To think that women are being encouraged to expect too much from birth?

[Parsley1789]

Something I’ve thought about for a while. On Mumsnet today came across three threads in which the poster clearly feels very upset and disappointed with their birth experience and feels that they have failed. One poster refers to how her friends had ‘textbook births’ - the underlying belief clearly being that there is a ‘right’ way to give birth and that she didn’t ‘achieve’ it.
I am not blaming these women at all, I feel very sad for them. Early motherhood is hard enough without feeling that on top of that you are a failure for not having a water hypnobirth. I asked my mum about this the other day, she had two c-sections in the ‘80s, and she said that it never occurred to her to feel remotely guilty about it.

I’m not saying we should go back to women having no say or power over how they give birth, but I feel that Instagram/NCT/hypnobirthing etc all paint this idea that birth can be this wonderful empowering event when for a lot of people it’s just bloody painful and hard work and thank goodness for medical advancements.

For context, I did not have an easy birth with my first and found breastfeeding a struggle. I have so many friends who have felt like failures after birth, and it saddens me to see it on MN too. AIBU?

My experience and expectations of giving birth seem quite different . I did loads of research before, read as much as possible medical texts , read gentle birth books from 70s & 80s, ina may gaskin and so on, bought hypno birth cd from eBay, went on both nhs & nct classes. I think feeling fully informed about the about what was going to happen , the full process , helped me with both births , first at hospital & and at home. And my husband used to work on a farm and had helped out with cows giving birth!

Almost died giving birth to DC1, was left in agony for hours, denied pain relief repeatedly and endured both a botched ventouse and forceps delivery without even gas and air, thanks to the cunt of a midwife. I was extremely mentally ill and physically ill for many years after.

DC2 was a short but panic attack filled labour, no trauma or injuries

DC3 I somehow managed to keep much calmer than DC2, no trauma or injuries

DC4 was an unbelievably fast labour in which I was ignored, gave birth standing up in the fucking corridor and almost dropped her on the floor due to my body violently shaking/her being slippy.

So nah I don’t believe for a second it’s about mindset and hypnobirthing, ffs. Even the woo fuckery board does not want you.

I blame NHS abysmal maternity care, specifically midwives practices. Pain relief is discouraged, they actively push the old fairytale 'your body knows what to do'. Birth injuries in women are minimised and ignored as pain and incontinence are just one of these things you kinda have to live with if you decided to become a mother. As a result women who ended up with instrumental delivery or emergency C-Section (25% of all birth) often feel like a failure

@modgepodge
I was very much like you with my first. The only thing I was certain about was no epidural as the bounty booklet listed headaches as a possible side effect and I already suffer migraines.
Other than that I went in thinking I'd take whatever the midwife recommended depending on how I was doing.
Birth was very long and painful but I still came out the other end thinking I'd had as positive an experience I could have given how painful labour is.

I agree OP. Not sure what I agree with, but there's something at play here. Lots of my friends feel angry about their birthing experience and I can't quite work out why (aside from a few where it's obvious). I don't know how anyone know what's a textbook birth is unless they've been reading textbooks on it.
(And my son's birth was certainly not something I'd be using as a postcard for a positive experience.)

I'm just tired of being told that I'm stupid and brainwashed by people on all sides of the debate.

There can be an attitude from some hypnobirthing quarters that women who want to give birth on a labour ward with access to epidurals and pain relief have been indoctrinated by the media into expecting that birth must be a painful and medicalised experience. There can be a narrative that if you just breathe right, birth doesn't have to be painful.

On the other hand, if you are open to the idea that birth is a natural process that can be a more pleasant experience than a combination of stirrups/epidural/cast of doctors, well then there's an attitude from people on the other side of the debate that you've been brainwashed by hippies and your silly little ideas of giving birth at home or in a pool will evaporate on contact with reality.

I am sick of being patronised by everyone, quite frankly, although I actually feel slightly less patronised by the hypnobirth advocates. The majority of hypnobirthing material I have read is very clear that it doesn't guarantee an ideal water birth, and talks about how you can use hypnobirthing as a tool if you need to be induced or have a C-section or an epidural. I keep reading about having 'birth preferences' rather than a 'birth plan'.

On the other hand, I believe there is a downplaying of pain by the hypnobirthers, and I'm not sure the insistence of calling contractions 'surges' is ultimately very helpful.

But what do I know? I'm just some poor brainwashed idiot who hasn't given birth yet.

I totally agree and the whole "natural birth" movement is complete snake oil in my book. Sets totally unrealistic expectations and leads women to believe that its somehow their fault if they end up having interventions. And the whole thing about giving women "choice" and "control". Don't get me started.

I can't help noticing also that there's a high correlation between people who peddle this woo and antivaxxers.

I was actually thinking about this the other day.

I think there are a couple of strands to it.

The first is that we have quite a lot of control over our lives now a days. For most of us the narrative of we want, we work for, we get rings true. Pregnancy and birth can be the first time in our adult lives where we have no control. It's a real shift of thinking and you see if so often with FTMs. The ones that say 'my birth will be like this.' 'My baby will / won't do that.' And when those things don't happen it feels like a huge personal failure.

Same with breastfeeding. I truely feel the main 'pressure' mums feel is from themselves. They are not used to things not going to plan and it is really hard to accept.

Women must and should share positive birth stories. But they all need to be honest about the luck involved in the type of birth you have.

Recently when out for drinks with someone I hadn't seen for 20 years and she felt the need to 'aww so you couldn't manage it' and 'I did the whole thing at home, no drugs'.

Did you throw your drink in her face?

