To ask about your elective caesarian experience?

[AbbeyBelfast]

Hello folks!

I would very much like to hear your stories and experiences with elective sections.

What was your reason for choosing elective?

How was the procedure itself?

What was your recovery like?

Bonus points if you had an elective after a vaginal birth and can provide some insight into a comparison of the two!

Thank you 😊

First section an emergency- all well.
I asked for an elective section with my second baby.
I'd had a normal pregnancy. I was 41 and exhausted.
His head didn't engage.
My Consultant said I would struggle, and agreed with my misgivings.
The experience was lovely. Epidural amazing. Lovely healthy baby.
30 years ago.
Hope this helps!

I opted for CS after my 1st was a failed vaginal delivery with an emergency CS. My Second was also an oblique lie with a possible shoulder presentation so I didn’t want to risk going into labour spontaneously like that.
It was calm, everything was very under control, no panic, baby not in distress / or need to be resuscitated after delivery. I was out after 48 hrs. I was up and about much sooner on the second, but the scar was a bit oozy and didn’t heal as well and I needed a couple of rounds of antibiotics.

I had an ELCS for mental health reasons as I was worried that I would find a vaginal birth too traumatic. No objections at all, it was never questioned by anyone and the team could not have been more supportive. Very positive experience.

Vaginal delivery, long labour - 36 hours, some stitches, easy recovery.
Elective because baby wouldn't go head down and I'd been in hospital since 36 weeks with a toddler at home and desperately wanted back to him.
Hospital were very pro vaginal birth and wouldn't consider elective til I was 2 1/2 weeks over. I was also 45 and anxious about something going wrong if I went into labour and cord was around babys neck. Couldn't see the sense in waiting for an emergency section in that situation.
Female consultant who's regularly interviewed on irish tv and radio as a progressive was very snitty to me about it.being elective. I would prefer vaginal, recovery was easier, also I couldn't lift toddler for a few weeks and he obviously couldn't understand why not.

OP do you mean "at maternal request?"

Because in medic-language "elective" simply means "planned in advance" rather than "emergency."

So ELCS on recommendation of obstetrician because DS was small for dates and the consultant didn't want to put him through the additional stress of an induced labour.

It was a very calm, lovely experience. Medical team were great, wound healed really well and I recovered quickly. Only downside was it took about 5 days for my milk to come in.

Elective for mental health reasons - traumatic first delivery resulting in EMCS

Elective was incredible . Healed me from my first delivery. Was asking when we could do it again in recovery.

Recovery was a walk in the park, midwives and HVs thought I’d had a vaginal when they visited as I was walking upright.

Wow @maras2. 1982 was a different beast! General, night nursery and 10 days in hospital!

First was born by emcs following induction, baby went into distress and it was all very scary, in special care for almost a week post delivery - lots of pain, lots of blood lost. Second was elective and the experience could not have been more different. Very calm, completely painless and my recovery was great. Obviously some discomfort with the cut but no where near as painful as the first one. I went home the next day. Good luck which ever option you decide to go with!

#1 was EMCS due to severe pre-eclampsia/HELLP.

#2 was originally a planned VBAC but blood pressure started to go up. I wasn't a suitable candidate for induction, so booked in for a CS in 3 days time.

#3 was a planned CS from the get-go.

The electives were so much better than the first. Much calmer and I was able to properly plan my hospital stay. My issue is that apparently, no matter what they do, I'm a bleeder. WIth #2 they pushed too far and I nearly passed outwith #3 they just went right to transfusing me when my blood pressure dropped. This did mean I didn't get sent home quite as quickly as I would have liked. I also knew what I could and couldn't do after surgery and so my recoveries went quite wellless than a week on the prescribed painkillers and then just some Nurofen.

Oh and with the planned ones, I was able to discuss some healing issues I had had with #1 and they used a different surgical technique with all internal sutures and just glue on the incision, no external sutures or staples. Being able to plan that was lovely, no going back in to have my incision fixed!!

What was your reason for choosing elective?
I had had 2 previous births with a 3rd degree tear, and a 2nd degree tear, had had repair surgery, and had suffered some double incontinence.

