to think we need to be honest about childbirth?

[DidntKnowThat]

I had a baby 6 weeks ago.

There were a huge number of things I had NO IDEA about and wish I would have known. I even think some of these things should be taught to teenagers in school. It's life, and biology, and IMPORTANT.

I didn't know about:

• Lochia
• What colostrum was
• How hard breastfeeding is
• Baby blues
• Hair loss
• Relaxin and its effects
• That you can tear upwards (learnt this the hard way)
• That there was a thing called 'pre-labour'
• piles
• heartburn
• leg cramps
• Water retention

I'm sure there are more.... however these are all really common things, and I would have loved to have known about them before I got pregnant. I sort of found out as I went along and was constantly worried about what was normal.

AIBU to think that we should be talking way more about childbirth and pregnancy to younger people (teenagers, not young children), and that we should naturally be more educated and 'in the know' about one of the most natural things in the world?

I may also have had far more empathy for other pregnant women around me (which I now have, 100%)

Or, maybe IABU and I should have just used google 😆

I get where you're coming from OP. For example the bleeding afterwards is vaguely mentioned in the books but nothing prepared me for passing golf ball sized blood clots... I wasn't quite prepared for how painful the piles would be... I knew nothing of stabby let down during breast feeding... I had no idea how numb I'd be after birth, with no ability to hold anything and would poo myself on the way to the toilet the day after giving birth... I didn't know that i could end up needing catheters in labour because i couldn't pee... I thought forceps would feel like a gentle tug because it is so glossed over in the pregnancy books, i wasn't prepared to feel like my insides were being ripped out from me... i didn't know my knees and joints would ache for months after birth because of the relaxin still....

Not sure how it would have gone down if I did know all of this beforehand, it wouldn't have put me off though and i think i would have felt better prepared. So many know it all posters on here but I'm sorry i read so much during pregnancy, went to nct classes and nhs antenatal classes and none of the information is THAT honest, it does not fully prepare you.

Also - tearing upwards, WTAF???

To those asking.

Yes, I tore upwards. I tore through my clitoris and urethra and am traumatised by it and also in pain still 6 weeks later, so not going to talk too much about that as I find it upsetting.

My school obviously gave out better sex education than most as I was told nearly everything. I suspect it was to stop us getting pregnant before 17, and they had better success with my year than the year before.

Oh and breastfeeding isn't hard for every woman.

Does society downplay it though? This is the biggest parenting site in the UK (I think!) and it's literally full of threads like this with harrowing stories about childbirth etc.

Some people seem to expect an absurd degree of handholding. Surely it's your own responsibility to find information on subjects that effect you.

TheBubGrower
I don't recognise any of those eight things you've described.

I don't know that society down plays it, but I would say that society has glamourised childbirth a bit... to a point that you actually expect it to be a nice experience (I understand it may be for a small number of people).

It was a living hell for me!

I read a couple of baby books and went to nct courses, read the NHS stuff they gave me, went on pregnancy apps.
There is loads of stuff I didn't know!
Post pregnancy pooing and weeing and how to cope. All the advice is everything will be fine if you do your pelvic floors. I was still incontinent for a few weeks due to the tears (see below) and it was a surprise. I was expecting a bit of leakage but not full on wetting myself and got really upset
The likelihood of tearing (was made out to be a small chance caused by not massaging the area or a bad midwife but the reality is 80pc or something tear so it's more likely than not, whatever you do)
How long lochia would come out for
Post baby blues - everything said 3 days you may feel a bit down. I was distraught and a crying mess for 2 weeks then snapped out of it
That manual removal of the placenta was a possibility
I could write a book on breastfeeding - the lack of info on things like tongue tie and cluster feeding and stuff

The thing is if you go on an nct and NHS course and read the stuff they give you and the bounty stuff and Emma's diary and go on baby centre etc and no one mentions that they haven't actually told you a lot of important stuff or suggests further reading then you think you've prepared adequately. Yes there is a lot of info through Google...but you need to know what to Google! I wish I could go back and give my pregnant self some advice!

Didn'tKnowThat, I am so sorry you tore upwards, it sounds absolutely horrendous, just trying to imagine is making me wince. You poor girl , better still .

I hope your healing continues smoothly.

Most of things you mention in your op I did know about because I read everything available on pregnancy, childbirth and post natal stuff so nothing really surprised me. I'm happy to say! For me it was a 'nice' experiencing. Reading some of this, I was so lucky.

Honestly, people are so brave. If I had gone through what you did, I'd have never even considered another one. Living Hell is an understatement.

I totally agree OP. I had to be induced, many do. Had a baby in the special care ward. Emergency c section.

I went to all the antenatal stuff, read the books. Still had so little information. I was just told ‘oh you don’t want to be induced... ‘

Not taught in schools, but just a good booklet from nhs on the web or elsewhere would be handy.

I'm a grandmother 2kids never heard of lochia and i never had any afterpains

Also I don't think you're given actual facts about risks. Most stuff beforehand is medical = bad and natural = good. But what are the rates of complications from a planned vs emergency c section vs foreceps for example. How does the chance of stillbirth increase day on day past the due date? How much does induction raise the risks of forceps and so would a planned section be better etc etc. This information would really help people make informed choices and it's difficult to find

Also, having a frank talk in antenatal about how often birth is traumatising / very hard on the woman’s body etc. It’s like it’s played down so much that my husband and others really didn’t get how much of a wreck I was. It’s like it’s a big secret.

@PinaColada1 I feel like that now. The birth was really traumatic. I had to have a debrief. Everyone including DH say 'well he's here safe now so that's all that matters'

F**k that!

I bloody does matter that I had a traumatic experience and need to be taken seriously because I am so shocked and upset and angry (still) about it all!

