AIBU to think that the term 'natural birth' might cause upset to others?

[Mitzicoco]

I had two water births. One fairly straightforward and the other not so (thank god I was in a hospital). When chatting to other mothers through NCT or baby groups I noticed that a lot of people referred to their births as natural. Nothing wrong with that, but I just wondered if I might feel upset by these comments if I had had a c-section, or some other delivery. Surely every birth is natural? What do you think?

As mammals comparatively our children have the biggest head circumference to push out vaginally.

Yep and my big headed first born got thoroughly stuck in mine. We evolved too fast!

You always get comments like "women have been giving birth naturally for thousands of years" yes well a large portion died along with their babies Barbara I'm not sure we should be comparing.

A natural birth means no intervention (no forceps/vontouse etc) and assisted birth is done with forceps or vontouse or c sec. Frankly if someones is offended by the term natural birth then they have bigger issues! I am glad my children and myself are alive and healthy regardless of one being "naturally" born and one not. No one can tell the difference between them so is it really such an issue what we call a method of delivery??

BetrandRussell No. I am merely disagreeing with you. I don't "fight" with internet randoms.

The bizarre thing is that you’re disagreeing with something I didn’t say!

BetrandRussell if you say so

I’ve been thinking about this and I believe women should be offered more choices in childbirth and then we might feel in control and empowered. We might be able to own our choices more. At the moment it seems as though medicine/ midwifery don’t give you any choice, there’s a paternalistic attitude of “here’s what we think you should have”. No options, no choice.
The idea that it’s better to have an intervention free (possibility painful?) childbirth is only OK if that is what the woman wants.
Personally I wanted an ELCS as it’s safer for the baby and I was only getting one chance at having a healthy baby. The risks outweighed the benefits of vaginal birth in my case and once fully informed, surely that’s up to me?
Initially I had to fight to have it agreed but fortunately I am articulate and informed (HCP so read up on it!) so they gave up arguing with me and agreed.
It feels awful reading story after story of women feeling shit about their birth. Nature is a bitch too, so it really is just luck at the end of the day but informing patients and letting them choose has to be the right thing to do surely?

@Deadwife I'm absolutely not saying chuck out all medical advances and give birth in a tent - I'm sure many doctors had good intentions but their attitudes were often based in a sense that they could better nature.

It's safest to let birth follow its natural course UNLESS there is cause to intervene, in which case of course all the tools of medicine should be used. But routinely stepping in won't help eg giving every woman an episiotomy caused more injury because some women wouldn't have torn at all.

I really hate the division in attitudes to birth between hippy/natural and medicalised as represented by MLU vs labour wards - I wish there was a happy medium where you could be in the most chilled out atmosphere and tech only wheeled in if you need it.

My feeling about childbirth always has been..”There’s a baby in there, please get it out! “
There is more bollocks talked about childbirth than almost anything else. If women were allowed to have lower expectations about this “beautiful, natural, empowering experience” then maybe less of them would have their lives blighted by trauma and nebulous suspicions that they had somehow “failed”!

Actually I don’t think pain relief should be optional - it should be mandatory if the medical professional feels it would benefit the mum.

This is absolutely bonkers.

Actually I don’t think pain relief should be optional - it should be mandatory if the medical professional feels it would benefit the mum.

alrighty then
Should we hand over the rest of our bodily autonomy too just because a human is exiting that body?
I don’t think so.
My first birth experience was shocking from a bodily autonomy point of view. Childbirth was “done to me”. I felt like a piece of meat on a butchers slab. I was repeatedly assaulted by both midwives and doctors - and by that I mean internal examinations were carried out without my consent, and continued even after I was screaming at the top of my lungs for the doctor to remove her hand
Let’s just throw in some pethidine that I didn’t ask for to sweeten the party shall we?!
Absolutely bonkers train of thought.

I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting compulsory pain relief, surely? It must have just been a passing thought a poster wanted to test out.....

But maybe it’s part of the pendulum swinging back. Women fought so hard in the 1960s and 1970s to reclaim childbirth from the medical machine- the dehumanising routine shaving and enemas, the “just in case” episiotomies and pethidine, the flat on your back feet in stirrups birthing. It would be sad if things go back in that direction.