How was the procedure itself?
Not great - started calmly, then I started shaking and needing to vomit, air of panic in the room, anaesthetis, surgeon and dh looming panicked, difficulties with amount of water, and blood loss, blood pressure dropped dramatically, ds grunting at birth he was whisked off to NICU, I was put on a heart monitor.

What was your recovery like?
Ds in NICU and SCBU for 8 days, I was on labour ward in private room for 4 of those, saw ds the day after having him, expressing milk to be put in a feeding tube for ds, I felt like I'd been sawn in half, had an infection in the veins of my leg, was moved to a room in SCBU, tried to establish breastfeeding with jaundiced, ds who was struggling to suck, was on oxygen, had a heart murmur and an infection in his lung. When we were home, developed an infection in my wound and mastitis, felt like shit. Had birth trauma counselling, which wasn't great. Still have some issues with scar site and digestive issues (possibly linked to caesarean) 10 years on.

Bonus points if you had an elective after a vaginal birth and can provide some insight into a comparison of the two!
Despite a 3 day labour, episiotomy, henhouse, 3rd degree tear and surgery followed by 2nd vaginal birth of induction, 2nd degrees tear, repair surgery.....they were both preferable to the ELCS.

First DC was caesarean (emergency after induction at 44 weeks and 24hours of labour) and then following 3 DC were vaginal (2 of whom were induced) . Took much longer to recover from caesarean, bonding took longer and was glad I lived in a country that allowed vaginal after C section (even with induction) as it was so much easier than C:section (especially in recovery).

I had an emergency c section due to a health condition and it was honestly the best experience of my life. The room was calm and quiet and I laid back and honestly 'enjoyed it'. Not painful or uncomfortable even but you can 'feel' them rummaging! I had the most fantastic surgeon and he pulled the curtain down as he pulled my daughter out so I saw her coming out inch by inch. It was honestly incredible. My recovery was good and I was able to move around afterwards much easier and sooner than I thought. I tried the gym after six weeks but I wasn't quite ready and it hurt to do a poo for a couple of months! Tiny little neat scar below my knicker line x good luck OP! X

2 brilliant experiences here. Both were maternal request sections and I have zero regrets.
I had no pain from either incision, though did feel slightly bruised with my second. I had some niggles in hospital, like my bladder being a bit shy but those were annoying rather than painful. The only pain was from trapped gas, and peppermint sorted me out.

I was pretty much recovered within a week, at least enough to chase my toddler round the garden, cook a meal, do chores, go shopping etc. By 3, weeks I was walking with zero pain with my toddler in a sling on my back, and my newborn on my front at the same time.

As far as the actual procedure goes, I didn't feel even slightly queasy (I remember musing on what was for lunch at some stage during the surgery), I lost about half the amount of blood you'd expect from a straightforward vaginal delivery, and it was really easy.

@HazeyJaneII sorry for your awful experiences and grateful for your contribution (also interested in the OP’s question myself). BUT I did just spend time googling what a “henhouse” was before working out “ventouse”

I asked for an elective after a previous traumatic birth, I went in prepared to put up a fight to get an elective and i was given the go ahead straight away, the consultant phoned to book me in straight away! Much easier than I had thought... But I did have very traumatic previous birth, and I I suffered alot physically and mentally afterwards (anxiety and flash backs) I had a meeting at the hospital before falling pregnant second time around, and they talked through my last birth and said they are very open to maternal choice now, so if I would like a section I'd more than likely be told that yes I could have one... So tried for dc2, fell pregnant, but had to see the consultant to request elective, but as I mentioned above, no problems with getting it!
The elective itself was so lovely, even though I was terrified, I felt in safe hands completely! It goes so fast, there's no pain at all during the procedure, and the recovery was a breeze compared to my previous vaginal birth! I was up and about the next morning, and I improved each day from then on! I obviously can't compare my elective to a straight forward vaginal delivery, only my traumatic birth, but all I will say is I'd go for an elective again 10 times over my first birth!
Good luck whatever you decide to do!!

I had an ELCS due to breech for DC1. Very calm on the day, no problems, felt hard to recover just as it was surgery but had nothing to compare it to, and felt lucky it wasn't an EMCS.

