'Free birthing' AIBU to think this woman should not be encouraging people to do this

[WilliowGreen]

In this guardian article this woman boasts about her wonderful birth experience by rejecting all care including scans because "it was not empowering".
Before I had my baby (she is 2 weeks old) I would probably have thought her lack of self awareness was funny. Now it quite irrationally fills me with rage.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/28/experience-i-had-a-free-birth.

She's incredibly lucky. She's also bonkers.

If childbirth goes badly tits up, calling an ambulance won't save you or your baby. You have literally a handful of minutes or less to get the baby out so that the paediatricians can save them whilst the obstetricians and anaesthetists fight to save your life. Then you hope that there are no long term consequences.

Omg so wanting a birth where your wishes 're your own bod are granted is entitled?

Seriously?
It's not about an "experience " .

Does it no occur to you the way ensure a good outcome is to work with the mother not against them.

You can't make demands and treat people like crap then expect them to be open to you ramming your hand up their vagina ffs surely making people feel comfortable and that they can trust you is a basic component of a successful birth?.

Its hardly progress to get to 2017 where we have universal maternity care (however over stretched) yet the level of expectation is just 'you and the baby don't die'
We had better hopes for women and their babies before we had heard of the NHS.

Like it or not, women are the main carers in our society. It doesn't make any sense at all to risk their physical and mental health post childbirth and dismiss it with a 'suck it up snowflake'
We don't have that attitude to any other branch of healthcare do we?

When we do it leads to outrages such as the recent trial of the breast surgeon. 'You're not dead are you? Just be grateful that man deigned to remove your breasts love. Crack on'.

I think it would take far, far more than some brusque midwifery to ever make me just feel like a worthless hunk of meat

I went into hospital to have my baby delivered. Not have my ego stroked and my chakras polished

brusque midwifery is fine, shit 'care' and being left alone for hours on end with no sign of anyone isn't. nor is being left alone with a newborn baby in your arms after 2 days of labour, still numb from an epidural, unable to reach the panic alarm for 2 hours whilst you shout for help and no one comes. so exhausted from medication and labour that you are scared you're going to drop your baby and kill her.

that happens in hospitals. that won't happen in my home.

MaQueen, that is the attitude I am talking about. You are clearly brimming with self confidence. Bully for you. I and a lot of other firs time mums are scared and unsure and vulnerable. It wasn't 'brusque midwives' - it was the fact I hadn't birthed by 40+12 was treated as a major issue which needed 'fixing', rather than a pretty standard situation that would need monitoring. The fact I was told having come in for inpatient induction after outpatient had failed that I 'wouldn't be allowed to go home now' until baby was delivered. The fact antenatal midwives kept telling me the induction wasn't working because I wouldn't relax (very relaxing), and affected huge surprise every time they checked me to discover that no, my cervix still hadn't dilated any further. The fact that when it did get going they refused to let me go to the birth centre because I was past the 'deadline' of 40+12, even though it was literally 2 doors down the hall from the delivery ward if I had needed to be transferred. And yeah, the fact I never felt my waters breaking, never had a normal contraction, and ended up with a c-section, all of which stemmed from my 'failure' to go into labour on schedule and my 'failure' to progress under induction - terminology that makes you feel a bit shitty frankly, after doing everything you can for 9 months to ensure your baby is healthy and that they are born in a way most likely to benefit their health and development in the short and long term only to have it all taken out of your hands because you 'failed'. It hurts. It hurt me. It means I am struggling horribly as a new mum when I should be focussing on my baby, instead I am still half in shock, having nightmares, wanting to 'go back to the beginning' and do everything differently.

Some people seem to take great pleasure in being very butch about birth, like it doesn't matter, shouldn't matter, and anyone who thinks it does is being wet and selfish. Well sorry, it was a major event in my relationship with my baby and it went to shit. I'm not ashamed to say how much it hurts and how worthless it makes me feel.

However

Laceys brand of 'it doesn't hurt it's like shitting gold from your punani" is deeply deeply annoying.

We need a middle way

Tbh it takes a special kind of arrogance to think you can control your babies birth

I think it would take far, far more than some brusque midwifery to ever make me just feel like a worthless hunk of meat I agree. I'm sure some said stupid things to me but I honestly can't remember. I went in to have babies and that is what I got.
When we do it leads to outrages such as the recent trial of the breast surgeon. 'You're not dead are you? Just be grateful that man deigned to remove your breasts love. Crack on'.
I don't think this bears comparison. I had breast cancer and then mastectomy and reconstruction- absolutely brilliant treatment. The criminal surgeon caused the death and mutilation of unknown numbers of women.

Not towering self confidence, just very pragmatic. I am not remotely woo, I'm afraid.

My labour with DD2 also 'failed' to progress. She ended up being a c-section, and even then they had to dig her out with forceps. She was so stuck she would never have been delivered naturally.

