To feel I've been sold lies on natural birth when reality is v different

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Hi All, 37 weeks pregnant and very excited about the birth until last week. Final scan revealed baby is already big...could be 9lb at 40 weeks and he's in 75th percentile so definitely at larger end. I'm 5'4", size 10 usually so not particularly large.

Done hypnobirthing, NCT classes and been insistent on natural birth with no pain relief - I've been very gung ho and complacent and now reality is kicking in - I'm expecting a large baby so tears and cuts may be more likely. Feel like I've been sold lies about the ease of having unassisted natural birth when the practical reality is different - all my friends who wanted natural births ended having emergency c sections and assisted painful deliveries.

Have I been sold some nonsense to believe that I can be superwoman and have an easy pain free natural delivery because my mind will overcome any fear? What's the reality of this? Feeling like I've been arrogant to think I could be different from most women out there and have this big baby easily. I've been dutifully doing all the perineal massage / vaginal stretching wondering what the point is when I'll be trying to push a huge baby through a tiny gap.

Fed up!

IME the best way to set yourself up to fail is too have too high expectations, or to be "adamant" in any way about how things will go. I'm an anaesthetist so have been there at many deliveries where things haven't gone to plan. I've also had 2 DC.

My advice would be to have a planned ladder of escalation. Decide what you'd like to choose for pain relief if the current option isn't enough. Because it might not be. Or it might. My ladder went hypnotherapy, TENS, gas and air, epidural. Didn't want diamorphine. Personal choice. I actually stopped at gas and air as that was enough. For me. In those deliveries. Just luck.

The best way to get a good birth experience is to have no higher hope than coming out well, with a well baby. Nothing else matters.

I read all all those stories about how you will have no pain with hyponobirthing. Then read the book - they tell you not to call it pain, call it 'pressure'. So all the stories about no pain, 'just intense pressure' suddenly made sense. Rose by any other name..

Where are you OP?

You've certainly stimulated a lively thread

Hope it's been helpful

Not claiming any credit here as I know I was lucky but I recently had a 9lb 5oz baby with no pain relief and no assistance. Sure it was quite painful but I wasn't scared and didn't tear. I found Daisy birthing classes really helpful and also the Positive Birth Movement meetings. I think better my informed and confident have a lot to do with it. Good luck.

*being

Nobody gives you a medal. Have whatever pain relief you need.

The baby will come out one way or another. It might not be the way your birth plan stated but you'll get through it.

I wanted a home birth and had an emcs. I next wanted a vbac and had another emcs. No bother, I'm just glad I have two beautiful boys to show for it and I don't wet myself when I sneeze.

it wont be pain free. Hypnobirthing and natural birth stuff is about coping with the pain naturally, not about it not hurting.

9lb is a good size but not abnormally large. Dont let fears of a big baby put you off your plans. In my experience, most of the pain is contractions which are the same no matter how big or small the baby. The delivery is such a short time, and i didnt tear with my 10lb baby, yet I did tear a little with my 6lber.

Go in with an open mind and please try not to be scared x

My issue with the 'luck' thing is it's another way to paint women as passive recipients, this time of the 'luck' the universe chooses to unleash upon them.

I believe every women would be better off approaching birth with an positive frame of mind and a wish to be active in the process. Whatever intervention you may or may not need, I think psychologically it's healthier to feel your birth is 'yours' and that you were an active participant, rather than some hapless victim.

I had my two babies at home using hypnobirthing - no tearing. Yes it hurt but the hypnobirthing kept me calm and enabled my body to get on with what it needed to do. DS was 7lb 7oz, DD was 8lb 15oz. My dm also had 2x 9lb babies at home. Two friends have had 10lb+ at home with no problems. 75% of women have vaginal births in the UK.

What helped for me was prepping my friend (who would be a secondary birthing partner if transferred to hosiptal) on being my advocate and questioning the necessity of any intervention so that I could make informed decisions and maintain control. Luckily I had an awesome midwife who detected minor problems early and took steps to assist me (G&A, changing my position)

Good luck and stay positive

OP, I know exactly how you feel but stupidly it took me till after the birth to figure it out.