I remember my friend saying that she was horrified that (for her) passing the placenta was worse than the actual birth.
Or in her words "Like trying to shit out a sofa"

I suspect that the pain relief had worn off at that stage though and that's why she found it so hard.

My antenatal classes wanted us to be really prepared so told us EVERYTHING. I had very easy births with no tearing so many of those things you discuss did not affect me.

You can tear UPWARDS????

I had heard quite a lot of traumatic birth stories, it seems a right of passage for pregnant women to hear awful birth stories!!

I had a great book called every birth is different, and it was perfect for understanding how differently each birth can start, progress, end up being.

I knew about lochia, certain aspects of BF were alien to me despite NCT classes, and I really wish I'd known to give me confidence which is what women need in order to make a good go of it.
After pains, only knew about from dm, made worse by oxytocin injections to expel placenta.

Never expected to cry so much or to feel so at sea with it all.

I didn't know it was normal to cry so much.

Anyone would think it was a totally alien experience, shocking really that so many women suffer so much for something that a natural part of life.

After one DC, some 10 or more days later I had another massive contraction and produce a ball size 'mass'. All perfectly normal apparently for a tiny bit of retained pregnancy product.

Didnt know how to manage my breasts and milk production at all, but also didn't realise how easy it all was after the initial establishing stage.

Was even warned about the first poo after birthing! Thanks DM! Was as scarey as giving birth!

No stitches was best thing ever even though some large tears.

Horrified to hear of your trauma of tearing up (which I had heard of, but not that far). You need support to recover psychologically from that you imagine

Never heard of a tear not healing into the teens of DC! surely something can be done?!

My midwife mother showed me birth videos as a teenager. Result was no pregnancy until over 30 as it looks horrendous. I don't think it's a beautiful thing on any planet, although a massive accomplishment whether baby comes out the door or the sun roof. On the plus side I think that although birth was hard, I had an easy time of it as I look back on it all as a positive experience.

The only thing I didn't know about were afterpains, and I only found out about them after dc2. They were more painful than labour but less painful than breastfeeding. Very envious of my friend who described breastfeeding as a mild discomfort that lasted less than a week!

@HildaZelda really? I found the placenta delivery rather funny, and it made me laugh as it was such a weird sensation. Especially laughed when it splatted into the little bowl and flicked blood at DH

Best thing I hear of was women taking babies in to school for the girls to ask any questions about anything, but of course that's just one woman's experience but the girls were very keen and asked loads

The problem is everyone is different so even if you are well informed, you don't know how it will apply to you.

I was absolutely dreading afterpains with DS2 after feeling like I was being trampled by a passing herd of elephants in the days after DS1... didn't get them, even though the textbooks say they're worse second time...

If you read threads about periods/ sanpro, women go through decades of completely different experiences and don't appreciate the normal range of variations. Since having DCs, life is pretty normal, maybe an ibuprofen on a bad day 1. I can now sort of understand why people were so dismissive of the days where I could barely move and curled up under the desks at school in agony because the prescription killers needed time to kick in and I couldn't anticpate which month I was due to be able to take them before being crushed by pain. That's understanding something women go through hundreds of times, for pregnancy/labour/ birth/ postnatal recovery, it's just too much variation to adequately describe.

Unfortunately you can't anticipate what your body will do and how it will heal and react, and that's for an experience that most women will only go through once or twice and very unlikely to be more if it was too difficult to face repeating.

I read a lot during pregnancy (and scared myself with many nightmare scenarios that never happened), but there were still many things I didn't know:

That you can be having painful contractions every few minutes for many hours and still be in the latent phase.

That the latent phase would actually be the hardest part for me to cope with (although TBF, I had an EMCS at 8cm).

That cervical examinations can be more painful than contractions, and until I was allowed gas and air for them, I couldn't help yelling in pain.

That lying down seemed to make the contractions more painful.

That your baby might not instinctively know how to breastfeed. Mine didn't latch well and would suck just once, then be so frustrated that the milk wasn't there instantly that she'd pull away, scream and thrash around.

That recovery from a CS isn't always horrendous. I was luckier than my friend and had a much easier recovery than I'd feared.

I had no idea that lochia would still be an issue with a c- section (tbh I had no idea what I thought, except it must be worse with a vaginal birth for some reason...ha!)

Also, no-one mentioned getting a transverse breech baby out is quite difficult before the op happened, I honestly thought I was going to explode with the pressure they put on me to haul him out

It would also have been nice to know / told that opiate based painkillers dont work for everyone. The Dr refused to believe me that I was in agony as a result, and I basically spent the first 5 days in excruciating pain crawling round the flat post hospital, as I couldn't walk. Oh and also nerve damage - no big post section pants for me as I couldn't bear anything touching my stomach as a result

For all of the above, pinacolada I'm in full agreement with you. It still feels very raw now tbh.

The trouble is there are just so many things that can happen how would we cover it all? The possibilities are almost endless. A better solution may be appropriate after care and support. It really pisses me of to hear the 'well baby is here and that's what matters'... FFS no one is disputing the importance of a healthy baby, but surely your physical well being matters too. Ensuring everything heals asap is important for women's long term gynaecological health and mental health too.

I think it's a feminist issue. If men had to go through labour and childbirth things would be very different, with a lot more time and resources thrown at it.

For those of you with ongoing issues please keep going back to docs, bang on every door you have to, you shouldn't have to suffer like this. It's wrong, a fucking crime imo.

That pushing stopped the pain instantly! And that you just pop open that you are not forcing a baby down something that's as small as you imagine!

It was friend that told me about the chinese burn sensation, and so glad I knew to prepare for it!