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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

All natural birth?

565 replies

TerribleTwosPhase · 07/04/2019 11:08

Ok first time posting on AIBU so putting my hard hat on for this one...
Do you genuinely believe that having a baby with no pain relief/intervention or anything makes it a superior birth to someone who hasn't?
Before I had DD I was quite relaxed about my birth plan, didn't want any pain relief or anything if I could manage it, but wasn't against it. In the end after 3 days of labour with a back to back baby and not progressing I had to have an epidural. Fine that's what needed to happen to safely deliver my baby, and as my body was starting to have issues it was the safest way of processing for us both if I needed an emergency c section. I have no issues with this and understand it's just what had to happen, not my ideal birth but we are both happy and healthy so that's all that matters.
Woman on my Facebook has just announced her babies birth with the line " total natural birth, I am a lioness!"
AIBU to think that this is a bit ridiculous, be proud of yourself fair enough, but do we really need to make people feel bad about how they gave birth? Do you secretly feel better about yourself knowing you done it with no pain relief?
I'm really not trying to be goady here please don't take it like that, but does the fact that everything went textbook for someone mean it's more noteworthy than for someone who didn't? I see so many women on here who are disappointed with their birth experiences and I think things like this surely can't help?

OP posts:
BarrenFieldofFucks · 09/04/2019 08:05

The conversation has moved on, as they tend to, because a poster has got overly hung up on another poster's opinion tbh. And the key to that is whether natural pain relief techniques have any effect. If they do, then it stands to reason that some women could avoid intervention by using them. If they don't, then someone ought to tell the NHS as they suggest them throughout pregnancy.

adiposegirl2 · 09/04/2019 14:14

They then seem to deny having made certain statements, add exculpatory explanations and caveats that were not originally included and/or claim that their words are being "twisted"

Spot on and is a usual occurance on MN.

Maybe all women desire to have a natural birth and when those that need interventions, they feel inadequate with themselves on some level. So hearing someone boast about their totally natural birth brings back their own unresolved feelings about their birth.

Its jealousy really.

droningtraffic · 09/04/2019 14:22

Anybody who feels the need to crow like that, is not a lioness but a cunt. A total cunt.

Every birth is different and trying to make out that you've achieved something by doing it one particular way, is sad.

NewAccount270219 · 09/04/2019 14:34

Anybody who feels the need to crow like that, is not a lioness but a cunt. A total cunt.

Again, I would never have posted anything like that on social media, but I think calling a woman who has just given birth and feels elated about it 'a cunt' is pretty awful.

droningtraffic · 09/04/2019 14:38

It's not the giving birth bit they're elated about though, is it?

It's being tougher than those poor, weak women (house cats?) who had to resort to pain relief.

It's as bad as all that 'too posh to push' stuff.

They're a cunt.

BertrandRussell · 09/04/2019 14:39

“Anybody who feels the need to crow like that, is not a lioness but a cunt. A total cunt.”

That is an utterly vile thing to say!

droningtraffic · 09/04/2019 14:42

Yep, vile.

But so was the original issue.

There is so much crap around that shames women for just about every aspect of motherhood. How you give birth, how you feed your baby, if you work or don't work.... no matter what you do, someone will shame you.

This is shaming women who have pain relief. That's both a cuntish and vile thing to do.

NewAccount270219 · 09/04/2019 14:43

That is a massive overreaction to what the woman quoted by OP actually said.

"total natural birth, I am a lioness!"

She didn't say she was better than anyone, she didn't say anyone else was weak, she didn't actually say a 'total natural birth' is better (though I agree it's implied). And I think she probably is more elated about her baby than some perceived superiority to women who have epidurals!

Was what she said a bit insensitive? Yes (in the same way loads of social media posts are). But she'd just given birth, it probably wasn't that considered!

BertrandRussell · 09/04/2019 14:44

“This is shaming women who have pain relief. That's both a cuntish and vile thing to do.”

But shaming women who don’t is perfectly OK?

sagradafamiliar · 09/04/2019 14:44

I think the thread has reached its pinnacle. It just shows how deep the hatred for other women runs. The tone has been 'you can't say this, you can't refer to yourself as that, it must mean you're a dick, you're dickish and insensitive, you're not allowed to feel proud, your sense of achievement makes you wrong and now, you're a complete cunt'. All about giving birth. By women. Shit.

NewAccount270219 · 09/04/2019 14:45

She's no more setting out to shame people than people who moaned about their morning sickness on Facebook when I'd just miscarried were setting out to hurt me - probably people could, in general, think about how their social media posts might read to people in different situations, but it doesn't make them 'cunts' if they don't.

droningtraffic · 09/04/2019 14:46

You what? I'm not shaming anyone for how they gave birth.

I'm shaming them for being a cunt.

