If you knew what birth entailed from the start

[DrVonPatak]

I'm asking this from an observer's point of view. If someone sat down with you before going into delivery and gave it straight to you about what will happen from a-z (proper 1-1 explanation, not birthing courses where half the info is geared towards saving money ) do you think this would make you more assured or would have made you run for the hills?
The thing is, I sometimes work with women after the birth and I do come across the view of having birth done to them IYSWIM, as midwives/doctors take over. I can appreciate that healthcare professionals have a vast knowledge that can't be imparted in a couple of sittings, but sometimes it does feel like being told exactly what is going to happen would maybe help women stay on the ball and be more in control of what is going on.

@toastyfingers I completely agree! Another HG sufferer here who has also had irritable uterus this time as well as pregnancy anxiety because of my previous preterm birth. People that tell you to "enjoy every minute" can get in the sea as far as I'm concerned!

gottengottengotten is right with I think that what is needed are midwives that LISTEN to the woman in labour.

I had a planned c section with my first so when my water broke and I started having small contractions I needed to go in. This was at 8:30am. At 11:30 pm they checked and I was 1cm and decided that not much was going to happen that night. Well it did and what it was was from 11:45 one constant long contraction that was not picked up so I was not in labour and my belief that I was and the fact the pain was a 10 was me being wrong because there were no breaks showing and therefore no contractions.

It took me screaming at then at 1:15am to get me to the delivery suite a moment I am both intensely proud and embarrassed of. They conceded to take me down to the delivery suite to check but if not they would need to take me back up (and pretty much rang my husband to tell him not to rush either)

Well lets just say by 1:45am it had all kicked off I was 10 cm and DS heartrate was suffering because the one long contraction was causing him distress. They ventoused delivered him by 2am. It wasnt me who went back up to the ward embarrassed it was the midwives who pretty much had to be told that it if I wasnt in the delivery suite and left alone on the ward without monitoring it could have been different. For those 20 minutes the midwives and doctors did take over (I am not even sure they took my consent for the ventouse or potentially the forceps.

My only advice for anyone given birth or pregnant is listen to your body and be prepared to fight for people to listen to you because you do know best. The smug male midwife telling me that i would know when I was in labour and me replying yes I know and I know that I am still gives me rage over 6 years later

I have such mixed views on this, I genuinely don’t know what I think.

On the one hand, I think the NCT/NHS leading women to expect that childbirth is an ‘experience’ that you can ‘plan’ because it’s ‘what your body is designed to do’ is ridiculous when you think that before modern medicine, childbirth used to kill about 1 in 20 women and babies. It’s an inherently dangerous and we have medicine to thank for it being so much safer now. In reality you can’t plan it and you will be advised on the best course of action by an appropriately qualified professional.

On the other hand, I can’t see any good in women being afraid of birth and disempowered in the hands of medical professionals.

The smug male midwife telling me that i would know when I was in labour and me replying yes I know and I know that I am still gives me rage over 6 years later

It gives me the rage how frequently I see posts on here from women who say they weren’t believed when they told midwives they were in labour - it’s outrageous.

I’m about to have my 4th baby. I’ve adopted the ‘head in the sand’ method with each of my pregnancies, as that’s how I’ve found it easier to cope.

I felt I was told what could happen and why it could happen by a Midwife on an NHS bump to birth class. She was amazing. Told the facts in plain English but was reassuring because if things went wrong then I knew it would be normal and that it wouldnt be a reason to panic.

I felt emboldened by the extra information, not scared.

I wasn't exactly uniformed, I'd thouroughly read the pregnancy/birth/ postnatal book, including the sections on complications and went to the NHS sessions, but I was niavely expecting to follow the family tradition of fairly quick VB births, not a 40 hour labour ending in EMCS after 2 hours of pushing and ending up in HDU due to complications. The pregnancy was low risk, there wasn't any particular reason to expect that outcome, and it did hit me hard for some time. My second birth helped a lot.

