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

[ParsnipsAreTheDevil]

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.

Oh yes, my body absolutely didn’t know what to do. My labour just seemed to stop three quarters of the way through! I pushed and pushed and got her out, but she caused a lot of damage on the way. Never again.

With my first I had no idea at all what to expect. I had joined an ante natal class in a new area at about12 weeks pregnant. All I remember is being shown a doll and how the baby came down the pelvis, plus some stuff about 'breathing' which I didn't understand. i wanted a home delivery and a water birth. I didn't want painkillers. Pregnancy absolutely normal, no issues. Waters broke, didn't start contractions. Put on a drip eventually as the pessaries weren't working. The midwives were disinterested and gave me no information at all or advice. I had to make the decision to go on a drip as i was worried about infection.
Given epidural as I couldn't lie strapped to a bed in that much pain. Epidural was topped up so that when it came to push I couldn't feel a thing. Baby got stuck halfway down , shoulder dystocia. I lost massive amounts of blood, ventouse, forceps, nothing worked. At the 11th hour a consultant came in and pulled the baby out with me screaming in pain and hitting him over the head. I had to have a massive blood transfusion and so many stitches I couldn't sit down for three weeks. I had no idea at all that things like that could happen. I had a C section next time and i couldn't believe how much easier it was.
Yes, it is lovely if you can give birth to whale music with a wonderful midwife in a pool, but for most people,, this really isn't a reality in my view.

I felt an utter failure and it affected me for a long time afterwards. My experience of midwives was awful. The treatment i received was appalling, both during before and after the birth.

YANBU it's possible we're intervening too much in childbirth but to say that your body knows best in all situations is stupid and dangerous. Just look at the mother and baby death rate when no interventions are available.

I'm a bit torn on this (perhaps unfortunate phrase since I'm two weeks postpartum so my stitches still healing!). I did hypnobirthing classes and then totally failed to hypnobirth - it was quicker, more painful and more... brutal?... than I had been prepared to expect. Trying to breathe through it felt ridiculously inadequate to the task. BUT I'm actually still pleased I didn't spend the end of pregnancy terrified of birth, and when people say we should 'let women know the truth' I think, 'why?'. What we do need to do is to make sure that women don't feel like failures whatever happens. I think a few people around me thought I might be disappointed in my birth - I never felt like that for a second. I'm fine and I got a healthy baby, so I think that's a fantastic 'birth experience'. I don't know how we ensure it (I think in my case it's because my pre-birth anxiety about the health of the baby was so high that getting him here safely felt like winning the lottery regardless of what has gone on in the previous 24 hours - but I don't think that's a good route to mothers feeling good about their labour experiences!), but I do think we need to have a message that's something like 'birth can be a calm and positive thing - or it can not be. And either way no one has failed.'

My body did NOT know what to do unfortunately,I think that pregnancy is totally natural but not giving birth! Ime

YANBU. I was so unprepared for my births. When I went two weeks overdue, I honestly thought they must have my due date really wrong. Because the baby and my body should know that it's time to come out. He couldn't even be forced out during induction, I dilated to 3 measly centimetres and my body was wanting me to push. Clearly my body had no idea what was going on!
I think positive experiences should absolutely be talked about as well, but in equal measures as the negative ones. Not one person told me that my labour might not progress, I was naive and had no idea that was even a possible thing until it was happening.

I'll also extend this to breastfeeding. All the information I was given and all the things I was told made it seem like the baby would just 'know' how to feed. Imagine my horror when three days later he still wasn't latching on and was screaming and starving and losing weight, yet I was still being encouraged to "keep trying".

I’ve had 4 labours and I really do believe that your body knows what to do when a/ Everything is going as it should and b/ when you’re not so scared and relax enough to do it’s job. You have no control over a but can control b.

Things don’t always go smoothly and this is as normal as anything. But until that happens, listening to your body, staying calm and in control, and letting your body get on with it is actually good advice in my opinion.

I'm not saying that we should tell women horror stories, just that there should be more emphasis on keeping an open mind towards birth and not expecting it to be a certain way.

