I normally say "yes it was horrifically painful but after all it's only one day out of your life and it was worth it". But there are a load of women on the ragged bits thread for whom "it's only one day out of your life" would be the worst lie of all.

Op how long ago was your birth? I was a birth bore for the first 2 years after DC1 - had a (to me) terrifying major PPH and I had to keep telling people about it because it was cathartic. My DH had to tell me to stop going through it with people. I don't think there are any good statistics on the number of women that have x, y, z - particularly related to the post-birth injuries, as well as cs/no-cs, % of people having which grade of tear etc, which is a shame because you can access any number of anecdotes on mumsnet.

The thing is pain is different for everyone.

I know that is no help whatsoever - but for me contractions weren't that bad! But some people say they are horrific, so who knows?

If other wonen feel the urge to tell first time expectant Mums how fucking grim their own birth experience I think they are selfish.

They're not doing the other woman a favour.

It really is so different for everyone though. I know people who "loved" giving birth. For me it was worse than my worst nightmare. Much worse. So I try not to scare my friends with it. if I'd known how horrible it would be I would have had a c-section.

A friend of mine asked about how much labour hurts when she was pg. I said "It hurts a lot", she said "no, but compared to other pain how much?" and I said "I've never had pain like it- it really hurts". She had her baby then said to me "why didn't you tell me how much it hurts!!!". I'm not sure what I was supposed to say!!

I think it's perhaps a bit trying to describe the pain but I would have liked more practical advice, just things like episotomies and tears- in my first birth plan I wrote "I would like to avoid having an episiotomy" as if so many women opt for one! I was shocked when they sewed me up after ds- I'm not sure how I imagined they sewed up a torn vagina but hoiking my legs up to my shoulders surprised me. I didn't know how much I'd bleed. Don't even get me started on bf.

I have told friends about my births, mainly because there are things I wish I'd known with ds and a pg woman would be reassured by hearing about dd.

I'm always honest when people ask me and say it feels like you're being ripped apart from the inside. No point in lying or sugar coating it. I too was shocked by how much it hurt after DS1 was born and swore never to hide the truth if asked in future.

Very interesting thread! I notice that a lot of people use the word 'easy' for their birth. But it isn't easy in the sense of watching the EastEnders omnibus and painting your nails. It's very physically demanding. I think that if you were truly expecting it to be easy, you might find it traumatic, however the actual experience was in the broad scheme of things.

I tell people if they ask that the pain is very intense, but importantly in between contractions there is no pain at all. And I think that focussing on the end point kind of helps with getting through the interim stuff.....

I've done it twice as well.

First time took 51h (15 from being admitted at 5cm) and whilst it was long, exhausting none if it was horrendous or traumatising and there was never any danger to myself or baby. Despite ending up on the drip, having my waters broken, having a hit of diamorphine and not eating for about 24h I managed a natural delivery and I didn't tear or graze or have any significant blood loss. We had to stay in for 24h due to fact my waters had gone 24h prior to delivery.

Second birth was 4h start to finish (80 minutes from admission at 4cm) and although quicker and more natural I wasn't even checked prior to delivery it was totally different, it was led completely by my body and all felt very instinctive.... It fucking hurt more than I can put into words but it was very quick. Again no tears of grazes and we were discharged after 5.5h.

Yes I am just one person and yes my experiences are anecdotal but I have lots of family and friends and can say that only one of them has had a truly horrendous experience. What I will say is that every single person I know had their hardest time with their first baby. This is based on a sample of maybe 10 people.... including myself and mother and MIL.

Look, if anyone ever asked how mine were I have said "yes if hurts, of course it's fucking painful, you're pushing a baby out".

I don't go into detail about ds2 , other than "it all turned out OK in the end, he was fine" it wouldn't feel right to fill someone in on the details and I doubt any pregnant woman would want to know

But is IS different for everyone, so is there really any point other mothers being honest? You can only approach it in your own way and yes it helps not to have a rose-coloured vision that if you play relaxing music and have scented candles and breathe properly it will all be fine, because it might not be.

I approached my first labour with the view that it was going to be horrendous, because that's what I'd been told. However, I had spent literally hours in the gym for months beforehand, not gained any weight, walked and walked and walked for miles every day, drunk gallons of raspberry leaf tea - and sailed through on minimal gas and air, no stitches, no interventions, quick and easy.

I appreciate that I am probably in the minority. But some births are easy and straightforward. Some are traumatic and difficult. The majority somewhere in the middle, I guess, but one woman's "well it wasn't so bad" might be another woman's "it was so traumatic and I had no idea pain could be so awful". If anyone asks me I say that my experiences are probably not the norm. It didn't hurt much. I really can't empathise when women talk about experiencing extreme pain, because I've not experienced it.

And it was definitely traumatic for me. But I just don't tell my friends that, because it might not (hopefully) be like that for them, and I don't want them to expect the worst.