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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
Ilikecakes · 13/03/2018 14:45

My MIL gave birth like this - rural Ireland in the 1970s. When I asked her how the baby was actually delivered, she admitted she didn't really know, didn't like to ask at the time and didn't like to try and imagine now Confused

AlistairAppletonssexyscarf · 13/03/2018 14:46

an american author wrote a book about the royals and she said that ( if its fact or not i do not know) the Queen Mum had to have some kind of sperm donation in order to have her girls. i read this book years ago and was thinking ' that can't be right' as IVF etc wasn't around in the 1920 or 30s, but she said that it was.

That would be Kitty Kelley and should be treated with Hmm Hmm.

Marie Mongan started her hypnobirthing work as a reaction to the widespread use of twilight birth in the States, after undergoing it in her first labour and hating it. The natural birth movement in the States was a real fight back not just against what we now might think of as over-medicalised birth, but this horrible treatment of women.

Appin · 13/03/2018 14:46

My great aunt had her babies in a maternity home in the 1950s. Years later, talking about childbirth when I was expecting my first, she commented on her own experience and how 'the best bit was when you came round and they told you if you had a boy or a girl '.

LarkDescending · 13/03/2018 14:47

I’m pretty sure my non-royal mother was heavily sedated for the business end of my very difficult forceps birth (late 60s).

Also pretty sure, despite not being on speed-dial terms with either, that both the Duchess of Cambridge and (then Home Secretary) Theresa May were glad that the latter’s presence was not deemed necessary when George and Charlotte were born.

Ilikecakes · 13/03/2018 14:48

Sorry, just to add - she did clarify that she was awake for most of the worse fucking bit labour itself, and was knocked out for the actual delivery, waking then to find a baby in the cot next to her. Mind boggles really....

mimibunz · 13/03/2018 14:50

This happened to my mum in an American hospital in 1968. She wanted to go ahead with a natural birth but the doc had other ideas so 'knocked' her out and brought me into the world using forceps.

QueenAravisOfArchenland · 13/03/2018 14:51

What I don't understand is did they use forceps to take the baby out once the woman was knocked out?

Interesting and seems quite likely/possible. My own DM, who is both a retired doctor and a mother of 6, was surprised to hear that my recent birth with epidural didn't involve forceps and I had pushed baby out - apparently when she was having us all an epidural inevitably meant an instrumental delivery.

retirednow · 13/03/2018 14:52

Queen, they did in The Crown.

Clandestino · 13/03/2018 14:54

I read the title and honestly thought it was an idea by some mad republican.
I am a republican (not in the US terms) but this certainly would be rather unconventional.

The80sweregreat · 13/03/2018 15:00

I don't blame Kate really to be honest ( having a home birth ) the press arn't going to be that bothered about number 3 are they and she has done it before etc , i am sure that a midwife/ doctor will be on speed dial in any case to get to her and she would have the traffic railroaded off the roads to get to hospital if there was a problem of any kind.
she seems to have been pregnant forever with this baby!

LittlePaintBox · 13/03/2018 15:09

The Crown shows the Queen being given opiates known as 'twilight sleep' to give birth. Betty Draper in Mad Men also has twilight sleep. I don't think it's in use nowadays.

www.bellybelly.com.au/birth/twilight-sleep/

RatRolyPoly · 13/03/2018 15:12

Didn't click on this under the old title because I thought it was about the collapse of Monarch airlines.

Now I see it's something far stranger - twilight sleep, WTAF Shock

QuimReaper · 13/03/2018 15:19

I've heard rumours that Kate is planning to break royal protocol and have a home birth for baby number three.

One of the blogs posted upthread suggested the opposite - that royal protocol is to have a midwife-assisted home birth and that it was "controversial" when she decided to have a hospital birth. I was a bit confused by that, I don't remember any controversy at all (not that I especially follow these things) and Diana did it donkeys years ago Confused

IIRC there's also a traumatic labour and "twilight sleep" birth in The Cazalet Chronicles.

Frazzled2207 · 13/03/2018 15:23

I don't think it's complete nonsense but it happened in The Crown. Pretty sure Princess Kate would have rejected such a thing.

susurration · 13/03/2018 15:38

Whoever said Princess Diana gave birth standing up- how the fuckety do you know that?!