Certainly didn't make me feel like a failure though. It obviously wasn't my personal fault, just the way my cervix is shaped apparently.

If this can make you feel utterly worthless and a failure, then you need help and support obviously.

lelapaletute

Oh love, I really remember feeling like this. It's horrible and it takes on overwhelming importance that stained my first months with DS1. I fed him solely on jarred foods because I don't think I trusted myself to be able to even feed him correctly with food I'd made.

It will pass, eventually. I hope you can put it in the past where it belongs because you've got years and years to build a relationship with your child. Mine's nearly 17 now and I reckon we're doing really well in the mother-and-son game

i'm not remotely 'woo' either. I am, however, human and that experience left me with PTSD and anxiety and PND and all kinds of other shit.
The point is just being alive is NOT all that matters about birth.

I am incredibly pragmatic.
I have had little choice.
I am not woo or hippy or even middle class.
I still don't go along with 'leave your dignity at the door' bollocks and nor do I think I deserve bad care.
I wouldn't give it why should I accept it?

Tbh it takes a special kind of arrogance to think you can control your babies birth
What does that even mean?

No it's not. There was a great thread about Birth Trauma recently

But .... Lacey, eh?

You do sound very distressed by the whole thing lelap. have you considered you might have PND? I suffered with it after DD1 was born, not because of the events surrounding her actual birth (though it didn't help) or because I felt a failure. But having her was a huge shock to my system and unfortunately I am prone to hormonal depression/anxiety (long history of PMS).

Just something to consider?

NotYoda thanks for your post re debriefing. I have thought about it - but what can they say? My only real question is 'what would have happened if I hadn't been induced?', and there's just no answer for that. She might have come herself the next day, or the day after. She might have died in utero and I'd be in a far worse state mentally than I am now. I'll never know. It's just a colossal 'what if' that will hang over me forever. I hope one day I can move past it, but right now it is overshadowing me and my relationship with my baby.

Hmm about control - For me personally, I think the first birth was so bad because I thought it was more under my control than it was. I was really unprepared for how much it would hurt, how little I could do about that, and for the eventuality of an CS.

Derxaof course it bears comparison.
When we ignore women (and it is generally women) we put them at danger of being exploited by people like that lunatic.
Dismissing concerns as 'woo' or 'entitled' enables God complexes.

If our gold standard is 'don't die' we will put up with being maimed because we didn't die did we?

I thought she exagerrated how unusual her antenatal choices were (she did go to widwives' appointments and declining scans is not that unusual I think?

Also she had a midwife visiting her during labour.

So the only unusual thing was that unlike in a "normal" home birth the midwives werent there all the time.

Happy to be corrected.

lelapelute

I think you need to take the possibility seriously that you have PND or PTSD. Just talk to someone in real life about it. I don't think I realised how badly I was affected until after I had DS2 (another difficult birth) and i felt so different about him.

"Tbh it takes a special kind of arrogance to think you can control your babies birth
What does that even mean?"

It means the woman in the article is arrogant to think her birth would be safe just because she wanted it to be.

MaQueen, thanks for the suggestion but it kind of goes down the same route. I've not got PND - I've been depressed before, when I was much younger, and I know how that feels. I'm not depressed; I'm just horribly, horribly sad about it, and struggling to accept it. Being told I now have a mental 'problem' that needs 'fixing' (in the cash strapped NHS we have now, very likely with a pill that may interfere with my already challenging breastfeeding) is absolutely the last thing that I need and would just compound my feelings of failure (can't go into labour, can't deliver her baby, can't breastfeed properly, can't cope). I need to make peace with it, not blame it on my hormones and bury it.

Are you getting practical help? Are you able to tell your partner how you feel, have time away from the baby if that's what you need?

it's just a colossal 'what if' that will hang over me forever. I hope one day I can move past it, but right now it is overshadowing me and my relationship with my baby

I know what you mean though. Im.so angry still 6 years later that I went against everything I felt and believed and everything I wanted and listened to these so called professionals who had drummed things into me all the way along and despite none of what they said could happen had actually happened I was so worried that if I ignored them then something may go wrong.

Yet when I actually got to hospital there was absolutely no care that I received that was remotely indicative that any of what is been told up until that point would happen. I was just ignored. For hours.

If I'd have been at home like I wanted I'd have had a midwife staying with me. I'd have been checked over and reassured.

Even if when I started bleeding I'd needed to be transferred in things would have been set up for me. I'd have not been dismissed and left for hours to potentially bleed out unawares until a machine started beeping.

I havent forgiven my self yet. I would rather give birth in the car park with a wooden spoon for pain relief than ever trust a hospital again.

NotYoda thanks for your kind posts; I'm sorry you experienced similar, and so pleased you worked past it with your first boy. Hope I'll do the same! Xx