Better engagement from medical staff would have helped. Not being dismissed as "pregnancy aches and pains" by the GP at 34 weeks when undiagnosed SPD had me crying at the checkouts of the supermarket in total agony as I conceded defeat at such intense exertion. 3 weeks later, I was unable to leave the house independently. I didn't feel engaged with during birth, a lot of which was down to an absence of effective pain relief during a long, exhausting overnighter, bearing in mind I hadn't slept for more than an hour at a time due to SPD for many weeks. Staffing level was probably a lot to do with it. If I'd been asked for an epidural, that would have relieved a lot of trauma. Instead I got the pethadine that I didn't want and was really the only thing on my "go with the flow" birth plan. At the point it was offered, I was so much in pain, I'd have consented to absolutely anything. Pain relief should have been mentioned before breaking my waters, not after my contractions were rocketed up several leagues.

The second birth was much better because I was much better engaged with. The birthplan filled two pages but was used appropriately. It was a set of starting points, total no-nos (absolutely no pethadine under any circumstances and refusing all consent for it as DH had consented to the second dose when I was too out of my head in a world of fire- I only knew about it after through reading my notes) and my preferences on some directions of development (e.g. epidural if I found myself immobile anyway). It certainly wasn't a plan A ending, but wasn't traumatic because the MW was great at keeping me updated with devlopments such as telling me she is about to press the red button and the room is about to get busy. The SPD was also better dealt with although I self-identified it and did a lot of self help, but generally I felt I was listened much better through pregnancy and birth.

An opportunity for a postnatal debrief and a check a few months in could be helpful to women with birth complications and injuries. Sometimes difficulties aren't yet apparent by 6-8 week checks, and they are pretty perfunctory anyway. I was stunned that emergency major surgery had so little follow-up, whereas I did have a 3 month check for 3rd degree tear.

I wish somebody had told me that the first few weeks after having stitches was a million times worse than the actual birth. I couldn't sit down comfortably without crying for nearly a month!

I was also taken back into hospital for clot removal 3 days after birth which was just hell on earth having a speculum inserted on a freshly stitched vagina to remove clots with no pain relief!! I passed out with the pain. Obviously I could never have planned for this happening and not sure what else I could have done if I had been told but still.

Nothing can prepare you for childbirth - every woman experiences it differently, and every Labour is different even for the same woman.

Writing a birth plan is in my view just a way to make women feel in control, but can only really lead to disappointment. It’s a rollercoaster ride with no-one in control, all you can do is cling on until you make it to the end.

I agree that midwives need to listen to women - I was in hospital waiting to be induced when my labour started with DD2, the pain was pretty intense and building quickly, but the midwife said I was only 1cm so not to call my husband. I did anyway, and lucky I did because she was born an hour after he arrived and 2 hours after I felt the first twinge!

Yes; I knew what would happen. I read lots of books and quizzed my poor OB endlessly - including about worst-case scenarios as I do not like surprises. He was a great doctor; worth every penny.

I think the myth of control is a dangerous one. No wonder women have a bad birth experience if they expect to be in control.

I'm currently sat here at 40+9 waiting for the arrival of DD2. I avoided all classes etc with DD1 as I just wanted to go with the flow and not have unrealistic expectations of what may happen. I had a very positive birth and am just hoping that the same happens this time round (although she has already made me wait longer and is generally already being a pain in the ass). My only hope is that I won't have to have an epidural or c-section but again realise that this is all out of my control.

I was a lot slower to recognise labour second time as it was one long backache until quite late when it turned into 3 min waves, not the abdominal cramps that I'd had in my first labour or the false labour a few days before.

I just put the backache down to the physical trauma of having heaved myself off to my MW appointment 500m down the road and catching the bus home because I couldn't lift my hip enough to heave myself up hill. At least my plan to exert myself into labour worked

Good luck snowone, hope it goes well.

