To think censorship of birth stories should not be allowed?

[NunntheWiser]

I love Standard Issue magazine, I really do. Earlier this week, Milli Hill was published in the Telegraph extolling the virtues of a natural birth and "imaginary pain" guff guff guff. All well and good.

The excellently sweary Cath Janes wrote an opinion piece about this - about how her own experiences of birth were very, very different to this, and whilst it's not right to scare women, it's unfair to expect them not to be honest about their birth experience.

Hill complained about this opinion piece and has forced Standard Issue to withdraw Janes' article, against the author's wishes. Now, I don't know if the fault lies with Standard Issue for not backing up their author, or if it's Hill threatening some legal recourse to the magazine but since when do women's opinions get censored?

In the meantime, Janes' sweary article can only be found using Google Cache: webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3An6IV7Qmr9GcJ%3Astandardissuemagazine.com%2Fvoices%2Fbirth-muthas%2F%20&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

And yet for me it was the fact it was a surgical procedure that I found so pleasant.

It was planned and controlled, it had a definitive beginning and end point. Every expert I would need was already in the room. I was totally relaxed and pain free. The risk of serious damage or death to my unborn child was lower than the risk of VB. the risk of serious complications to me were in the 100,000s. I was willing to risk a complication that meant no more kids soI was fine with that too.

Once I was recovering no one minimised the damage done to my body or the pain I was in (considerably less than Keillands forceps recovery and broken down episiotomy) but instead of having to beg for repeat prescriptions (including excruciating waiting on hard fucking chairs) I was offered the whole array of pain relief, morphine if necessary (I declined).

I'm absolutely not questioning your experience Headofthehive just stating it goes to show we are all different and all our experiences count.

It's irrelevant whether it's a vb or CS really it's about how you feel about it yourself.

Yes I think that's very true. Can't be said enough.

With respect to CS, clearly the climate of all nachrel, unmedicated VB is best, breathe it all out (which Milli Hill subscribes too) doesn't help in this respect. There are at least some women whose trauma when they have an EMCS is linked to the information they've received previously. However, that's only part of it. There are women who didn't think this at all and yet still feel shock and trauma after surgical births. We've got to do better.

MsH that article was a lightbulb moment for me. I had an EMCS after a 5 day failed induction. The CS portion was great in comparison but the risks of the induction were never talked through with me, it was just 'we're doing this now as baby is at risk'. When you're admitted to labour ward HDU you assume they're acting in your best interests. When it came to the CS the supervisor of midwives came to see me at 5am to make sure I understood the risks and didn't I feel like I was failing? I was furious and desperate and the CS was the first time I felt in control.

I see this is the opposite of other posters' experiences and this is why I think it's even more important that we're given consent forms and risk assessments for both birth types - no one should be put through either experience uninformed.

Elisaveta I'm pushing for ELCS over VBAC this time and my consultant is very pro-VBAC so I've researched the risks separately with RCOG information. I was shocked that the risks to baby she kept mentioning with CS are actually higher with VBAC. She also failed to mention I have a 19% risk of developing faecal incontinence with VBAC - that alone is an unacceptably high risk for me.

Elisaveta I'm pushing for ELCS over VBAC this time and my consultant is very pro-VBAC so I've researched the risks separately with RCOG information. I was shocked that the risks to baby she kept mentioning with CS are actually higher with VBAC. She also failed to mention I have a 19% risk of developing faecal incontinence with VBAC - that alone is an unacceptably high risk for me.

Wish I could say I was surprised duggeehug. Are you going to get your ELCS?

I've seen you write about this before miaow. At least a couple of years ago, so it's a shame to see you're still feeling this way now. Do you think you would ever have the strength to talk to someone? I don't mean complaints about assault, or all guns blazing for compo, just PALS maybe?

I complained about the way I was treated after my first birth, and the apology helped. But I don't think I was nearly as affected as you.

Mine pushed for a repeat section not vbac. So I think it depends on who you get - and their feelings too.

It's not for me the argument of which is safer either. For one person, one risk might outweigh another - or be more important. Im all for personal choice really, but accepting that people make different choices. I've worked in theatre so perhaps is surprising to some people that I have felt like that!

Headof personal choice is definitely the holy grail here. Your risks and my risks are different, your experiences and my experiences are different, your circumstances and my circumstances are different. Never should we be forced to the same solution if our choices are different!

Elisaveta I won't know for another 8 weeks. I've already spoken to my midwife and we have a plan that, if this consultant won't agree I'll be moved to another consultant who is less dogmatic. My midwife also feels an ELCS is in our best interests - this was her position before I'd even mentioned it, she just assumed it after last time

Duggee don't give up. Keep pressing them. Be very clear that being coerced into a VB is expressly against your wishes. Find the NICE guidelines that are relevant and quote them. If the consultant argues (and they do) write down their answer word for word. Get them to slow down and repeat if necessary.

