to think the natural birth at all costs ideology is fucking crackers?

[burnagirl]

We have a scandal on our hands. Shrewsbury Maternity Unit.

I couldn't believe what I was reading, but to be honest, I wasn't all that surprised, having had many a run in with the natural birthers/earth mothers in the past.

There is a toxic and insidious ideology permeating the 'birth culture' in the UK. This culture that tells women that our bodies were 'made' to give birth, that our bodies KNOWWWW what to do, that any intervention means failure on our part. That childbirth pain is something to be endured with happiness and joy - I mean, really? Is it some sort of a more 'noble' pain? Something transcendental and sacred and good?

Nah, fuck off with that. You wouldn't have a root canal with no pain relief, so WHY do we fetishise female suffering in childbirth? To me, there's this mile-wide misogynistic miasma around this narrative, probably rooted in religion.

Then there's this totally daft idea of intervention/c-section being a failure. Such bollocks. We don't seem to realise that, from an evolutionary perspective, it isn't even necessary for MOST mothers to survive childbirth. All we need is ENOUGH mothers and babies to survive, so no, our bodies are not sacred temples that somehow magically Know Best.

Can we please do away with the woo around childbirth and just do what needs to be done to ensure that mothers and babies come out of the (let's face it, fucking painful and dangerous) process alive and well, however the hell it happens?

@firstimemamma
But people were making blanket statements that all c-sections are always more expensive than all vaginal births and that isn't true
I don't recall anyone saying that... If they did then of course that's nonsense.

My hospital is very pro homebirth (they have a dedicated team of midwives) and VBACs. I had two c sections (emergency and elective) and had to fight to get the elective one. The consultant I saw refused to give me any information regarding the risks of VBAC and only talked extensively about the worst outcome from a planned c section.

I'm all for women choosing how to deliver their babies, but the impression I had was that you are only supported if your choice doesn't include surgery and it's as intervention free as possible.

By the way, the midwife I had in theatre during my elective section told me she had made the exact same choice as wanted to avoid a VBAC.

Absolute bollocks. There's no one giving out medals at the end of it, regardless of delivery method. Each person should be free to choose how they deliver. It is their labour. Their choice. Shame on anyone who criticises how women choose to get through it.

I have had 3 sections and feel like I did miss out by not having a natural birth, even now and my eldest is nearly 21.

I do feel for me that the choice was taken out my hands for my first delivery. My waters broke at 34 weeks and dd was breach. I arrived at the hospital around 45mins after my waters breaking and was 9cm. I had not felt a contraction! I wasn't given a choice on wether to try naturally, I was told I needed a section and that was it, I wish I had been stronger and spoke up. Dd was a great weight at 5lbs.
My 2nd section was life or death for my ds so easier to "live" with, he had stopped moving at 29+5 and had a heart rate of 40bpm, which ended up in a crash section. As I had 2 sections it was deemed unsafe to try a natural for my third birth.

I would have liked a woo midwife for my first birth, maybe then I would have been given the option to decide for myself and given all of the facts and risks.

However, the treatment and pain relief after was shocking and sounds like it is still very sub par.

Unfortunately people read tabloid headlines and think they know the full story. The recent study that claimed planned caesarian birth is £400 cheaper than vaginal birth added in compensation for negligence - this adds on millions. Obviously this is stupid, as you cannot include negligence as a normal part of vaginal birth, it doesn't make sense to include those figures! If a baby is later diagnosed with cerebral palsy for example, it can be hard for a trust to prove it isn't caused by vaginal birth, in the situation of an elective section, the trust cannot be held liable for the CP as clearly an elcs won't lead to CP. This doesn't mean the vaginal birth caused the CP - but simply that the trust cannot prove it didn't. Or perhaps negligence did occur, but why include that? Lets instead focus on preventing it happening again. Negligence happens in elcs too but usually it causes harm to mother rather than baby, which leads to far lower compensation payouts than when harm is done to a baby.

I can assure you, anyone who sees the realities knows that when you compare like for like, caesarian birth is obviously more expensive. Even the vast amount of one-use-only equipment used, the number of staff involved, the longer hospital care, the higher number of infections requiring medical attention/medications, the costs of cleaning and maintaining operating theatres. There's evidence that babies born by elcs are more likely to require admission to the neonatal unit than those born by vaginal birth. As I previously mentioned, there's also growing evidence around future complications to children born by caesarian birth.

Realistically, the true cost cannot be accurately measured, however it is pretty obvious that the majority of vaginal births will be cheaper than the majority of caesarian births.

Anyway, I cannot even remember how this debate of cost started! The cost should be irrelevant anyway! If a caesarian is wanted or needed then of course it should happen, regardless of cost!

