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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

... about "natural birth" and "your body knows what to do"?

394 replies

ParsnipsAreTheDevil · 27/07/2018 07:48

I keep seeing the whole "don't worry your body knows what to do" thing thrown at pregnant women and it was a massive part of the hypnobirthing course I did before
DS was born (he's 2 now). When it came to it it turned out my body didn't have a bloody clue what to do. In labour for 3 days, wasn't dilating, emergency c section and we both got sepsis. Felt like a massive failure afterwards thanks to the massive emphasis on natural birth and my body categorically NOT knowing what to do?

Aibu that what we should be saying to pregnant women is to keep an open mind about birth? I've met a few women since who had very similar experiences to me. Breathe the fecking baby out my arse.

OP posts:
Ijumpedtheshark · 27/07/2018 07:50

YANBU.

ToastyFingers · 27/07/2018 07:55

I 'breathed my baby out' meaning dd2 shot out uncontrollably and forcefully and all I could do was breath, let alone push.

Yanbu though. I hated all the misinformation and hidden statistics you get from midwives while pregnant. Birth is natural in a sense, but still totally Fucking scary and potentially horrendous.

Original poster
ParsnipsAreTheDevil · 27/07/2018 08:01

I mean it's nice when you're pregnant I suppose to believe it's all going to be a lovely natural experience (which for lots it is of course) but it doesn't really prepare you does it

OP posts:
DwangelaForever · 27/07/2018 08:03

Deffo not natural birthers above all else annoy my happiness!! I've seen on crazy online VBAC groups women saying "babies know their due date" to people who are close to 42 weeks am refusing help. Why would you take the risk!!

Pengggwn · 27/07/2018 08:03

"Lovely natural experience" 😂

Birth HURTS. It really, really hurts. My body didn't 'do' anything, I did it. Not in a hurry to do it again.

LoopyLou1981 · 27/07/2018 08:05

My body didn’t have a clue what it was doing the first time around either (24 hour labour, never got past 5cm, ended in EMCS and a stint in SCBU). However it did seem to learn from it’s mistakes and I had quite a straight forward birth with my second.
So, no, YANBU. I beat myself up for months after my first was born because I’d ‘failed’ x

raviolidreaming · 27/07/2018 08:06

I never went into labour. At 42 weeks I had an ELCS with an 11lb baby. My body didn't have a clue what it was doing!

Annebronte · 27/07/2018 08:06

Agree. I’ll think people who say things like this are ignoring the shockingly high proportion of women who used to die in childbirth before modern medical interventions were possible. It’s a painful and potentially dangerous process.

Dreamingofkfc · 27/07/2018 08:07

For some ppl though, including me that was the case, it started spontaneously and was long but not unreasonable pain for what I was doing. It seems if you have a positive experience you can't really talk about it. Most ppl seem keen on spreading fear and how traumatic it is, doesn't have to be that way

FluctuatNecMergitur · 27/07/2018 08:07

If your body knew what to do, women wouldn't still be dying in their hundreds of thousands in childbirth round the world every year.

Peakypush · 27/07/2018 08:08

YANBU my first birth was horrendous and I felt scarred and let down by the whole experience. However my second time was pretty perfect and my body really did "know" what to do and even though it was painful as hell I vividly remember at the pushing stage thinking to myself between contractions that "this is so cool!"

darceybussell · 27/07/2018 08:08

No, you're right, my body didn't know what to do either, but I still think the hypnobirthing was worth doing to help me to view my experience more positively.

I actually watched an interesting video on this exact subject by the hypnobirthing midwife just before I gave birth.

userabcname · 27/07/2018 08:08

Yanbu. My body had no idea. Waters broke but no contractions. Had to be put on a drip to induce. No urge to push but after pushing for hours finally got him out. 3rd degree tear. Haemorrhaged - lost 4 litres of blood and needed a blood transfusion. Had to be repaired under General anaesthetic. Woke up with sepsis and tachycardia. Fucking nightmare. ELCS next time all the way.

Original poster
ParsnipsAreTheDevil · 27/07/2018 08:08

It seems if you have a positive experience you can't really talk about it.

That is not my experience at all, hence why I was woefully unprepared for what happened to me.

OP posts:
Grandmaswagsbag · 27/07/2018 08:10

I agree but neither should we scare women shitless. I was quite naive but If everyone had told me their realities of birthing before I had mine I would have been completely terrified. I don’t think anything can really prepare you, even for a relatively straight forward birth!

ExBbqQueen · 27/07/2018 08:10

Dc1 & I would be dead if I let my body do it naturally. If by some miracle I’d have survived dc1, dc2 would have killed me. That is if I’d survived my birth - I would have been dead within a week of being born - premature baby. So no me & my mum didn’t have a clue!

YeTalkShiteHen · 27/07/2018 08:11

With my boys my body didn’t know, it was a long hard slog both times. With DD (breech) gravity took over and she was out before I knew what was happening, also a bloody scary time.

But aye, the emphasis on “natural” birth and the pressure it places on mums is awful. Whether they’re born with or without intervention is fucking irrelevant (in terms of being a “proper” Mum, not in terms of the trauma a difficult birth can cause), and it’s extremely unfair to pile yet more pressure on to a new Mum.

MrSpock · 27/07/2018 08:12

YANBU. I hate all the unscientific woo around birth.

SwimmingKaren · 27/07/2018 08:13

This thought actually comforted me when I was terrified about labour but it still doesn’t prepare you for how brutal even a textbook birth can be. I was pretty shocked by the violence of it all and nothing really went wrong for me. It’s no wonder some women are traumatised by birth - I always think to myself that if men had to give birth we would have found a far more civilised way of doing these things by now. Grin

Grandmaswagsbag · 27/07/2018 08:14

Isn’t the whole pint of hypobirthing to try and remove fear? So it would seem pointless to teach it and then say ‘oh you might have x,y,z horrible things happen to you’? But I wonder if the unknown is a massive factor in fear as my 1st birth was no picnic but I feel weirdly calm and confident about my upcoming 2nd. I just know it will be ok.

Grandmaswagsbag · 27/07/2018 08:16

Hypobirthing Grin should say hypno, obviously!

Fizzyhedgehog · 27/07/2018 08:17

I usually sat through those sessions thinking "Well, you can go on and have your baby next to a stream with the help of some forest fairies...I'll be in a hospital, with doctors and pain relief." Each to their own. Sod the natural stuff. My mum would have lost me, had it not been for her emergency c-section.
DS went over by nearly two weeks and I remember some people telling me that my due date might be off, so not to worry. My due date was not off. I knew which day he was conceived. (We'd been ttc for four years.) Hospital luckily got a slot for induction before I went over any more.
Some 28 hours, with the help of a drip and having to be pulled out, DS arrived. Thanks to the epidural, it wasn't a terrible experience, either.

Oysterbabe · 27/07/2018 08:18

I think it's helpful to hear a range of experiences so you can hope for the best and prepare for the worst. My births were actually great, really fast and straightforward. It did feel like my body knew what to do. It's a lottery.

SpongeBobGrannyPants · 27/07/2018 08:18

The only thing I think my body "knew to do" was push. And that wasn't a great reflex either as I tore both times! 🤬

OrgyOfBarminess · 27/07/2018 08:18

Even if you have a text book labour things can still go wrong. I had a water birth last time, DS was early so only 6.12lbs and I had gas and air. I almost retained my placenta because my body didn't do what it was suppose to do.

Shitting it a bit about having DD any day now because all births are different YNBU!