I went into the meetings and made notes (after my first experience where the consultant mis-recorded my story - so afterwards I made manuscript notes around my official notes pointing out where he had got it wrong...) I researched my own risk factors (consultant quite happy to tell me how many women die in CS surgery but no such stats for VB delivery...) I also took someone with me because I was so emotional I couldn't make my case. My mind went blank, my mouth dry, my thoughts raced.

Obs/Gyae love to keep their CS stats low. They have no interest in stats for incontinence and repair. The certainly don't give a monkeys about long term mental health effects.

Headof, thanks for sharing.

I think a lot of the issues are to do with expectations. That if you want a natural birth you can have one. I've looked at the data in quite a lot of detail, and for a first birth, for someone in their thirties, they have a 50-65% ish chance of either needing a section or an instrumental birth. Then you add on bad tears, and actually, to have that 'perfect' first birth seems to be an aspiration that most will never achieve, even if that is as good as they hoped.

I'm prepping for my first birth. I'm terrified of childbirth, and having an elective section. Every now and then people query whether I'd prefer a vaginal birth, but that's not the question really is it. A more accurate question would be, would you prefer to try a natural vaginal birth? Knowing that there's only about a third of a chance that I'd actually have it, and even then I might end up with nasty birth injuries.

But its not portrayed like that. It's portrayed as major surgery vs peaceful but hard work birth, that you can go home from hours later.

People know that there is a 'chance' that natural labour won't go to plan, but I don't think many at told just how likely that chance is to materialise.

Thanks Passport - I now have a spreadsheet of risks (including references) and a list of questions. The consultant did write in my notes at 13 weeks that I'd understood the discussion and still preferred a CS, but made it clear they aren't supportive and why not have a VBAC as 'at least you'll have tried'

Clearly you get a prize for taking part

Blue that's it right there - clearly biased information and not enough actual facts about success rates. Our hospital has a VBAC success rate of 53% - if that was any other type of procedure people might well feel about it being pushed so hard. And that's before you figure in how many of that 53% needed interventions and were left with issues

I'd ask what is to be achieved by the concept of 'trying' something that you have expressly said you do not want to try Duggee.

It's not like trying and failing would mean hours of wasted agony, possible complications and a slower recovery or anything...

We must martyr ourselves on the altar of childbirth seemingly.

here - yes, there was no answer last time and it's my first question this time!

blue - they seemed shocked that I wouldn't want to try a VB, as though I really should want to ignore my risks and experiences just so I can say I pushed a baby out. Frankly, I don't understand the obsession with VB to the detriment of maternal and/or foetal wellbeing

There used to be a long running thread on here called 'Ragged bits' for women who had had birth injuries. It was so sad - there were many women who hadn't had sex since the birth months or years earlier because their intimate parts were such a mess or it was too painful. And loads said they would never go through it again. You
never hear about this from midwives or at antenatal classes. I'm not advocating that we go round telling all pregnant women that their fanjo will be ruined permanently or that they'll end up incontinent but I think it should be put out there a bit more that these things can happen as so many women have no knowledge of this.

I've got a friend that at almost 8 months pregnant hadn't heard about epiostomies, or tearing or stitches, let alone how common they are. She'd been to lots of antenatal stuff...

It doesn't surprise me, Blue. I'd heard of the risks having been to all the classes and read the purple book and talked to all the mums I knew to ask about their experiences. I knew there was a risk that my peaceful, natural birth might not happen. I knew there was a risk that instrumentation might be required. I knew that the use of said instrumentation carried yet more risks of its own.

What I didn't know was just how high those risks were. Especially for me as an older first time mum, two weeks overdue, with a baby that was already known to be on the large side. If anyone had actually told me the numbers, no way would I have attempted a drug-free VB. I thought all those complications were just possibilities that I needed to be aware of. Not something that was more than likely going to happen to me.

With any other medical procedure, you get all the facts and figures in advance. You have to sign a consent form to say that you know about the possible complications and the probability that they will happen. Why is childbirth - the most traumatic thing that most of us ever have to go through - exempt from this fundamentally necessary process?

Ditto the badgers. Except I was induced at 2 weeks overdue, having waited all day to be allowed to a bed, the midwife examined me at 10pm and discovered baby was back to back. Despite this they gave me my first dose of prostin at almost midnight (NICE said you should not induce overnight when there are less staff/experts around).

