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?

And incidentally, the establishment is very good at shifting the blame onto “ordinary people”. If they can blame mothers’ urealistic expectations for the failings of the system they will.

And yes I’d fight to my dying breath for women to maintain choice. It’s when choice is taken away that it all goes wrong.....as can be seen in this situation.

There’s not enough midwives out there. One woman, one midwife ...not three women in labour and one midwife running between them. That’s not care, that’s neglect and is why midwives leave the profession in droves.

Some people do feel great I was on a high after home birth, not the same with the hospital births. Not saying that’s what people should do, but that feeling does exist for some.

On a separate note, in the hospital I was next to a poor woman who was being strung along, told not to push, wouldn’t assess because a room wasn’t free yet. So awful.

I disagree (not with the scandal, but I’ve seen no evidence they’re connected) and that’s because the promotion of natural birth is for good reasons - just google “cascade of intervention”. There are good medical reasons to try natural birth. I’ve had 4, and in the 4th with a back to back baby with no progress being made, I hit a point where I knew I had some agency on the outcome - knackered, take the pethidin, have a slew, probably end up with intervention. Or not take the pethidin, dig deep, use the gas and air and get the fucker out. Only felt confident to do that given if had three successful births before, mind you.

This is why there is a natural birth movement - because it can improve outcomes. BUT and it’s a massive but, it should never be at all costs, and we should always remember the most important thing in every birth is safe delivery of the child and least harm possible to both mother and child.

But I do reject how negative people are about the natural birth movement, because it is rooted in positive aims, and has its place.

And while I’m ranting, it’s important to remember that it’s not a million years since wine were routinely shaved, given enemas and strapped to tables on their backs in stirrups to give birth. No choice about pain relief-pethidine and/or “twilight sleep” given automatically. It is more complicated than it appears.

The lack of access to analgesia during and after birth in the UK is barbaric. Gas and air, it just made me puke, all three times. And after! I'm surprised more women don't die with that level of 'care' - those wards are hellholes and when I had DS the lady next to me was moaning, delirious in pain (they'd given her two fucking paracetamol tablets after EMCS) all night, I didn't get a wink of sleep and left just to get away, probably just what they wanted, AMA because my BP had been so high.

As an amateur archaeologist who has taken part in digs I can tell you there is nothing sadder than seeing human remains with a baby part born ...only seen that once. The remains likely from the 14th century ...but that mother could and likely would have lived today.

I don’t blame the NCT either...the classes I have seen are very good and informative. Different positions for birth, pain relief is covered well etc.

I remember running a class looking at positives and negatives of various pain relief options. One dad said “wow....epidural can cause some delays”. My response what that “they may do in some cases BUT I have seen epidurals work miracles for women who wanted to avoid pain relief but had a long labour. Epidurals are amazing. and you can have one right from the word go or have one later on if needed.

My anti epidural niece loved hers after a long labour.

There is an odd undercurrent to this thread - it almost reads like some posters are trying to project that female bodies aren’t necessarily specifically designed to carry and birth babies, and that medicalised births are always safer.

The primary function of human females is to carry and birth babies, this has happened since the dawn of humankind and will continue to happen until Homo sapiens becomes extinct.

In modern life we are lucky that it is nobodies business which females choose to have babies and how they choose to do it, but denying that this is a primary function is just daft, and doesn’t do women as a class any favours.

@StripeyTopRedLips I would definitely have been less happy if I'd been told no chance

it almost reads like some posters are trying to project that female bodies aren’t necessarily specifically designed to carry and birth babies, and that medicalised births are always safer.

almost...
but not quite though

I find the no choice but strap you down drug you up version of old far more unpalatable.

Tg for choice now.

Walking around and standing was far better for me.

Mumsnet is strangely committed to medicalised birth. And also to formula feeding. Both of these are seen by some as important feminist issues. They were when I was a young woman too- we fought to wrest these things out of the hands of an almost entirely male medical establishment and give the power back to women. And now we are fighting to give them back. Funny old world, innit?

The problem with interventions in labour is that they can start off a cascade of increasingly serious interventions that end up in an instrumental delivery or a C-section, that might not have been needed if the earlier interventions could have been avoided.

It is a balancing act - you want enough intervention to ensure the safety and wellbeing of both mother and baby, but not so much that you precipitate unnecessary interventions.

I believe that there are studies to suggest that a vaginal delivery is better for the baby - passing through the birth canal squeezes the baby and stimulates them to take the first breaths, and the good flora from the mum's vagina are good for the baby's immune system too. And whilst good pain relief is good for the mum, it is less good for the baby when it crosses the placenta and enters the baby's blood stream. For example, if pethidine is given too close to the baby being born, it can cause respiratory depression in the baby, which is not good.

So the problem here is that everyone is right - the people who say your body knows what to do, the people who say that women deserve good pain relief, the people who say a planned c-section eliminates the risks of a vaginal birth, those who say that a woman who is well supported, well informed and well cared-for by her midwife will need less pain relief and have a better birth experience, the people who say intervention saves lives and those who say it causes more problems.

When I did my nurse training, and even when I had my babies in the 90s, there were more midwives on the labour wards, so women could be better supported in labour, and midwives could develop a good rapport with their patients, which enabled them to see how labour was going, how the woman and baby were coping, and to support the woman so she got the pain relief she needed, when she needed it, but maybe she needed less pain relief because she was well supported in labour by the midwives. Sadly I suspect this is not the case today, and midwives are stretched far too thin to give the quality of care that was standard when I was a nurse and when I gave birth.