I can't be bothered to RTFT. I had a c-section and am not at all offended if someone wants to say "natural birth", everyone knows it's just used as a euphemism for vaginal birth. Getting my baby here safely was all that mattered. The most useless "advice" I've ever had was after the birth however, where apparently it's not OK to be upset about the ongoing issues post c-section because I have my baby. Anyone who thinks this is helpful advice let me tell you that it's perfectly possible to be grateful he was born safely, to love him to distraction and to be upset that I have ongoing pains in my stomach, a fatty overhang and a big long scar (the op wasn't straightforward in the end). Other friends who had forceps, episiotomies, tearing, incontinence etc had their struggles too; they also deserved support in their upset about their injuries while cherishing their babies.

BertrandRussell Minus the compulsory shaving and enema, my first birth was very “1950’s” in style. Flat on my back, in stirrups, I was told what was going to be happening rather than asked if I was ok with it. And if you were to read my notes, it’s obvious to anyone, that except for the fact that it was an induction due to PROM, there were no complicating factors in my labojr whatsoever. No concerns for mine or my baby’s health.
The only thing I can think of is that I was only 19, and the hcps just felt the need to treat me like a child who has little to no autonomy over their care

@IntoValhalla that's horrific

SuePerbly Defjnitely wouldn’t put it in my Top 10 Life Experiences Worst part is I was just so glad to be out of there and just forget about it all, that I never took it any further than a scathing review on the “How did we do?” questionnaire they handed me when I discharged myself It’s too late now, but I really wish gone down the route of formal complaints etc. The only good to come of it was the decision I made to never birth in a hospital again (unless it’s a life or death emergency), which led to the perfect home birth of DC2, and hopefully DC3 later this year

Valhalla- that’s awful. It was the pretty universal experience of giving birth in hospital until women started speaking out in the 60s and 70s and challenging the medical establishment and demanding that mothers were given as much control and choice as possible. That was what the NCT in its early days was all about - a campaigning organization for the rights of pregnant women.

BertrandRussell I met a magnificent midwife called Dianne Garland earlier this year at a conference, and she was a huge champion for water birth in the 1970’s She stepped away from practicing in hospitals where the male doctors were telling her what she could and couldn’t do with her labouring women Since she got the ball rolling in the mid-70’s, she’s travelled around the world teaching midwives and obstetricians in countries where birth is very medicalised how to facilitate normal, physiological birth without intervention. I could have listened to her for hours!!

IntoValhalla - thank you for sharing this- I will definitely look Dianne Garland up, she sounds great. I (feel that I) was lucky to have a waterbirth. Not only did it soothe me physically but it gave me SPACE. People can't prod and poke you in the same way when you are in a water bath!

Mitzicoco Dianne was there along with some other fantastic speakers all involved in the birthing process in some capacity. It was an amazingly informative day!! I could have listened to them all for hours but they had to squeeze their piece into a one hour time slot each

Who cares if it causes upset, people are far too upset by words and terms these days, pathetic snow flakes 😴

YANBU. I think it is quite a perjorative term. Imo a vaginal birth is not automatically ‘natural’, and a Caesarian or assisted birth isn’t unnatural. All births are valid, and no one kind should be held in esteem over others when it’s very rarely under the control of the mother.

I’m unlikely to have a straightforward vaginal birth (gestational diabetes, very large baby) and I already feel a real sense of failure about the fact that I’m more likely to need intervention, induction and / or a c-section. A lot of that is because I feel like I’m not living up to the ideal of a ‘natural birth’.

Gah, not only is this a zombie thread, it was resurrected by a horrible and insensitive troll. That will teach me to be more careful...

Depends on the context in which it is said. In itself I wouldn't have a problem but when my NCT friend kept going on about how different everything would have been if I could only have had a natural birth and how if only I could have gone to this lovely special midwife-led clinic it would all have been different because I would have had a Natural Birth, it did begin to feel a bit much.

The day I gave birth to ds is one of the most beautiful memories of my life, I didn't need anyone to suggest it should have been different.

Tbh I don't know what was so natural about my earlier vaginal birth either: I had gas and air and in the end an episiotomy, I had stitches for my tear, which Mother Nature doesn't normally provide, I survived it because of medication which kept my blood pressure down to relatively safe levels.

Bored op?yes yabu.