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 knew about it but I suppose didn't really understand until I went through it. The baby blues shocked me, everything made me greet even saying bye to my midwife lol, the lochia thought cause I had an emergency section I would bleed as much was wrong about that, I didn't know i would be injecting myself with Clexane when I got home etc. I think you can read all you want but once you have went through it you really understand and are surprised on how it compares to the paper. I don't think enough in antenatal classes is focussed on the mood aspect afterwards though signs and symptoms etc, it is one of the most vulnerable times in a women's life for mental health more discussion would be beneficial and stigma reducing.

Birth afterpains also get a scant mention, but I was crippled with them a few days after the birth and it was honestly worse than parts of labour.

^
Me too. It felt like a really bad period for about a week.

I had a EMCS - which I'm glad I didn't have time to Google anything about cesareans because I'd have been worried to death about it all.

Also, breastfeeding. Hurt like hell. Worse than 5 cm dilated. Mega hard. Frustrating. But, oh, its natural, of course you can do it!

Then there's the pain, oh, they minimise the pain in all the books.

And then there's the baby. They let you leave with a newborn baby. I had no feckin clue what I was doing! No experience! Madness.

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.

^^

This too. My sections both went really well.

I’m quite glad about not knowing those things before becoming pregnant if I’m honest. I remember reading a pregnancy/baby book and scaring myself to death. The everyday reality of being pregnant was not as hard and scary as the book made out and I didnt suffer from a lot of the things mentioned. I’m on baby three now and I still don’t know the half of it. I’m in a pregnancy group and feel like a lot of the other first time mums know a lot more than me. I wonder if I wasn’t so naive I would have had as many children!

I knew most of that. But I thought breastfeeding was going to be fairly easy. I had read that your baby finds the nipple and latches on, and that you may get a bit of tenderness for the first week or two. That was in a baby book. It was pre internet being common. I had no idea how hard it can be,

I think id heard of most of them before I was an adult , but once your pregnant you might read up about it , I just think its not that important to teach it in school , knowing about it before you still dont know exactly how this will feel like anyway

It's very worth knowing the stuff that everyone gets, and the most common stuff. Those that had cs probably didn't have a clue what the procedure would be.

It is important to feel as much in control as you can, and well supported, but there are some absolutely horrendous experiences and I think some women are barely referred to about their own births.

The information is available but I guess people can be reticent to talk about it, at least in real life. My friend warned me about lochia, properly warned me ‘the blood! Loads of it! And bits fall out! For SIX weeks!’ Otherwise I could imagine finding it surprising
Congratulations anyway OP, hope you’re through the toughest bit now.

OP
Nothing
And I mean NOTHING
Can prepare you for it ! It’s a shock

Second ones are way easier as you know what to expect

I agree OP, and I especially think we need to be educated more on the effect childbirth has in the days and weeks afterwards. In hindsight I was really naive and thought you have a baby, you're a bit tired & you bleed for a couple of weeks but all the pain is gone. I couldn't believe how much it took out of me and how weak & sore I felt for weeks afterwards. It took my husband saying 'you are effectively injured, you wouldn't be trying to do so much if you had any other injury' before I would accept it was normal to feel so rotten.

Also - despite reading the books - I had never come across post-partum hot flushes at night time. I kept turning the heat down because I was so hot and thought I must have been cooking the baby!

Antenatal classes should be free and have more focus on after the birth as well as before.

But honestly I think most threads about ‘things no one tells you’ are things no one tells you about YOUR birth. No one can know what your personal experience will be like and unfortunately there will always be people that experience relatively rare problems.

I knew about all those things before I gave birth. Many of them were discussed at antenatal or by midwives at various points.

Everyone definitely said lochia would be a few weeks when mine was 7 weeks and most people I know had lochia for over a month.

The piles I wasn’t quite expecting. I assumed if I got through pregnancy and birth unscathed that would be that? Not that they would appear two weeks later and that the pain would be worse than labour.

Well it’s only after reading this thread that I now know the effects of relaxin! I had a baby 7 weeks ago.

There is so much I wish I had known- I was induced and I don’t think induction is covered well in antenatal classes. People just tell you not to be induced but not why!

I wish I had known about water retention afterwards- I was enormous for weeks and it was horrid!
I also wish I had known about the night sweats. I thought I was really ill.

I haven't read the full thread (famous last words) I had an emergency csection so can't comment on many things as it sounds like a walk in the park to many of the stories told but I wish I knew how painful it was when your womb goes back into place, also going to the toilet after (pooing) was hideously painful, I felt like I was pushing out all my internal organs. My breasts absolutely hurt like hell at times (expressing) and I remember crying in the shower whilst massaging them with geranium oil! Also a few months into my pregnancy I found it hard to even walk as it felt like someone was poking a knitting needle into my breast from the nipple inwards!

