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?

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

Yes you did - and apologies that I implied you didn't; others on this thread have not been so careful or nuanced. The natural birth movement certainly doesn't. As a pregnant woman in her 30s, I certainly wasn't given age-appropriate data for the relative risks to me - particularly in my late 30s.

However, I'm still wary of even 'can improve outcomes' when the data is so dodgy and postnatal care is so casual about birth injuries.

Also whilst a c section might be 'easier' at the time, it takes a long long time to recover from whereas really, getting sort of back to usual after a natural birth doesn't take that long (I say with a prolapse still from 7 years back but..)

There was a poor woman on my ward when I had my daughter, she had had to have an emergency c section..everyone else on the ward were vaginal. She was breaking her heart as when her baby cried she could not just get up and pick him up as it was too painful and shed been told it could burst stitches too :(

As such, I don't really get why operations are seen as the easy route. Maybe for the day of the labour, definitely not in the long run.

I've had two EMCS. One in another country, where throughout I felt listened too and engaged.

In the UK I had (or rather DP had to, I was just a bit preoccupied) to get me pain relief, I had to camp to be admitted, and once I was in a labour room (whatever they're called) all the midwife really wanted was for me to get on the bed, have an epidural and shut up. I'd had an epidural last time, and I was doing OK on G&A, and planned to hold out and just have a short-lasting spinal if it went to c-section (which it did, and I did hold out, and it was better for me than the epidural last time, because I know myself).

I think there's a bad culture in some hospitals, and honestly, I think that an awful lot of it could be solved by talking to the labouring women in their care, and letting the woman make an informed choice about what they need at the time, be that being left alone, or all the medical intervention available.

@Bumpitybumper

I do hate the "you're designed to do this" line too.
We evolved to walk upright, and with that evolution choice we paid the price with painful childbirth. Evolution isn't perfect, which is why women should be given the choice and not told they need to do things one way or the other.

What OrangeSlices998 said. While I'm in favour of women having the births they want and the medical interventions they need, there is absolutely nothing in the media coverage of this maternity unit that suggests that "natural births" or "earth mothers" have anything to do with the multiple failures in care that occurred. See for example this:
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/shrewsbury-maternity-scandal/nhs-maternity-scandal-shrewsbury-telford-hospitals-mothers-babies-report-a9207176.html

Can we please keep some logic in the fights we pick?

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.

No one is trying to 'project' either of those things.

On the first, it is factually true that female bodies aren't specifically designed to carry and birth babies. We have awkwardly evolved over millennia to be able to do it with only a manageable number of us dying as a result.

On the second, people are trying to challenge the demonisation of any medical intervention in birth. It's ignorant of history and the huge drop in maternal mortality that occurred from the 1950s onwards, and it's wilfully ignorant of the many women sharing accounts of asking for medical interventions and being denied them, or being made to feel lesser or failures because they had useful, available and reasonably safe medical treatment during their births.

'I have seen epidurals work miracles for women who wanted to avoid pain relief but had a long labour'

I agree with this from upthread. I hadn't wanted an epidural but after 48 hours of contractions and 3cm I agreed to one and was 10cm within the hour. Things then unfortunately stalled and took another few hours, ending in episiotomy and ventouse (followed by pph), and tbh I found pushing without actually feeling contractions quite disorientating (as I later realised with my second and third, very fast, pain relief-free births).

During those few hours I started to get nervous and asked for a CS. The MW who was with me reminded me that I had said I really didn't want one (true) and said she would prep me and I could give the go-ahead at any point but ds was OK and we would try without a bit longer. It ended up with the ventouse etc situation but I recovered very well and I've always remembered that sense of still being in control despite it all.

This wasn't in the UK.

Did you mean to imply upthread that people who are traumatised by their birth and received help are 'fragile'?!

I know comprehensive reading isn't a skill all of us possess, but I was talking about myself there. Where did I say anything about others?

So with you.

So many other mums to be in the antenatal classes thought I was mad for saying I'd take what drugs I felt I needed and whatever procedures the trained medical staff recommended to keep me and baba healthy/alive. They had detailed plans, some were resistant of using tens machines or the birthing pool as they wanted to 'really feel it' and be as natural as possible no other operation would give you the option of pain killers or not. Genuinely baffled me.

Loads of people asked me on the lead up to the birth what I was planning etc (odd) but once the baby was here nobody gave a shit. Fair enough if you don't think you need an epidural etc but there is no prize at the end if you do it all natural and in horrendous pain

Agreed. I'm on a Home Birth Facebook group.

And the mental gymnastics they will do to convince themselves that the nasty Dr and midwives are wrong to tell them to birth in a hospital because of their medical issues is disturbing. And of course then there are bag and bags of comments supporting their god given right to do what the hell they want at any cost because they know their body better.

I was as 'earth mothery' as you like and did all I could to avoid a hospital birth.

I did NCT and was supported by an excellent 'home birth' team from our local hospital.

I never felt pressurised or subject to an 'insidious idealogy',

I had a calm manageable labour at home, in my pool, no pain relief except TENS and then pool, back to back labour, and then after hours of getting-nowhere pushing, the midwives and I made the calm decision to transfer where there was a successful ventouse intervention.

I didn't feel a failure, no one made me feel a failure.

What a load of hysteria.

The idea that pain is healthy in Western medicine initially came from a publication from the Battle of Waterloo where surgeons noted that pale, silent, uncomplaining patients (eg: who were already in shock, which they didn't know about then) tended to die from battlefield amputations whereas people screaming and trying to punch the surgeon often made a full recovery. It is incredibly bizarre that every branch of medicine except midwifery has moved on from applying this generally in the light of subsequent research.

I didn't feel a failure, no one made me feel a failure.

What a load of hysteria.

Well if it didn't happen to you then it can never have happened to anyone, right?

The 'hysteria' is a nice misogynistic cherry on top of your sneering dismissal of other women's experiences. Well done!

I agree with everything in your post.

What a load of bs re pain. What if people do not want to be drugged in birth. I’m can and did make my own decisions re the three I had.

100 upvotes for this!

Tg we have moved on from when no choice was given.

But is it fair to force a midwife into a situation that she does not believe is safe? To potentially make her powerless in a situation that could result in the loss of life?

Because at the moment that's what happens. Midwives Have to attend home births. Even if they don't believe it's right. Even if they believe it's dangerous.

I don't know if I agree anyone is paid enough to deal with that.

What a load of bs re pain. What if people do not want to be drugged in birth. I’m can and did make my own decisions re the three I had.

what a lot of bs on your comment.

We are talking about CHOICE here, and yours not to have pain relief is as valid as the woman who decides to have an epidural. You BOTH should have what you asked for.

how hard is that to comprehend. As long as you had a positive birth experience, who cares if you had pain relief or not, it's nobody's business. But you should have the right to decide what you want (within medical reason obviously)

Why bring Home births in? Midwives have to cope with short staffed hospitals and run between two or three labouring women. That's not right either, and that's also dangerous. And that probably also affects a damn sight more women given that most births happen in hospitals.

Because I think the entire system is BS at the moment. Midwives as a whole are screwed. It's the same midwives in the hospitals as at home.

And the ideology of natural above all else is not just taking place in hospitals.

I have said over and over it’s choice. Read again.

“ And the ideology of natural above all else is not just taking place in hospitals.”
Where is this ideology promulgated?

But I deny that pain relief is some historical throwback and I do not really know what I prefer.