To be sick of hearing horror birth stories of social media?

[Ambs81]

I've noticed recently a 'trend' of hearing horror birth stories and people talking about 'tokophobia', or PTSD following child birth.

I had a pretty horrific time with my DS, (30 hours in labour, forceps, 3rd degree episiotomy, haemorrage etc etc) but I have never felt the need to tell people the gory details and I am hopeful that the next one will be easily - mainly because I'll know what I'm doing and be more prepared.

I'm sure over the course of my labour things couldve been done differently but on the whole I'm sure every doctor and midwife had me and my DS safety as their 1st priority.

I know there is a lot in the media about increasing rates of c-sections, especialll women elected themselves - I can't help but think that the constant sharing of these kind of stories can't help! Yes it's good to talk and share, but I often think its scare mongering and worry for the first time mums reading this kind of stuff....

For example, I read an article today on a mother explaining how she'd be refused an epidurial and 'torn' open by a doctor!!! I couldn't read anymore and unfollowed the account that was sharing it...

Not constructive, helpful or (most probably) accurate!

I thinl ita good to talk.

My first was an emergency section durely to breach presentation.

My second was a dream vbac who arrived 23 minutes after first contraction with zero pain relief.

I avoided "horror stories" when I was pregnant. Did yoga and hypnobirthing. I went into labour thinking I was going to breathe the baby out, my body was made for this. NHS and NCT emphasise the risks associated with a c-section but brush over the risks of a vaginal birth. That severe tearing and instrumental deliveries are rare. No mention of pelvic floor damage, incontinence, the need for an "elective" c-section after severe birth trauma because of the damage caused.

Perhaps I was naive. It may not have changed my birth experience but I certainly would have been able to deal with it better. I also didn't reach out because I thought since what happened to me was so "rare" there would be no one who could relate. Turns out I was wrong. There are plenty of women out there with terrible birth experiences and we all feel the same, we just wish we were prepared for what could happen to us.

I am now pregnant with my second child, trying to decide whether to try for another vaginal birth or have a c-section. I have a consultation with Birth Afterthoughts next week to get the rundown on what went wrong last time. I'm researching my options, reading others experiences to try and make an informed decision this time around. I would hate for women who have had these experiences feel the need to be silenced because we don't want to scaremonger new mums. New mums deserve to know what can go wrong, not listen to biased and one sided information from NHS, NCT, hypno-birthing.

I could fill paragraphs describing my first birth because it took 40 hours and a lot happened to talk about. Ending up alone in HDU (fortunately baby was released from NICU a few hours later) was not what I excpected when the MW ticked the low risk box months earlier. It hit me hard. More the effect of pethadine, lack of connection with the at times chaotic process unfolding and inability to actively engage with what was happening. A far cry from those elusive "natural" births of gently breathing a baby out.

The second birth can be described much more succintly. Being much shorter was a good start I still ended up in an operating theatre with a birth injury despite my "successful" VBAC. But the birth was better because I'd used forums in between and managed to be empowered to be more actively involved with my birth within the parameters of constant monitoring.

My stories are not horror stories. They are the accounts of how my beloved children came into the world and the deeply personal effect it had on my body and mind. To tell anything else is not my experience and a fiction. There may be others who have learned something about their own experiences from mine being shared. Other people's experiences empowered me and have saved me a lot of trauma and potentially a lot of cost to the NHS. Without them my "choice" would have been another unwanted CS (and the moral baggage that comes with it) or a default of having to relive the worst parts of my labour. Mainstream messages such as the NCT type spiel about water births and active labour did not apply.

What I can't do is watch OBEM. It's potentially too triggering, so it's my responsibility to avoid it.

It's so important to empower women to share their experiences. Improvements in maternal care came at a social cost of removing it from the communities and the package of female experience.

I’m all in favour of women being realistically informed about birth in advance. It is not a fluffy bunny, whale song and chanting, empowering experience.
It KILLS 830 women every day, all over the world. Not to mention the toll of dead babies.
Things can go horrifically wrong with absolutely no warning. You can write all the birth plans you like, but your body hasn’t read the script.
So many women suffer PTSD or PND, after traumatic births. So many shout in anger “Why did nobody tell me?!”
The only reason our maternal mortality in the U.K. is lower than the world average is all that “surgical intervention” so hated by natural birthers.
Women need to be fully aware that they may need an emergency forceps or Caesarian delivery, that they may have a major haemorrhage or the baby may develop fetal distress and need immediate delivery.
It does NOT mean that they are a “failure” at natural birth.
We could spare so much disappointment and depression if we were just bloody honest with women - tell them a live mum and baby = a good birth result. How that happens is outwith their control, and they shouldn’t beat themselves up about it.

