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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Royals being put to sleep to give birth? *MNHQ edited the title for some sort of clarity*

297 replies

Butterandsugar · 13/03/2018 12:44

Posting in here for traffic, and also in case my lack of experience is at play here.

I have just been advised that when the royal family are due to deliver their babies they are put to sleep and someone else does the "work" for them because it is deemed too traumatic an experience.

Note, apparently this isn't a long winded and not really accurate attempt at saying they have caesarians.

I have scoffed at this, but an being told that this truly is the case. AIBU to not see how this is physically possible? And why on earth something like giving birth is deemed below the royals if so?

OP posts:
Decisionsohdecisions · 14/03/2018 23:13

The tax payer funds the royal family.
The tax payer funds the nhs. So I pay for my care as well as hers can i have seven doctors and three midwives?
Didn’t think so.
I agree she does deserve privacy.
But if a midwife has said something as vague as ‘the birth was relatively straightforward’ or such like, I don’t think it’s the biggest moral injustice in this situation.

pallisers · 14/03/2018 23:18

My friend was one of the midwives that helped deliver princess Charlotte - there wasn’t anything unusual about the birth. Although bless her, she won’t reveal anything about it other than to say it was quite normal but just with more staff on hand'

She shouldn't have said even that. Really bad form. I hope this isn't true.

pallisers · 14/03/2018 23:20

what’s shameful imo is Kate having three midwives two obstetricians and four paediatricians when in some hospitals women barely get the care and attention they need (and most midwives probably want to give if they could) from one midwife.

Next time you are in hospital and someone tells other people about your experience and your medical history without your consent - well suck it up. What is more shameful imo is that some people have no health care at all.

Eltonjohnssyrup · 14/03/2018 23:28

Actually that sounds like a fairly standard ‘PFO I’m not telling you anything but just giving you a platitude to shut you up’ response. It’s saying nothing by saying something IYSWIM. ‘There is nothing to tell you’.

Remember that poor woman who killed her self because she got conned into giving out confidential info on Kate? People can be right pests if they find out you have that sort of connection and you have to have a platitude to fob them off.

Decisionsohdecisions · 14/03/2018 23:29

Palliser I agree that the midwife should not have divulged anything. That is true. But you’ve fabricated a bit here.
Presumably the average day for a midwife might mean assisted deliveres, episiotomy, tears, c sections, baby’s flying out like superman after 30 minutes or women in labour for 30 hours. So nothing out of the ordinary is really very vague. Yes she shouldn’t have said it, but No where did the poster with the midwife friend mention Kate’s experience or her past medical history. We know from this post no more than the rest of the public. Kate had a baby. In a bit out of the ordinary way which could mean bloody anything.
It really truly is shameful that maternity services are stretched to their limits, there has been an avoidable stillbirth due to staffing problems at my local hospital, yet the tax payer is footing the bill for a team of doctors and nurses for one woman.
It’s upsetting, horrifying and out of place in any kind of fair society.

Decisionsohdecisions · 14/03/2018 23:30

Agreed elton.

Gwenhwyfar · 14/03/2018 23:32

I haven't RTFT, but I thought it was common in the old days for anyone who gave birth in hospital to have a C section under general anaesthetic.

PerfectlyDone · 14/03/2018 23:34

'Twilight' sleep for labour and delivery was not confined to the Royals though, was it?

Give me a mo'...

Members of the Royal family or anybody with unlimited funds having lots and lots of unnecessary staff around when delivering an 'important' baby (as in 'potential heir to the throne') does not surprise me one bit and frankly has very little to do with general health care funding, or lack thereof.

PerfectlyDone · 14/03/2018 23:36

Twilight sleep

Shocking, really Shock

SleepingStandingUp · 14/03/2018 23:49

when Kate was pregnant all 3 times they act like she’s the first person in the world to be pregnant and have pregnancy issues
Who are they? I can't say that Kate or William seem to have gone on about it any more than any other expectant parents and they must get asked about it a lot.

Re Kate's medical team, presumably she is using staff who work at that hospital. They aren't pulling midwives out of NHS hospitals to wipe her sweaty brow. So if Kate and I give birth at the same time, her having 73 faces peering at her emerging princess in no way affects who is working in my hospital. Unless the suggestion is that private hospitals be limited to how many staff they can hire so the rest go to the NHS?

pallisers · 14/03/2018 23:58

Palliser I agree that the midwife should not have divulged anything. That is true. But you’ve fabricated a bit here.

What did I fabricate? I said the midwife should have said nothing - end of story. Nothing means not saying "it was normal" or "it went fine". Saying nothing about a patient means saying just that - nothing

I have no problem with doctors and nurses going home or to their friends and saying "god had a hell of a delivery today - what happened was .... ". I suspect my first obgyn said that and more to her colleagues and friend.