On certain websites, especially British, there is enormous focus on 'a lovely, empowering, natural birth' helped by all the preparations you have done and your affirmations, dim lights, candles, whatever. Hypno CDs talk as someone mentioned, only about pressure, not pain. There is a dog-whistle of not outright condemnation of pain relief as leading to an inferior birth, even an inferior baby and mother. And it is all so carefully phrased that while the message is loud and clear that real women don't do pain relief and that it is your special level of preparation and doing 'the right thing' leads to success, as defined by natural, drug-free vagunal birth.

You have done so well to spot that it is BS. All of it. Labour is and always has been regarded as some of the most painful sensations in the human body. The nerve endings that transmit labour pain, and the receptors in the brain that receive them, are exactly the same as any other pain. Physiologically, it is in no way different. Many religions see labour pain as a punishment from an all-powerful vindictive God - don't you think that would sure as heck hurt?

It infuriates me that natural birth movements try to persuade women that none of this is true. And when you realize after the fact, you will see a lot of comments like those earlier in the thread that "nobody ever promised it would be easy or pain-free" when in fact that is the clear implication they intended you to take from their messaging. And then the victim blaming - of course it hurt if you were tense, if you had feared less, it wouldn't have hurt. It's all nonsense.

And then there is the repeated encouragement to disregard medical advice in favoyr if positive thinking. How many people have told the OP that growth scans can be inaccurate and so her baby could be a pound smaller? But how many of these said that the converse is also true, the scan could be out in the other direction by they same margin of error and the baby a pound even bigger?

I really dislike that the natural birth movement is so dismissive of women's pain, so quick to attempt to isolate them from medical experts in Favour of homespun woo. Congratulations on seeing through it.

For what it is worth, I had an induction, epidural, ventouse and episiotomy plus I now have stress incontinence as a result, and for a brief time felt like a failure as a mother. Now that I can see through the web of nonsense, I feel anger. Women should always be listened to, should have their pain acknowledged and treated exactly as they wish and should not be subject to these horrid competitive societal pressures.

Best of luck. My one piece of advice - epidural a are amazing

Thanks for your post. I was just sick of being told is was "pain, but not pain pain". It was horrendous for me and my body could not cope with it, and epidurals are not always a request away.

I had 5 babies and everything from zero pain relief to epidural. Epidurals are the best! One epidural I had,I was in no pain whatsoever and literally drinking a cup of tea as my baby was born. I'd recommend it to anyone.

That said, I was usually denied pain relief as someone who'd (a) had so many babies and (b) gave birth very quickly (21 minutes was my fastest labour, a couple of hours my slowest).

With baby 5 I was on an antenatal ward for nearly a month and on our ward we saw every single woman induced and left up on the ward til they were crawling up the walls and had to be taken down to delivery, so over that few weeks saw quite a lot.

First observation - the old lags got so we could predict the length of labour. Panicky woman = longer labour. One rather precious, fussy woman was induced then put back no the ward - her first baby - she had been clutching and reading a massive NCT manual the night before but when she was in labour started getting really upset, saying "This isn't ike it says in the manual!" Have to admit, we laughed - but yes, proves there is some truth in what you say. It is never how it is 'in the book'.

I think if you remain gung ho and just bloody go for it - labour goes faster (assuming no unavoidable complications). My labours were fast and in each of them I just decided to damn well go for it and get it over. Never pushed a second time, put it that way. It's going to happen you might as well own it.

Second observation - forget the birth plan and just go with how you feel during the labour. Trust your own instincts and ask for what you want.

Do you know what - it's a day of your life. You've prepared well. You kind of just have to go with it now.

My birth plan went quickly out of the window and I had a load of interventions which, if I'd known about previously, Would've freaked me out. But - they've got drugs and it was a day of my life. I genuinely don't even remember most of it.

It will be what it'll be. Just enjoy your last Few days of rest.

Good luck.

I agree with sycamore actually. Hypnobirth training was lovely. I honestly didn't fear labour. It was nothing like I imagined though and I got to pushing stage but still needed emcs. Felt a bit ripped off and a failure. I thought I was designed to do this?
BUT I think it is probably futile to compare birth experiences. Nobody else will give birth to your baby and have your body and your labour.
I'm happy for anyone who has a positive experience and for the rest of us, well I'm glad we have each other.