BlueSkiesLies · 09/04/2019 14:48

I assume 'natural' birth advocates are totally pro having operations with no pain relief, teeth extracted, fillings drilled, broken bones set, cuts stitched up... all natural and without pain relief?

PCohle · 09/04/2019 14:50

Why is is "shaming" you to think that it's an odd/boastful thing to post all over Facebook?

I think my friend posting about her DH's promotion is a bit wanky. I'm not "job shaming" him.

BertrandRussell · 09/04/2019 14:51

“You what? I'm not shaming anyone for how they gave birth.

I'm shaming them for being a cunt.”

It is not being a cunt to be proud of yourself for giving birth. However you do it.

BertrandRussell · 09/04/2019 14:55

As I said at the beginning of the thread it was a bit of a dickish thing to say. But to call her a “total cunt”? Seriously?

NewAccount270219 · 09/04/2019 14:56

I think my friend posting about her DH's promotion is a bit wanky. I'm not "job shaming" him.

Do you think she's a cunt who's deliberately trying to make everyone who didn't get a promotion feel like directionless failures, though?

If the complaint was that what this woman had said was 'a bit wanky' I don't think anyone would disagree. It's the idea that she's clearly deliberately delighting in feeling superior to any woman who had pain relief as part of some evil plan that I think is projection and unfair.

doIreallyneedto · 09/04/2019 14:56

@BlueSkiesLies - I assume 'natural' birth advocates are totally pro having operations with no pain relief, teeth extracted, fillings drilled, broken bones set, cuts stitched up... all natural and without pain relief?

Why on earth would you assume that? Giving birth is an active process. The examples you give are passive.

An unmedicated birth uses natural approaches such as relaxation, breathing and visualisation. It also involves being able to move about. Your examples involve sharp implements that are likely to cause injury if the patient moves or may be negatively impacted by movement. That would preclude the use of most of these approaches.

As it happens, I do use some of the techniques I learned when I am at the dentist. They help me relax.

PCohle · 09/04/2019 15:02

"Bit dickish" and "total cunt" aren't exactly a million miles apart as a way of characterising someone's behaviour though.

Why is saying someone's a cunt for "being proud of how they gave birth" totally appalling, but saying they're dickish is fine?

Just wondering how far allow the scale of swearing we're allowed...

Sagradafamiliar · 09/04/2019 15:06

I just don't see how someone else's labour/birth experience and the feelings around it could be personalised so much. It's nothing to do with anyone else. We all can accept that every situation is different. So why take any woman's thoughts on giving birth to their own child as a dig?

NewAccount270219 · 09/04/2019 15:09

"Bit dickish" and "total cunt" aren't exactly a million miles apart as a way of characterising someone's behaviour though.

'It was a bit of a dickish thing to say' and 'she's a total cunt' are, though

PCohle · 09/04/2019 15:17

"Calling yourself a lioness is a bit dickish" v "Anybody who feels the need to crow like that, is not a lioness but a cunt"

The sentiments are hardly wildly different. Certainly not different enough imho that one is totally fine and the second is "vile". (Unless you have a massive problem with the word cunt, in which case welcome to mumsnet Grin)

BestZebbie · 09/04/2019 15:18

Disclaimer: I had a c-section (medically required but also very welcome)

I think "natural birth" is a stupid term to use about humans because one of the fundamental defining features about humans is that as a group we are amazingly good at developing technology to increase our group survival and reproduction potential. So having your baby in a safe place with no medical intervention is natural (for humans and all other mammals) but having other humans use technology to help you is also completely natural behaviour -for humans-.
To be honest, if we didn't put the big brains/tool-making hands combo to provide this so central to our identity as a species we wouldn't even need to have the argument as a lot fewer babies would be getting stuck inside pelvises in the first place....

KateTTC123 · 09/04/2019 15:24

My first baby was born at 29 weeks. I had no idea what was happening during labour as I'd had no classes yet; I just took whatever they recommended at the time (gas and air and I think some kind of morphine)
My friend had a 'natural birth' and was endlessly and loudly smug about it. (Although it turns out she did have exactly the same drugs as me but counted them as 'natural' as they weren't an epidural!)
Another aquaintence posted an article she'd written on fb about all the work she'd put into having a natural birth and that, with enough prep, anyone can have the same!
In my experience labour was nothing compared to watching your 3lb baby fight for their life in NICU and endure brain surgery.
Now 35 weeks pregnant with DC 2 and my birth plan is entirely focused on doctor's doing whatever they need to so that baby and I are healthy at the end of it. If I get to term I will feel incredibly lucky; who cares what drugs or interventions are used during labour??!! It's entirely down to luck.

sunshinelollipopsrainbows · 09/04/2019 15:24

I was proud of myself for having 3 natural births but wouldn't put it on Facebook like that. I'm very rarely proud of myself for anything, Im very cri