DC2 was a VBAC and that was also very smooth, no real issues in labour or birth or after.

Perhaps I'm very lucky to have had success both ways!

I had a elective with 2nd ds because the consultant said he was too big for me to deliver . The procedure was fine but they couldn’t stop my bleeding so I ended up getting knocked out and in surgery for 3 hours .
The thing I hated most was not being able to drive afterwards and having to rely on people to get my older ds to and from school.

Also, I had problems with my blood pressure during my elective, it was horrible, but they were on to it and got it sorted within seconds!
I think complications can happen with a vaginal or a section, thankfully rare. During my elective I began to lose alot of blood but it was stopped very quickly, I didn't loose as much as my vaginal birth, but obviously that wasn't a straight forward vaginal birth, I lost two litres.
I felt in much safer hands during my section. They are great at keeping you calm! But that's just my opinion.

You guys are an invaluable wealth of information, and I want to genuinely thank you all so much for sharing your experiences, it is making my own choices feel much more informed!

Please keep the stories coming, I think they are really fascinating! You can only learn so much from google, I think the human experience is much more telling.

❤️❤️

@AbbeyBelfast the consultant was amazing, fully supported me. Midwives were about 50/50 but it didn't matter, it was not their decision!

Thing is you have a bias here. Most people who had a vaginal birth followed by a section had traumatic vaginal births of some sort.

Those who had nice straightforward births generally don’t choose a section for a subsequent birth. Unless complication like multiples, breech etc.

So it’s hard to get a comparison of a straightforward vaginal birth vs a CS.

I don’t recognise the “lovely relaxing experience” at all. It was surgery, and no more relaxing than having my appendix out or a hernia repair. And you get to recover from those without 3 weeks of bleeding and leaking while trying to keep a newborn alive!

OP do you realise you are going to get skewed results as an 'elective' after a vaginal is more than likely because the vaginal went wrong. Therefore you are going to get loads of responses where the c section is described in a positive way.
And those that say that c sections are relaxing, that's the diamorphine doing that

For full disclosure, I've had a v birth and c section.

@bluebluezoo

I had an elcs after an emcs.

I saw the m/w in the vbac clinic to discuss the reasons for my emcs, and the prognosis for future births. I was given a very balanced view of the pro’s and cons, and sent away to make my choice, no pressure. I chose elcs as dc1 nearly died, and only just escaped brain damage, and there was no reason why- plus they were slightly prem so I would have spent the last two weeks utterly terrified they were in undiagnosed distress like dc1.

Anyway in some ways the elcs was harder than the emcs. They had more time to site the epidural, but it took nearly 40 minutes as I had an undiagnosed scoliosis so they kept hitting bone which was frankly horrible. My back was an awful scabby bleeding mess.

My blood pressure dropped due to the anaesthesia so I had to be placed head down, and I couldn’t do anything other than focus on staying conscious. That dizzy sick feeling stayed with me for a good few hours, luckily dh took dc2 and sorted out dressing, weighing etc as I just wasn’t able to hold them.

Then I threw up every pain med they gave me. Vomiting after a section is fucking awful, so I stopped taking the meds and put up with the pain.

Other than that it was just the usual needing help sitting up, moving slowly, not overdoing the recovery. I think the recovery was better with the elcs but I knew to take it easy.

I saw on here that vaginal births are pain first, cs are pain after, which I think is true, especially watching women on the ward being discharged same day as if nothing had happened. I would have preferred a vaginal birth, but it wasn’t to be.

Similar experience here - I've had both an EMCS and ELCS and the latter was less pleasant. Reacted to the spinal anaesthetic, dropped my blood pressure and went into an abnormal heart rhythm. Wasn't quite the relaxing experience I was hoping for.

3 elective sections -
1st was because baby was breech and I didn’t want to go through the risks a vaginal birth entailed with the position baby was in.
2nd and 3rd because I had such an amazing, calm experience every time.
Recovery was easier each time. Couple of times not being able to stand up fully straight but absolutely fine just taking paracetamol after day 4/5.
Wounds always healed nicely
No overhang
Neat, very light scar that is below bikini line
All staff very helpful and did their best to make the experience as special as possible every time