Also it's not 'protocol' to have royal babies in hospital. It's only really since the invention of the NHS that people have had babies in hospital at all, so if Kate does give birth at home, she'll be joining millennia of royal women who did the same. All of the Queen's children were born at home, it's only her grandchildren onward who have been born in hospital really.

I have always wonder whether Kate had to have instrumental delivery or c-section with George because she was in hospital overnight, but with Charlotte she seemed to be done and dusted and on her way home in about 8 hours? She was moving a lot more gingerly outside the hospital after George too, where as with Charlotte she seemed much more steady on her feet.

Butterandsugar · 13/03/2018 16:22

For those who suggested this was prompted by The Crown - nope. It was something that she had been told by her Gran (having never met her Gran I cannot provide any confirmation on whether she was a sensible woman or her royal knowledge). When I prompted for some more info, she was very specific that she had believed this applied to just the reigning monarch rather than all royals.

So I think we've clarified that's not right, but I'm quite glad I asked - twilight births and George V's death have been fascinating

OP posts:
AlistairAppletonssexyscarf · 13/03/2018 16:27

I suspect if most reigning monarchs had given birth, they would have needed more than heavy sedation, being men and all.

desertgirl · 13/03/2018 16:47

I had a CS under general anaesthetic for my first (apparently not enough time for anything else; not wholly convinced) and it was very surreal, waking up in ‘recovery’ and being told my baby was fine but somewhere else... (off having his lungs suctioned, I think). I don’t recommend it.... had a planned CS with no. 2 partly to avoid risk of the same thing happening again!

JellySlice · 13/03/2018 17:17

My mum was 'put to sleep' for my birth - against her will! She was furious when she woke up, but forgot to complain once they brought me to her and she finally got to hold me.

This wasn't in England. For my big sister's birth, my parents had done one of the first NCT courses, dm had a Natural Birth using only G&A, with my ddad supporting her for most of her labour.

When dm was pg with me, they were living in another country. Ddad was expected to either (a) go to work and come back to the hospital in the evening (though they would phone his work if he really couldn't wait to find out) or (b) pace the waiting room.

Mum vividly remembers pushing, and the sensation of me crowning, followed by - nothing. Next thing, she's in bed on the ward, all cleaned up, no baby. Very frightening, but dad told her he'd seen me and I was safe and healthy in the hospital nursery.

The doctor told dad that they'd knocked mum out to protect her from pain because she had not been co-operating. Dm said that they hadn't let her walk around, insisting she remain on the bed, and that the nurses had kept pushing the G&A mask onto her, rather than let her control when she used it. Anyway, she said, the most painful parts, the contractions and the crowning, had been over by the time the doctors had drugged her.

She made sure they were back in England for little sister's birth!

Mum considered this drugged birth as very misogynistic, rather than supportive.

Almostfifty · 13/03/2018 17:29

I'm just wondering whether everyone who's posted thinks that everything that happened on The Crown is what actually happened?

FifiVoldemortsChavvyCousin · 13/03/2018 17:31

That sounds awful JellySlice

Morphene · 13/03/2018 17:31

I must have won the jackpot then...I missed giving birth due to general anaesthetic AFTER having 24 hours of trauma inducing uncontrolled pain.

and yes forceps were involved.

Would happily have been knocked out when the first contraction hit.

easypeasylife · 13/03/2018 17:38

My DM had this when delivering me and my siblings and strongly encouraged me to do so. She said it was wonderful waking up and having no recollection of the birth whatsoever; apparently it was very popular amongst the aspiring MC back then.

LakieLady · 13/03/2018 17:43

I don't believe the current queen did that. I know someone on private phone number terms with her and she's very down to earth and says "fuck" a lot.

That's really tickled me. I love the idea of Betty Battenberg effing and jeffing.

BalloonSlayer · 13/03/2018 17:53

Princess Diana had an epidural when she had William, so she won't have been standing up for that one! (How do I know, I hear you ask? Because it was widely publicised at the time.)

Queen Victoria's use of chloroform was ground-breaking for women. Before this it was seen that women ought to suffer in labour, because God tells Eve she must suffer to bear children. Analgesia in labour was seen to be going against the word of God.* When Victoria started using chloroform it became acceptable and women were at long last permitted to have some pain relief.

  • God also tells Adam that he should work the land with his hands but of course inventing agricultural machinery was just fine and dandy and didn't contravene the Bible at all . . . Hmm
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