CentralPerk there is so much dangerous misinformation in your long post, I think it reflects exactly the culture the opening post was about

You may not like what I said, but I can assure you, my post was based on facts. I am not sure which bits you feel are misinformation or dangerous, but actually my comments are all backed up by evidence.

I am sorry if my post was 'long' but no one has to read it

Totally agree; I suffered one after dd1 largely because I felt such a failure as a mother from the off after having an epidural with her. I know that sounds dramatic but my senses of perception were warped and disturbed during that time.

I can’t believe it’s still going on 15 years later. All I will say is that no matter how fucking ‘perfect’ your birth is, it’s no reflection on how you’ll cope for the next twenty plus years as a parent!!

Shame on anyone who criticises how women choose to get through it

Well said! This is the crux of the argument. Really, who cares about the financial cost of a caesarian? If women are given the full information to enable informed consent and fully understand the risks in future pregnancies/risks of repeat caesarians etc, then I fully support elcs for maternal request.

Women should be celebrated for however they grow and birth their baby. Regardless of mode of birth, it is a beautiful miracle

Sorry not ‘one’; pnd 🙄

MW's are highly trained, they are just too short staffed to provide proper full care.

I have had 3 vd's, gas and air only. I have a theoretical risk of complications with an epidural which wouldn't be discovered until the needle went it. Two of them they didn't even believe I was in labour. I am the least woo person ever, I just didn't find it that painful. However I am still criticised.

In terms of feeling sorry, I did when my friend had dts. The first was a VB, #2 then flipped round so she had to have a CS. She had the recovery from both, which isn't great at all.

@CentralPerkMug I had three days and three nights in hospital before my induction when I requested a c section. The cost if hospital stay was obviously ridiculous. I then monopolised the anaesthetist because the epuridurals wore off so quickly and he kept on administering top ups. Then the anaesthetist was present for the ECS afterwards having to administer more drugs as the epidural did not work for my C section... I still believe I developed some sort of resistance to it after the first had been administered. I was only in for two nights after c section. I could have gone first night but as I was b feeding and baby wouldn't latch I had to stay in for a second. So if I had had the c section I wanted in the first place that could have been one night stay in hospital instead of five, less anathetist time etc. Doesn't make sense to me at all!

Sorry I meant to say that baby wouldn't latch duebto all the drugs which I wouldn't have needed if I'd had the c section straight away instead of the induction.

Im due my first baby next year and would like an ELCS but some people look at me like I'm mad when I mention it, it does make me wary of discussing it with people (mainly women).

Someone then recommended the Mongan method so just to be thorough I'm listening to the audio book.. The relaxation tips are nice but there is an awful lot of "our bodies just KNOW" without any reference to women that have complications or who's bodies did not "know!" Also there are weird things like "we are capable of having the same peaceful labour as cats and horses" but cats and horses can't frickin talk to tell you they are in pain, I mean come on really!? Eyeroll lol

Caneloalvarez, people have no right to look at you as though you're mad but you don't have to tell them in the first place. Being as lots of women have emergency Caesarians it could just look as though you had to too, maybe labour going on too long or something.

I must say I don't really understand anyone actually choosing abdominal surgery but each to their own I guess.

I'm an older mother, having tried for quite a long time to conceive. The one advantage of this is that I was in no way prepared to be fed any nonsense from anyone, or have anyone try to guilt-trip me about the decisions I made.
I had a very healthy pregnancy with no age-related problems at all, and naturally went into labour exactly on my scheduled die date. But after that things didn't work out as hoped/planned.
I'd drawn up a birth plan which was realistic and we went with that, which was:
Try to give birth naturally (I had use of a birthing pool)
If necessary, have waters broken/sweep
If necessary, have pain relief
If difficulty arises, follow advice from medical staff.

I spent hours in the pool to no avail, my body decided it had absolutely no clue what to do and I didn't dilate enough. My waters were broken, I was offered an induction which I initially declined but after several hours of unproductive labour agreed to. After several hours linger and still nothing I was becoming exhausted and the baby was beginning to show signs of distress, so an EMCS was carried out.
I have absolutely no regrets about any of it
Everything was done as much as possible in accordance with my wishes, and mediation intervention saved both my life and that of my child.
I refused to be badgered about breastfeeding either - mixed feeding worked for me and I have a healthy child.
Perhaps it helps to be assertive but I don't see why it has to be so competitive, or why anyone would willingly go with the difficult options.

Bluerussian, it's not always this black and white though. People have different reasons as to why they would want a c section. Or had no option in the end. It's not always a 'choice', trust me. I had obstacle after obstacle towards end of pregnancy, and during labour, lots of issues, suspected infection after 24 hours in labour, my blood pressure dropped, my baby's heartbeat was not recovering after contractions. It was the worst few hours of my life, and when c section was mentioned it was a huge relief. I was absolutely and completely exhausted because of very high temperature, iv antibiotics, the lot.