YABU.

but I have never felt the need to tell people the gory details

Congratulations. Sounds like you got away without PTSD then.

I'd rather more women knew the horror stories and elected cesarean. 30hours of labour, refusal of epidural all sound to me like a downright butchery and the expectations of what a woman should endure are still medieval.

Truth is, "natural birth" is the cheapest on NHS (especially at home), and c-section most expensive, so the system really saves on you all. There was an article about doctors choosing c-section for themselves when they have children.

Please don't label other other women's birth experiences as 'horror stories'. Your idea of a 'horror story' was their reality. You are complaining about simply reading about it, while they are expected to live through every awful moment and then keep it to themselves?

I'm alarmed that you say your second birth should be better because you will be more prepared. It doesn't work like that unfortunately. That's one of the biggest myths about childbirth IMO.

I don't think people want to read about birth experiences that are the equivalent of a pea out of a wellington boot. It feeds into the same culture as the cheap magazines full of horrible stories like Chat or Take a Break.

BloodyDisgrace vaginal delivery is only cheaper than CS by £84 overall. There is no real saving. The travesty is that women are encouraged not to have a CS because of this misinformation about cost.

I think it’s important to know what can happen during birth. Hope for the best but expect the worst. I’d read stories and been told repeatedly about relaxation, mind over matter, trusting your body, etc. It’s a load of crap made up by those who were fortunate enough to have an easy birth.

My birth experience with a 10lb whopper was terrible. The pain was unimaginable and I couldn’t have any drugs because I failed to dilate enough to meet the criteria to be admitted to hospital. When they finally admitted me two days later (still not dilated but baby getting distressed) the pain was so severe that even huge doses of opiates didn’t touch it, so I had EMCS to make it stop. Both baby and I suffered unpleasant after effects from the drugs - baby was like a zombie and wouldn’t feed so lost a dangerous amount of weight. I’ve been left with permanent pain and numbness in my stomach, I’m covered in awful stretch marks and have an apron of loose skin that effectively makes me disabled because I can’t run or even bend over.

Based on the information I had before giving birth I didn’t expect this at all. Even “expecting the worst” wouldn’t have prepared me for this. Should I not tell other women what happened to me in case it scares them?

This article in the guardian today is worth a read www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/19/yes-hes-alive-but-im-not-ok-the-bloody-truth-about-childbirth

I think it’s a good thing that woman share thier stories, I am grateful for it. If I’m ever lucky enough to get pregnant and have a baby that lives long enough to be born then I’ll be opting for a c section as a result of hearing many terrible vaginal birth stories. It’s good to know the facts. It’s statistically safer for the baby to be delivered by an elective c section - so that’s what I’ll opt for (if I’m lucky enough to be in that situation that is).

DuggeeHugs - CS only £84 more expensive than vaginal birth? That's good, things must have improved since the last time I read about the costs (must be early 2000s).
I think there are a lot of travesties here. That women feel obliged to save on themselves is one, as you say. That they are fed the propaganda "let your body do the work, see how magnificent you are" is another, as if we need to prove anything to anyone. The "risks of medical intervention" is a third one. But, on this one, how many births do happen each day comparing to any operations? Surely birth would be most numerous event, so there is no excuse for medical profession not to master c-sections to perfection so that the risks are minuscule? I suspect they just don't bother because the majority of women are still buying the myth of "natural" birth: that pain is natural, post-birth injuries - well tough shit luv, it happens, "but you have a healthy child in the end".

Interestingly, in USA around 30% of births are c-section because women will sue the shit out of the hospital if they are plunged into 30 hours of labour kinda experience we happily endure here. And in China it is a conveyor belt.

To add, I think it is about paradigm shift: the shift in perception of what's acceptable and what isn't when it comes to pre and ante-natal health, and not about "what is natural". In 1348 it was natural to die of Black Death. A few centuries later someone chose to put an end to it by a cure. Equally, it was normal and natural for children to die in infancy, but someone thought it's not good enough and instigated the improvement in medical care for infants.
Someone needs to find an alternative to splitting oneself open after 2 days of sheer agony, followed by mental and physical trauma.

"For example, I don't think being refused a c-section on request is a breach of womens rights...a c-section is a massive operation, with considerable risk involved, and expense to the NHS. A natural vaginal birth is the safest route for most women out there."

Birthrights would disagree with you there. Just because YOU personally would rather avoid a c section doesn't give you the right to cast judgement or make decisions about other women.