The only thing you can do is keep an open mind and go with the flow and the advise of the professionals. I did all the hypnobirthing prep, was determined I was going to do it myself, knowing I had a massive baby. In the event, he was 10lb 14 and transverse, so they wouldn't even let me try, and it was an elective section. In the event, he had to be resuscitated and had a week in intensive care, and looking back he may well not have made it through an attempt to birth naturally. Now he is a gorgeous bouncing one year old :) that's the other thing, no matter how many scary birth stories you hear, try to focus on the fact that 99.9% of the time, everyone was alright in the end. That thought helped me keep calm. Good luck.

My 9.5lb at 37 week scan (for breech) was actually 8lb, 4 days late and most definitely head down

I had no birth plan with my first and ended up labouring on my back with continuous monitoring and pethidine, not because I needed to be on my back or because I wanted pethidine, but because both these things made life easier for the midwife.

Sometimes 'going with the flow' means 'getting steamrollered' because the flow you're going with is that of the midwife and the institution rather than the flow of your labour.

DS1 - got to 5cm without pain relief or knowing I was in proper labour. Had waters broken, suddenly rushed for EMCS as he was brow presentation and vaginal delivery unsafe.

DS2 - also EMCS except I knew this one was coming. Got to 4cm on gas and air and drip and it knacked - then section as I was not progressing fast enough.

What really pissed me off was everyone's assumption that I was going to be desperate for a VBAC. I really, really wasn't. Second time round, I just wanted to go with the flow and do what was needed.

Important thing to remember: It will end.

Go in like you're ready to take on the challenge and know next week I'll be at home and this will be in the past!

PMI: Positive Mental Attitude.

I only had 6 lb-ers (apart from one 8lb 4oz baby) but I always think of my mum whose first baby was around 7lb and breech. And she was a tiny little slim thing, only 4 foot 11 and wore children's clothes... Have no idea how she coped with that birth (in the days before epidurals).

Hypnobirthing is all about mind over matter and positive mental attitude. It never suggests there is no pain - it just talks about calling it something else. And that in itself is a very powerful tool.

Think of something as horrific and painful and medical and you are more likely to be scared and tense which may lead to interventions and a longer more difficult labour.

Think of something as pressure and manageable and natural and it may lead to a shorter easier labour.

Neither are guaranteed but I know which I'd rather shoot for (and did, twice. 2x 5 hour labours without so much as a paracetamol or a tear and I have a stupidly low pain threshold and AJ the worlds biggest wuss)

I feel quite angey at all the naturak birth hype.
Fine olif others want that. I do feel it suits the nhs as they then pressure towards that, by 'encouraging' you on with no pain relief - cheaper for them. Even when like me it was clearly on birth plan - in capitals. I knew what i wanted and had no intention, with dc2, of giving birth witout an epidural. Would not have gone to birth centre for that reason.
Except for around 8h they couldnt find an anesthetist !!
I feel like it was delayed until 5+cm until you are delirious enough that you cant argue the point. Although i did.
I had forceps with dc1 epidural and ventouse too. Back to back baby.
Dc2 'just' 2nd degree tear.
I think the size of baby makes less difference than the position.
My family seem to have bad labours and either b2b or breech. Dp family pop them out hardly a pain and home for lunch.

My first was over 9lbs, It was a quick, easy birth with no tears. But that means absolutely shit to you, because all births are different. Btw, scans are not always accurate.

I felt that the pressure to have a natural birth with no drugs came from my peers, not from midwives or the NHS. I know lots of people who have used hypnobirthing and have managed a drug-free natural delivery, and lots who have had very dufferent experiences. I honestly think the most important thing is to remain open to the fact that you can't plan for everything, and you can't control everything. It's great to have an idea in mind of what you want and what you want to avoid if possible, but when people aren't open and flexible then they can feel disappointed if things don't go to plan, or left feeling like they've failed. I didn't want an epidural, but it turned out I needed one (or three). But we are asked to make plans about pain relief without having experienced birth before, and therefore without much sense of how we will cope with the pain. Before my DS was born I was asked by several people "what's your pain threshold like?" but I think it's a stupid question. How can we know? These things are relative, the pain of childbirth is pretty unique, we can't really compare our pain to the next persons. I'm afraid you just have to suck it and see; go in informed and with some preferences, but try not to worry if things go differently to how you'd imagined. A safe delivery for mum and baby is a success.
And tearing is a complete unknown, too. I tore having a 6lb 6oz baby (I'm bigger than you) and I've known people delivery 9lb+ babies without a scratch. It's not a certainty.

Your body knows what it is doing, as do the midwives around you. Trust them. You'll do just fine.