I had completely the opposite experience, I found when I was pregnant people were desperate to tell me how horrific it was going to be, how you have no control, to prepare for the worst etc. Luckily I had two very straightforward labours and births, but it wasn’t helped by the fear instilled in me beforehand.

’ve had 4 labours and I really do believe that your body knows what to do when a/ Everything is going as it should and b/ when you’re not so scared and relax enough to do it’s job.

I really, really hate the line that if you just chill out and relax all will be fine. It's incredibly patronising.

YANBU OP. I did a hypnobirthing course and thought the emphasis was ‘think this way and breath like this and your body will take care of the rest. Even at the time I thought that was a bit optimistic and could also make you feel like crap if your labour was difficult or required intervention (as so many do).

I was lucky with my labour as it was straightforward. My body sort of did know what to do in the sense that it was all happening and I felt like a frightened bystander with no control over the situation (quick labour, pushing too hard, big tear). Don’t get me wrong hypnobirthing did help me stay calm (until I could get some G&A!) but I do think they paint a very pretty picture of labour on those courses.

But until that happens, listening to your body, staying calm and in control, and letting your body get on with it is actually good advice in my opinion.

Yeah, I thought I was going to stay calm and in control and I'd done lots of practice of the techniques for that. It didn't work for me. I'm not going to beat myself up about that, and I resent that you make it sound like you did it right and I did it wrong.

I guess my body did know what to do, because it was busily pushing even as the midwives insisted I couldn't be in full labour yet and should go home (then someone finally examined me and announced 'well, I can see the head'...!). But that wasn't the same thing as me being in control at all, and it was scary and very painful. Being able to stay calm through that isn't a personal strength or weakness (as DH kept telling them: 'she hates making a fuss! She wouldn't be saying she needs to push unless she really thinks she does!'), it's just a function of how intense what you're experiencing is.

I found the nhs class I did was informative though. They covered all eventualities. Maybe it’s not the same everywhere? If you will turn to stuff like hypnobrithing surely you know that the emphasis is on woowoo relaxation and trusting your body blablabla? I did actually read hypnobirthing the book and found elements of it very helpful but I wouldn’t base my whole expectations on it. IME the Nhs doesn’t tend to push one way or the other.

YANBU. This sort of thing really upset me after having DD (complicated & traumatic birth with lots of intervention). It made me feel like a failure.

I also don't know why some women are so reluctant to believe that other women have experiences that are just different to theirs - not the same experience but they're wussy about it, but different. I'm only two weeks in so who knows how it'll go long term, but so far breastfeeding has been an absolute breeze for me. I don't think women who find it hard aren't trying as hard as me or that they're making a fuss, I think I am very lucky. I also think that people who have calm labours where the pain always feels manageable are very lucky.

Another one who was fucked up by hypnobirthing. DC was an EMCS due to breech and the techniques were completely and utterly buseless in the face of my labour. The courses refuse to talk about pain, disingenuously tell you they don't guarantee pain free birth but refuse to provide stories from women who found it useless, as that would be negative...

I had natural births, lucky me, but it seems kind of irrelevant all these years later. It is a tricky balance, you don't want to scare expectant mothers because the majority of births are straightforward. But of course some won't be, so you need to prepare women for what may happen without causing unnecessary terror. And yes, it hurts - I still remember my midwife saying (21 years ago) that was a nice easy birth and thinking 'I'd hate to try a hard one.' It felt tough enough!

My body didn't have a clue until the final stage. Days of contractions, waters breaking then everything stopping and needing induction with both pregnancies.

However, with my first I was told I was fully dilated and to rest for an hour before pushing. Within 5 minutes I had an uncontrollable need to push and despite epidural could feel the baby moving down with every push. That was the only point I had that feeling of something quite primal and that I felt my body instinctively knew what to do. That part was amazing so I do see how people who had that feeling throughout the birth rave about it (and lack understanding that not everyone is the same)

My body seemed to "know what to do" in that i had an easy labour, quick, no tearing, managed to do some of the hypnobirthing breathing stuff I'd read about, gas and air was enough to take the edge off in the last 10-15 mins of pushing.