"Another example is people referring to being refused an epidurial, again this isn't a breach of rights IMO. I think the midwives/ doctors are more qualified to assess whether an epidural should be given then I would ever be."

Pain is subjective and the person experiencing it is best placed to decide what pain relief they require.

You seem to be advocating some sort of return to a time when women were allowed to make no decisions at all about what happened to them during birth. No thanks! I'll take what little progress we've made towards women having full autonomy thanks, and continue to work towards making it even easier for women to access the birth they want, whatever that looks like.

Someone needs to find an alternative to splitting oneself open after 2 days of sheer agony, followed by mental and physical trauma

There is an alternative - don’t have children.

Taking women seriously when they ask for pain relief would be a start

BloodyDisgrace that was the NICE figure in about 2012 (the most recent figures I could find). I believe it looked at the bigger costs involved, e.g., longer term effects of the birth, and payouts where delivery had caused long term problems.

As for the rest, you're spot on. I'd also add a fourth: the paternalism in the system which sees HCPs often show scant regard for women's choices and decision making capability. The degree to which women can be infantilised during pregnancy and delivery was a nasty shock. Minimising risks, ignoring consent, breezily pronouncing all will be well when quite clearly it won't, then minimising/dismissing problems after the birth. It's a depressing list.

It depends on the person who is writing it imo, the ones that tend to get me eye rolling are the ones that wanted a natural home birth with no drugs that ended up giving birth in hospital due to complications and then feel they were robbed. I do hate all this it is natural, women have been doing it for hundreds of years with out hospitals etc, yeah and there was a very high mortality rate for both mother and baby back then, they seem to forget that bit. If your birth was truly traumatic because it was traumatic that is fair enough, but if it was traumatic because you didn't get the birth you wanted really annoys me.
I didn't get the birth I wanted for either of my children, I wanted a water birth, but had gestational diabetes with my first and was induced with my second, so I couldn't, everything else was fairly straight forward.
I do agree with the fact that women aren't always listened to though, as the midwife with my first wouldnt listen to me, she tried to send me home even though I had GD and needed to be monitored throughout, it took me, my DH and my MIL to tell her no before she dropped it, I told her I needed to push and she just said "no you dont" and walked off, luckily another midwife came in as I was shouting at my DH to get the midwife back and she actually checked me and guess what, I was crowning and needed to start pushing.

How the hell can any woman have a realistic expectation of birth until she's actually experienced it.
Ridiculous suggestion.

Personally I didn't hear any horror stories and I went into labour feeling optimistic, excited and prepared. I did all the ball bouncing, hypnobirthing, yoga etc, read all the books. Still turned into a complete shitshow and like @treaclesoda and other posters have said, really contributed to PND as I felt like a failure.

With time and hindsight if I get pregnant again I think I'll be a lot more aware of what can go wrong. I don't think that's a bad thing, I'd rather be worried but informed than happy but naive, despite at the time feeling like I had done my research. I personally get frustrated at all the posts insinuating a positive vaginal birth experience is purely down to the mother's efforts and PMA. I am uncomfortable at how as an expectant first time mum I was totally guilty of buying this to a degree.

Tbf I should add that I had my mum's birthing horror story with my brother, so I really didn't need any others to be absolutely petrified.

blueyacht
There is an alternative - don’t have children - yes, for some, like me. But I do think that people who want children should be able to have them without paying with their physical and mental health, at least not to its current extent.
It's a bit like saying to a person who lived centuries ago "Don't want to die of bubonic plague? well, better not live at all mate"

DuggeeHugs
I often wondered that it must be hard, if not entirely impossible, to be assertive while you're in pain, during labour. Speaking must be difficult, so she can't insist on anything or demand things. she's at others mercy entirely.

the paternalism in the system which sees HCPs often show scant regard for women's choices and decision making capability.

I had great experience with first two pg.

New area, new MW teams and hospital - it was awful so paternalistic.

New MW team who insisted rapid labours never happened despite me having had two previous. I think part of the reason they didn't get to us in time was they didn't believe us.

Next day in hospital with DH and baby for check-ups - asks about birth told them and MW insisted it was rubbish and births never happened like that. An older MW over heard and came over and said she'd seem some in her career - no apology from young MW.

They’d been awful in pg – lots of lies including about test results in effort to get us to agree to their preferences – in end we had to complain.

I had great MW teams with first two so wouldn’t say I was frightening of giving birth – but neither of us wanted more children while we were in that area and by time we moved away had changed minds about forth child.

Dsis was in area next door – horrible experience of MW during pg – not great hospital experience despite fairly normal labour put her off any more. I didn’t think we’d fit in scared to give birth category though very reluctant to go through it again would fit.