Everyone has such a different experience and even the same person won't labour in the same way each time, so I don't see how you can tell someone what will happen from A to Z?

The best advice I received was

• don't listen to other people's birth stories and don't read about them online. It's always very polarised.
• don't have your heart set on the "perfect" labour. By all means have preferences but also know that things can change. Express your wishes but don't beat yourself up if things don't go to plan.

The second piece of advice was given to me by someone in therapy for PTSD after a failed homebirth (ended up being bluelighted for an emcs)

All the information is available for those who want it, pretty much everyone knows how to google. Some would just rather not know. I knew exactly what I could expect. It didn't put me off or make me more confident because I knew I still had little control but I still wanted to know what could happen. I don't think keeping yourself in the dark helps, personally.

So, from what I am reading, imparting exactly the amount of knowledge a woman wants before hand to feel CONFIDENT, improved communication with the staff during labour, a default debrief session afterwards, followed by a support group of moms and babies from roughly the same time would actually be of far more help?

@Quartz yes! I was in labour for hours before I was believed! They kept saying it was just my uterus being irritated by my waters breaking. When I was at my booking appointment for this pregnancy I found out that it had been recorded that my birth was really quick; I corrected the record saying I was in labour for 12 hours but was only believed in the last 4 hours!

FWIW I did a bit of natal hypnotherapy with DC1 (just reading and a CD, not classes) and I had zero fear or trepidation leading up to labour. It didn't go to plan and all the techniques I had practiced were useless on the day but I did manage a natural delivery despite a 50 hour augmented labour / drip and waters being broken at 6cm / almost 2 hours pushing.

I also had a completely natural birth centre birth (tens, g&a only) as well as an induction (which was fine but baby had issues ended up in NICU for 2 weeks!)

It varied so much - even with just my own 3 deliveries!!

I read up on what could happen so I was well informed. There were no surprises for me at all and I didn't feel like I was a passenger along for the ride. When things didn't go according to plan and I did need intervention it was fully explained to me what was going on, even in my out of it state I knew what was happening and why. I didn't feel out of control even though I was needing help.

I didn't need someone to sit down and explain it to be beforehand I just used reliable websites and did my own reading. My husband did the same so that he could advocate for me if it came to him having to make decisions for me. The information is out there you just need to read it. Equally if it makes you more frightened to find out what MIGHT happen you have the choice not to fine out.

I don't feel I would have benefitted from knowing more about the mechanics of birth but it would have been immensely useful to know how hard those first few days were going to be.

Not the NCT utopia of warm mother's milk.

Wish Mumsnet had been around in those days.

But most information is not information at all but bias, based on government wants (midwife led birth centres anyone?) and some sanitised version that the baby comes soon, clean and is a happy experience ...

Thanks you @FaFoutis

I knew exactly what was happening all the way through as I researched beforehand and asked questions throughout my pregnancy and the birth. I obviously couldn’t control the outcome though! My birth plan consisted of “Both of us alive and well at the end, and NO FORCEPS!”. But they had to use forceps to get DS out. I knew it could mess up my insides, and it did, but the alternative was a dead baby.

I think what would really help mothers would be to tell them to do some research themselves beforehand so they understand the process but for them to be prepared for things to change - in my experience, women who have a very detailed birth plan often feel upset afterwards because things deviated a lot from the plan so they felt out of control. I think nct does women no favours sometimes by their emphasis on the perfect natural birth - it means if mothers end up having an instrumental or a c section, they feel they have in some way “failed”.

I wish someone would have told me it BURNS when your baby crowns, but otherwise ignorance was bliss. My MW explained changes as they happened and encouraged me to trust my body and her. I feel that’s how it should be.

This I was so unprepared for the burning sensation!

I think ignorance is bliss mostly, my labour was very quick with midwives not believing I was in labour which also helped as it was all very quick and straight forward