When you have a team of doctors in front of you saying 'we have 15 minutes to get this baby out' it's not a choice.

I must say I don't really understand anyone actually choosing abdominal surgery but each to their own I guess.

I’m not quite sure how to respond to this, it’s so one dimensional and simplistic.

The vast, vast majority of people are not ‘choosing’ between a lovely breezy natural birth or abdominal surgery. They’re ‘choosing’ between abdominal surgery or serious threat to the life of mother or baby. Does it make sense now?

Even ‘elective’ c sections are often ‘chosen’ because the chance of a calm natural birth is practically nil.

I had an elective for my second. I ‘chose abdominal surgery’ because I was knocking on the door of 41 weeks, he wasn’t budging and for various reasons, the chances of ending with my second c section were sky high.

This time I wanted it calm and planned rather than the birth of DS1, where I was sprinted down the corridor to theatre and given a GA because the the threat to my baby’s life was so significant. Thank god they got him out in time.

An elective c section was a brilliant birth by comparison. I was delighted with it.

If a baby is later diagnosed with cerebral palsy for example, it can be hard for a trust to prove it isn't caused by vaginal birth, in the situation of an elective section, the trust cannot be held liable for the CP as clearly an elcs won't lead to CP.

I thought that there was some debate about this? The CP society says that it's more common in twin births and they are now finding with information coming from routine scans at 12 weeks that some twins get reabsorbed, but that it had already had an effect on the remaining twin. This was knowledge just not available 40 years ago. It made me wonder whether in some cases the CP existed and caused the difficult birth, rather than the difficult birth causing the CP.
This American site discusses the issue. www.cerebralpalsyguidance.com/cerebral-palsy/risk-factors/multiple-births/

I didn’t even read to the end of your post before hitting YANBU. Completely agree. Thank you for putting this out there.
(Mum of 2, dc1 no pain relief induced birth, dc2 epidural &’emcs)

Even ‘elective’ c sections are often ‘chosen’ because the chance of a calm natural birth is practically nil.

This. I'd have loved a easy quick vaginal birth but I opted for a elective with dc2 because my optimally positioned fairly small but giant headed dc1 couldn't navigate my pelvis. He couldn't be pushed or pulled out with forceps either. At the back of my mind all the way through pregnancy with dc2 I thought about changing my mind but her head size was equally massive and I couldn't face a repeat of what happened with him.

If I sneezed babies out like my Grandmother and Great Grandmother who described it as "podding peas", I wouldn't choose surgery either. My "d"m loves sending me newspaper cuttings linking c-sections to everything under the sun and I swear is disappointed that her grandchildren are obnoxiously healthy, normal weight and have no allergies.

I must say I don't really understand anyone actually choosing abdominal surgery but each to their own I guess.

Well, let’s look at it logically.

You’re a 38 year old first time mother. The lowest risk is a successful vaginal birth, but even then the risk of an anal tear is 15%. (‘Successful’ is a fairly subjective term here.) The risks associated with an ELCS are marginally higher.

But the risks associated with an EMCS that takes place after labour has started are four times higher, and you’re more likely to have an EMCS after attempted vaginal delivery than if you’re younger.

It’s entirely logical to look at those facts and decide that you’d rather have a birth with a longer and more painful recovery but without the risks associated with an attempted vaginal birth given the decreasing rate of ‘success’ and risks associated with EMCS.

Or Im choosing to have abdominal surgery because last time I was induced and then ended up having emergency c section at 42 weeks. I was 39 and this time I'll be 41. The risks of am elective c section are less than a vbac and I'm 41 so fairly high risk it will end in c section anyhow esp as my boy hasn't had a natural birth before.

Body not boy!

It isn't natural at all for humans to give birth.
The facts are we are animals who have evolved into humans.
As a result of this our hips have got narrower. Our birth canal has gotten twisted. A human baby's head has grown bigger than it originally was as we have developed intellectually.
A human pelvis is inflexible.
So all in all we have evolved into creatures who struggle to give birth. Our bodies are simply not designed for it.
I would definately recommend my dd has an elective ceasrean , preferably at around 37 weeks.

I had an emergency c section for my first then an idyllic v bac. I never understood why anyone felt a failure for a c section. I met a neighbour in London who was devastated that her candles and water birth plan had not worked and she too had an emergency c section like I had. She was a42 year old first time mother with other health issues. She was fine and had a gorgeous little boy. My secretary was pregnant at the same time as her and I yet 5 years younger her vaginal birth went wrong and her baby died. I struggled to be sympathetic to the woman mourning her planned birth experience I was just relieved we both made it through. I think the natural birth movement have set expectations way too high.