I do object to anything about a named woman's medical experience being shared with anyone else. And so do most hospitals and medical professionals.

I know MN is often very anti-royal. I'm not british myself. But I think Catherine Cambridge is as entitled to her medical privacy as any other woman. And that nurse saying "oh it was all normal" was a breach of her privacy (if it happened) . And then some friend of the nurse decides to share it on the biggest mothers' website in Great Britain a few years later. would you like people talking about your birth or operation or whatever in the public like that - with information shared by the nurse you thought was bound by medical ethics?

GnotherGnu · 15/03/2018 00:20

I can remember the Press trumpeting the Duchess of York's "bravery" because she had had, or was planning to have, a Caesarian with an epidural rather than a full anaesthetic.

mathanxiety · 15/03/2018 01:01

As ridiculous as it might be it is possible, it absolutely did happen, was significantly connected to the royal family, was opted for in QVs case in order to avoid the experience of childbirth and occurred far more recently than I think most would expect.

But so much else 'absolutely did happen' a hundred or two hundred years ago, connected to the royal family - are you arguing all of that is true in the present too? For instance, was the Queen Mum finished off with a shot of cocaine? Is that going to happen whenever Phil the Greek looks like popping his clogs?

It occurred in a really tiny number of births in the very recent past. The vast majority of brutal extractions of this kind took place before feminists began campaigning for putting women's best interests front and centre in childbirth (a struggle that continues).

When something is really dangerous to the future health of the mother and the health of the baby, then on top of being really ridiculous it really is not possible.

5plusMeAndHim · 15/03/2018 01:49

My grandmother
gave birth in the 1930s and had chloroform she was a teacher so it wasn't just the well to do

Rainbunny · 15/03/2018 02:03

Drugged up semi-unconscious birth was still a practice up to the 1960's in the USA. Betty's character in MadMen has a twilight birth and my friend's mother confirmed that it was more or less accurate. I don't think I've ever heard of such a practice being done in the UK - hopefully the NHS didn't go in for that.

BalloonSlayer · 15/03/2018 07:08

All the people frothing about Kate having so many medical staff at her births - she gave birth in the private wing of the hospital.

You too can have that many staff attending your next delivery - just pay the bill!

OldMummy75 · 15/03/2018 07:12

I was born that way! DM was petrified by giving birth and convinced her soon-to-be-retired OB to do just that. 1975, North America.

DM was bitterly disappointed three years later when she couldn't find anybody willing to do the same when came time to deliver my DB...

OldMummy75 · 15/03/2018 07:15

About Kate Middleton's privacy:

Everybody knew it went relatively well when she left the hospital on her two feet so soon after giving birth to Charlotte. It is not exactly a state secret!

Everything else would be a breach of privacy, that I do agree.

cucaracha · 15/03/2018 07:19

Kate Middleton was in England, even if things hadn't gone that well, she would have left the hospital soon after anyway like any anyone else Grin

(of course she wouldn't, she had private treatment funded by the tax payer that NHS tax-payers patients don't have)

Marcipex · 15/03/2018 07:32

My aunt had this in the mid 60s in England on the nhs. She thought it a great innovation, had no memory of her labour, and thought it odd that anyone would want to be conscious.
So it was a real thing, highly thought of by some patients.

Eltonjohnssyrup · 15/03/2018 07:35

(of course she wouldn't, she had private treatment funded by the tax payer that NHS tax-payers patients don't have)

Me and my SCBU babies who went into intermediate care together would respectfully disagree with you on that one.

cucaracha · 15/03/2018 07:49

extreme cases are not abandoned of course, but the majority of women are kicked out of hospital before the pethidine even has a chance to wear off.

Being sent home less than 24h after a c-section under general anesthetic does raise some eyebrows among foreign doctors!

ferntwist · 15/03/2018 07:51

I’ve heard that Kate does hypnobirthing. We’re having our baby at St Mary’s (not the Lindo Wing haha) and my midwife knows those who delivered her babies. Apparently her births have been getting so much quicker that they’re even considering having the next one at the Palace.

Stillwishihadabs · 15/03/2018 07:56

OFGS The duchess of Cornwall almost certainly wanted a straight forward birth and an early discharge - like any other woman. There is less than 2 years between George and Charlotte- it's nature's gift to women that 2nd labours tend to be quick and problem free.

Let her get on with it-she suffers enough in pregnancy

cucaracha · 15/03/2018 08:19

she doesn't look so bad and unhappy on all the photos taken at public events when she is pregnant!

It's a bit insulting to women who are really struggling with health issues during theirs and it's not helping to help them being taken seriously