I’ve already decided that I want an elective c section when I have a baby. I’ve looked at the options and made This choice but somehow think I’ll end up facing a fight for my wishes when it comes to it.

You seem to be on a vendetta against natural childbirth rather than being a champion of women's right to medical choice during childbirth. The latter is something we should all be, but the former is just another form of controlling and oppressing women.
You said something like "a planned surgery is safer than an unpredictable vaginal delivery". That statement makes it sound like you think all births should be surgical, and we shouldn't have natural births. You make it sound like all women should be pumped full of drugs whether they need them or not.

My first birth was totally natural. No intervention and no pain relief. It hurt, but I didn't want any foreign substances in my body when I didn't need them and pain relief tends to make me feel sick. I was doing fine on my own. The birth was undramatic and baby was healthy. I went home the same day.

My second birth was an induction which I felt forced into before the 'deadline'. It was horrific. I was given morphine, and it made me ill so I was vommiting throughout my entire labour and birth. And my son ended up being born not breathing and then a bunch if people came into the room and they were doing stuff to him where I couldn't see, and I was still throwing up on the bed. It was truly awful.

I didn't feel like a failure for having intervention, but I felt abused for being given an induction and pain relief which I didn't want, and which I believe made the delivery more difficult and dangerous than it needed to be.

You should be campaigning for women's rights to decide on their own medical care during childbirth. You shouldn't be making natural birth the enemy.

This is why there is a natural birth movement - because it can improve outcomes. BUT and it’s a massive but, it should never be at all costs, and we should always remember the most important thing in every birth is safe delivery of the child and least harm possible to both mother and child.

The trouble with any blanket statement about outcomes is that it misses many key factors to an individual woman - such as maternal age which shifts the risks to the mother of a vaginal birth significantly - as well as the significant underreporting of maternal birth injuries in birth outcome statistics (both by the women themselves and by medical professionals) and their long term impact on women.

OP you're only saying that because you've had a bad experience.

Whilst nobody should feel like they've failed if they don't have a vaginal birth without any interventions, many people do have vaginal births without interventions and they're happy with that. Some people want to avoid interventions at all costs and they'd rather have pain than interventions.

I've had 5 vaginal births without interventions. I've been offered interventions, but I've declined. I hate hospitals, I don't want to go there for a few hours to give birth, let alone have to have surgery, stay in etc.

Each to their own.

You should be campaigning for women's rights to decide on their own medical care during childbirth. You shouldn't be making natural birth the enemy.

This.

JassyRadlet I didn’t make a blanket statement...I said it can improve outcomes

They were when I was a young woman too- we fought to wrest these things out of the hands of an almost entirely male medical establishment and give the power back to women

Bert, my feeling is that with birth, we have given the power to the wrong women in many cases - to the midwives, rather than to the women giving birth. On this thread alone you have people advocating cases where midwives have lied to women in labour, women talking about how the power to make decisions for themselves was either removed or censured.

I've had one midwife in labour who was certainly making the decisions for me and withholding information because she knew what was best. And one who treated me like the person who had the power.

Ironically I had the worse birth injury with the second midwife. But that was my choice, made in full possession of the facts and risks, with my MLU gas and air birth. Entirely my choice, which is as it should be.

It should be each womans choice. My sister was consistently refused pain relief during a very long labour as apparently her midwives 'disagreed' with it. Her second child, she got staff who actually listened to her, and as a result, the birth was so much easier on her.

I had a 36 hour labour with my daughter, and has a few medical staff during that time tell me I was clearly exaggerating the pain and that I would get nothing til an hour or so before having her..asked how they knew when it would be an hour and they couldn't answer straight. When staff changed over, they got me pain meds straight away though. Seems to be just some staff that are against it, which is bizarre really as its not them in labour.

My community midwife person did spend a while trying to convice me to go natural though and to put it in birth plan. Apparently I would regret it if I took any help I wasn't quite as..outgoing then so almost let her bully me into that til my mother came to an appointment with me and said infront of the midwife that basically, you get no extra points for doing it without pain relief, if you fee you need it, take it! Midwife was not quite as outspoken when my mother was there oddly enough. I never understood the way she seemed adamant the only way I would 'enjoy' the birth was if I was in a shitload of pain..then as I said, a few staff when actually in labour had the same attitude, but the switchover staff were amazing.

@ArabellaDoreenFig
There is an odd undercurrent to this thread - it almost reads like some posters are trying to project that female bodies aren’t necessarily specifically designed to carry and birth babies, and that medicalised births are always safer
As an atheist I don't believe that humans have been "designed" to do anything. I believe in evolution which is an imperfect process that doesn't work to ensure that all mothers and babies survive birth or come out of it relatively unscathed. There will be natural wastage and lots of highly undesirable outcomes, if things were left completely to "nature". It's not about saying medicalised births are inherently safer, but making sure the limitations of evolution and therefore "natural" birth are acknowledged so women can make more informed choices.

There is a strange undercurrent on this thread - lots of posts of hospital births which could have been managed better, and might have been if the maternity services were funded and staffed better. But no, as Bertrand implied, let's distract ourselves with blaming the promotion of 'natural' birth.

What you describe hasn't been my personal experience. I had two C-sections (1 EMCS, 1 ELCS), and felt supported throughout.

Many women actively choose to have a 'natural', intervention-free birth, and if it works for them, then great. The important thing is that women are treated respectfully and placed in a position to make informed choices.

Having a root canal is an odd comparison to make, IMO.