If I had known what that meant as a 1st time mother in her 30s - a back to back induction of an 8lb9 baby (I'm 5'3" and was a size 8-10) there is NO WAY I would have consented. I'd have put my foot down until I got an ELCS.

Also I had no idea of the different types of forceps. At the time the NHS website used to say that they gripped the baby's head and the Dr gently lifted the baby out...

I can assure you that after being sliced open to get the forceps in and the consultant saying he thought we had 'a shoulder problem' before once more putting his foot to the table in order to wrench DD out of me, that we no gentleness involved. She was well and truly stuck. And she is still scarred today (by her eye).

One of my issues about the whole thing is around informed consent. We're supposed to give it, right? A course of action was proposed to me, explained in detail, discussed etc by a lovely doctor and I agreed to it.

The next morning I found out, in passing, that the unnamed consultant had changed this. Nobody would have mentioned it to me if I hadn't picked up on the change and asked about it, and even then I was treated as a silly little woman who was fussing about nothing. The fact that they said it wouldn't make a difference isn't the point, it wasn't what I had agreed to and they weren't going to tell me. Great start to labour and I really felt well supported and in safe hands.

Interesting how they play down all the risks as well. I had an ovary removed last year, the surgeon went through a scary list of what ifs and maybes, from removing both ovaries if necessary to complications resulting in a (probably temporary) colostomy. On the other hand when I had DS potential problems/complications caused by being induced were glossed over and only vaguely mentioned - of course the alternative is a section and they seemed obsessed with not doing them.

Headofthehive55 I felt like I'd been attacked.

That's how I felt about being induced.

They are obsessed with not doing sections. In fact the consultant who wrenched DD out of me was introduced, at the bottom of my bed the next day as "the man who keeps our CS rates down" said very proudly by the midwife. She want on to say that it was down to his use of Keillands forceps which had 'gone out of fashion'.

If you google Keillands forceps you will see the terrible damage that they can wreak. They are not used routinely because they are so fucking barbaric - unless you are hell bent on keeping the CS rates down, that is. So long as mum and baby are still alive then dragging baby out and all the attendant damage doesn't matter.

And I didn't know. I didn't know a rotational forceps from any other kind. I didn't know it meant baby was still high up and malpresented ('deep transverse arrest' in my case). So I said yes when I should have insisted on CS.

Obsessed with keeping CS rates down

Even when it is the best option. Even when it's lower risk for mother and baby. It makes me want to scream in frustration.

I try so hard not to be rude to people who assume I must have had bonding or breastfeeding problems, or that DC must've had breathing problems. Actually, we bonded quickly and easily. We were breastfeeding within the hour. All APGARs were perfect.

Maybe, women struggle after EMCS because they've been sold false VB hope, they're exhausted, traumatised and feel that the situation has long since moved completely out of their control. They're injured, in pain and made to feel like they've failed because it wasn't a VB.

Anyone who promotes this sort of VB utopia without promoting the associated risks needs to have a long hard think about their role in the distress they're causing women. That includes my consultant.

I agree Duggee

After my 1st birth (the traumatic VB) my milk didn't come in until day 6. In the meantime DD1 was readmitted to hospital via A&E and fed formula through a NG tube. We then struggled on for several more weeks with weight loss/no gain because I was sticking doggedly to bloody breastfeeding and kept seeing the breast is best midwives all of the sodding time. If I'm absolutely honest, to this day I have no idea what 'bonding' is. I have been asked whether it was affected by the birth but I don't know. I didn't really feel anything much (except physical pain) for the first 2 months.

With my 2nd birth ELCS we established bf easily, feeding in the recovery room and regularly thereafter. She was fit and well as soon as she was born. DD2 thrived with no problems.

Oh here, I'm sorry if my post brought anything back. It's good to hear that your second experience was much more positive.

There's so much pressure, all the time, when it comes to pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. It sometimes feels you can't do right for doing wrong.

I too was warned extensively by the consultant about the potential risks of c section in order to put me off.

My fears about another third degree tear were dismissed. My fears about even an uncomplicated vaginal birth causing enough pelvic floor damage to cause faecal incontinence were dismissed too (and I'd read the RCOG guidelines around third degree tears - the stats were significant).

It's not vaginal birth that damages the pelvic floor, it's pregnancy, he said. You won't tear again. And besides, you could always have an episiotomy if you needed one (the same RCOG guidelines say NOT to perform a prophylactic episiotomy).

I thought, are you generally this ill informed or will you say anything to get a woman to change her mind?

Oh don't worry Duggee. It is why articles like Cath's and threads like these have been so good. I can get it out and share with others who had similar experiences.