But that was all just luck. I was definitely in a panic when my contractions started (at 5 mins apart!) so much so that i started hyperventilating. I was writhing in agony when they made me lay down to examine me when I arrived at the hospital. I had a good labour BECAUSE nothing went wrong, and nothing went wrong BECAUSE I was lucky. Nor because I believed in the power of my body or becuase I relaxed and let nature do it's thing. Childbirth is dangerous.

Yep, I did listen to the hypnobirthing cds for relaxation (pressure, warmth and power anyone?) but I knew I'd want to be in a hospital, with the drugs and the doctors. I was consultant led anyway due to epilepsy, and as pain can be a fit trigger they recommended an epidural but the wait for that on gas and air, hurt a fuckton and I only got to 3cm before it was done! I was induced which may have had something to do with it, but until that epidural was in I wasn't letting them near me with the drip.

I did end up with episiotomy and forceps, but that was a cord issue rather than an epidural one. I was 41+3, and not even dilated a bit so no, my body was doing naff all. Serene whale music birth may be for some, but not for me!

(As a complete opposite case to balance things out, a friend of mine did hypnobirthing on a course, had a quick labour, no pain relief and the midwives didn't even think she was that far gone as she was so calm!)

Grandmaswagsbag

My NHS class was the same tbh.

LisaSimpsonsbff

Yes exactly!! Breastfreeding also came very easily to me, but that doesn't mean I think I did something that those struggling didn't do.

My body had proved to me many times before I got pregnant that it didn't know what it was doing a lot of the time.
I still naively thought I'd get through labour ok.
With ds1, if I'd insisted on leaving my body getting on with it on its own, the best case would have been a child with severe brain damage due to hypoxia. Thankfully intervention in the shape of an instrumental delivery stopped that.
With ds2, my waters broke but labour did not start. Eventually ended up with an emcs and a baby with a serious systemic infection.
Actually, he was very tangled in his umbilical cord so now I wonder if my body refusing to start labour was its way of warning me. Every contraction during the failed induction sent him into extreme distress. He'd have died very quickly had things continued.
The fact is, shit can happen no matter how well prepared you are. For a while I felt like a failure as I'd not had the "natural" birth I wanted. Then I remembered I'd got two healthy children. That's more important.

Parsnips and Lisa, that is the whole point of hypnobirthing. I hadn’t a terrible first labour, quick and traumatic second, b2b but under control 3rd and quick and under control 4th. The (2 last) ones I hypnobirthed on were very different in terms of my fear and relaxed reaction and yes I also had plenty of birthing experience under my belt but it does make a huge difference and I wish I’d done it for the others. The bad labours would likely have gone the same way but the distress for me would have been less.

Please note I said that your body only knows what to do until things don’t go textbook. And nobody has any control of that. I did not say if you chill out and relax it will be fine! I said if everything is going textbook, your body will know what to do if you can control the fear and panic reactions. That’s what hypnobirthing is about, giving you the best shot. Not some kind of promise that everything will go perfectly if you just do it.

My body knew what to do, but obviously wanted to get it over with quickly. 3 hour and 1:40 hour labours. Ds1 the midwives were telling me to stop pushing and pant as his head came out, I did but he still shot out- internal and external stitches required. I screamed and cried through the stitches, with the midwives (I had 3, plus a doctor and 2 student midwives in the room as no one else was in the labour and delivery Ward) telling me I had done the hard part this was the easy part. Like fudge was it. I've never felt pain like it! Give me pushing a baby out over stitches any day! (Turns out i'm very hyper mobile- explains the reaction to the local anaesthetic and very fast births!!).

Ds2 although half the time, perhaps because I'd been 'stretched' before, he too shot out with little pushing, but no stitches! I'm ashamed to say my first words after I was handed him and before he made a sound were 'I don't have to have stitches do I??' But I knew he was ok, I rubbed his back and blew in his face and then he started crying. The weird thing is dp asked me after how did I know to rub his back and blow in his face to get him to cry, as he was starting to panic that he didn't come out crying like all babies on tv do, and I hand on heart have no idea, I don't know if there is an instinct thing there?

HAD a terrible first labour