I knew about most of that. My mum told me for a start and my doctor/midwife gave me loads of information.
A lot of women are open and honest about their pregnancies it's just that others don't listen and are of the opinion that we are being overdramatic because "pregnancy isn't an illness."
One of the only things I hadn't heard of before was gestational diabetes and how it doubles your risk for PND.

One thing I wish someone told me was that the feeling you get to push is the same as wanting to have a massive poo.

I distinctly remember lying there shouting that I needed the toilet and to let me up.... but the midwives were insistent that I had to push. May have been the drugs and epidural!

Also if you have a full spinal block some heathen expects you to be able to push despite not being able to feel your body doing it. I had a whole reliance on my tired brain that If I thought push it would know what I meant. That was hard work!

There is such a huge swing though. For some the baby simple strolls out, takes to the breast and they simple feel happy, others (most?)go through utter hell. I knew all about childbirth as I read up thoroughly throughout pregnancy, half of what I expected to happen didn't, and stuff I didn't expect to happen did. You can't fully understand until you've been there, done that, got the t-shirt. How do you describe that tearing sensation? It feels like tearing and it fucking hurts. How do you explain the baby blues? I was laughing one moment then sobbing hysterically because I couldn't find my watch (that I had broken 3 years before hand). My friend's baby blues were way worse. They can't say what you will or won't feel or go through.

I get where you are coming from OP. I read plenty and had all the information, but nothing prepared me for the horror of childbirth and the aftermath. I can’t think of a single friend who feels otherwise. Sure, the books tell you, but they don’t really tell you. If anything, most things were minimized IMO. It is a traumatic experience, no doubt about that.

A lot of women are open and honest about their pregnancies it's just that others don't listen and are of the opinion that we are being overdramatic because "pregnancy isn't an illness."

Totally this. The books I read reinforced this opinion.

YABU. Most of this information is already available.

I am always very open and honest about my experiences with the birth of my two boys. Frequently I am told I am unnecessarily scaring new mothers. The unfortunate reality is people don't want to hear how horrible and hard some of it can be beforehand then afterwards complain no one warned them!

I agree with you, pregnancy and childbirth are seen as some romantic thing. In reality it is hard on the woman. I think the point of this post, is that she is trying to say that unless you search for this information, its not obvious or widely discussed.

And I would say that it should be taught at school because not only young women but young men should know what I woman goes through. I only learnt from my friends, about all that happens in childbirth, I had one friend who sat on a rubber ring for 2 months as the doctor cut her open, and whose husband was complaining about the lack of intimacy post-childbirth. The reality is that even the subject of childbirth is rarely objectively discussed, instead people always assume that giving birth is better than a cesarian which in fact is not true. I get very annoyed when people tell me about having a natural birth because it is not for everyone and many women have a terrible natural birth (one friend who was bed-ridden unable to even use the toilet for 3 months after birth comes to mind)

Honestly the majority of that is common knowledge and if you didn’t already know about it, all manner of books and online sources are available that explain...

The only thing I didn’t know about out of the above was breastfeeding being difficult which I definitely learnt the hard way. What shocked me most about childbirth was exactly what can go wrong and how serious it can be- nobody and no book warned me of that.

I was a 30 something year old researcher and I didn't know about any of that stuff when I got pregnant and learnt the super hard way.

My pregnancies were shit due to multiple problems I had no preparation for. I believe AND and PND would be reduced if mums were better prepared for the realities of pregnancy and childbirth.

I remember always wishing that the boys were actually part of those talks about periods and pregnancy and the like, because it might actually work towards making it an issue men are sympathetic with

Not to derail but don’t think this would go well. I know if my friends and I had sat in on the male version we’d be having a good snicker about “nocturnal emissions” and the like

But your reality is different from mine? If you go around telling mother's to be that they will tear, they will get depressed, they will feel alone, they will think they've lost their baby etc then you are scaring them unnecessarily because that might not be true. So all the material out there tells you that there is a chance you may tear, which is true. It doesn't get too graphic because there is a huge swing from needing a couple of stitches to needing surgery

Women should be made aware of the truths of childbirth. Far too many think that it is about water births, scented candles and whale music and then are shocked to discover that it is labour, messy, painful and it does change you. Until recently many women died in childbirth. Before the NHS women assisted family and friends who were giving birth because that was the only option and they learned first hand the realities.
You now hear of new mums suffering from PSD and I wonder how much of it is due to unrealistic expectations.