I'm not so arrogant as to say hypnobirthing, breathing exercises and so on don't work at all but I think natural variation in how different women experience contractions shouldn't be underestimated. I didn't register my contractions as pain until about an hour before DD was born - it felt like a weird pressure on my lower spine - and only about half an hour before did it get really uncomfortable.

I'm not bragging. I wish I had felt pain. Maybe then someone would have thought to examine me and realise I was in labour before I was fully dilated and feeling the urge to push.

My point being, I could imagine someone using hypnobirthing perfectly and still experiencing far more pain someone who hasn't prepared at all me and happens not to have such painful contractions. That doesn't mean that the first person somehow failed, or that the second did anything better.

Even in the 90s ( when I had my two ) it was held up as ' good ' to have a 'text book birth, ' but after you were pushed out of hospital asap and care after was patchy! No wonder so many women suffer with PND. It does become all about the baby and not enough on the new mother and how they are coping with it all!
It's sad that it's become a pressure to do it ' the right way ' :(
( Mind you, my friend had two C sections and she didn't feel any differently to someone who hasn't. She was just so positive about it all. )

I never got the birth plan aspect either. I just said to the midwife natural over cs preferred (for the quicker healing) but anything that gets me and the baby through it safely.

As it was, ended up needing a CS but the experience wasn't horrible. Relaxing surgery environment, lovely people looking after me, all very polite and respectful.

Had loads of people ask if I feel bad having a c section like I should feel bad about it? I always respond with why would I? It was needed to keep us both alive and well, that's all I cared about. All the other shit means nothing. Do I feel bad my body didn't go into Labour? No. Should people feel bad when their body can't do things it should (diabetes, ms, cancer...etc)? Of course not. So why all this pressure on woman to birth "right" when it's not in their control?

The whole concept of a “birth plan” gives women the illusion that it’s an event they can control

When really, you can’t control much about it

It’s a good thing this is a place, possible the only place, women can come to talk about these things. Contrary to what you say, the prevailing narrative still seems to be “you’ve got a (healthy) baby and that’s all that matters”.

Just because your mum was happy with her c section experiences doesn’t mean every other woman was and they had far fewer places to discuss their real feelings.

This is a bit like “why are you moaning about an early miscarriage, women in my day wouldn’t have known they were pregnant” or “people used to deal with things much better, think of all those still births where the mum never got to see the baby and never mentioned it again”.

Women go through a huge range of traumas making and delivering babies. Instead of suggesting they’re silly or idealistic to wish things had gone better it’s more helpful to listen and support them if you can or scroll on by if you can’t.

How do you think those 3 women will feel if they read this? You feel sad for them because they were too deluded to be realistic? Lovely.

This isn’t the first generation of women who are disappointed if their births go awry, to mourn miscarriages or still births. They’re one of the first to have the language to air their feelings and hopefully heal from sharing them with others who can empathise.

I think the pain level is underplayed, as is the helplessness, and there seems to be this bravado about making women go through unnecessary pain. If a person wants to labour without pain relief, then I respect their choice, but so many women who don't want to are pressured or coerced through lack of choice.

For example, I have endometriosis, so am familiar with severe pelvic pain. The midwife at the prenatal appointments tried to guilt me into not having an epidural. I made clear that I understood the pain level, and she backed off. I put on my birth plan that I'd like an epidural. They held off giving me one for hours just in case I might be able to do it without (spoiler alert: I passed out and took 2 infusions of epidural to come back).

Healthcare staff would never dream of making a person undergoing a major surgery do it without sedation, so why is it okay to do to labouring women, who need to somehow have the energy post-birth to feed and care for a newborn?

Hypo birthing cd didn’t work for me for pain was relaxing to listen to when heavily pregnant & struggling to sleep

I 100% agree. I was also hugely under prepared for childbirth. Fed stories of natural without pain relief and water births / hypnobirthing. In reality I had to be induced for medical reasons, didn’t respond to induction and so had a c section. I felt a sense of shame at the time that I had failed to have ‘the experience.’ Same with breastfeeding. After a lot of weight loss for my child and complications form my c section breastfeeding didn’t work out. I didn’t even realise this was a thing that people struggled with. For ages I felt like my body had failed on all accounts. Only now I see how ridiculous that is.

I agree OP. Too often women are told they can have a natural, calm birth with minimal pain relief or medical intervention. When this doesnt happen I think it leads to feeling more traumatised or guilty or upset that their birth wasnt as planned.

Birth can be painful, it can be long, it can be traumatic. There can be injuries. Unfortunately many births just cannot and never will be the textbook 'natural' births and that is not the mothers fault. Women come in many shapes and sizes, babies come in many shapes and sizes (and positions pre birth) and these don't always tally up

I told someone my birth plan was to have an epidural. She said I shouldn't plan for that and to see how I go without first. Very judgy.

Well I knew I needed to plan for it because I knew the midwives would try and talk me out of it. And they did.

I had my epidural. And it was the tits.

Yes and no. I found hypnobirthing positive in the sense it explained the science behind child birth and also gave me the confidence to not just blindly follow everything I was being told to do. I found as soon as I hit 40 weeks they were already mentioning induction and seem very quick to intervene with the drip to hurry you along.
My birth was far from straight forward but it did give me the confidence to ask for a csection when a situation during birth meant I no longer felt I had the mental capacity to continue with a 'natural' birth/ being put on the drip to move things along.

YANBU OP. I've a good friend who does hypnobirthing classes and insists that labour doesn't have to hurt if you do it properly, and you can remain in control at all times. Which is total bollocks of course. It fucking hurts, and no birth can be expected to be text book. Massively unrealistic to say the least. I'm totally at ease with my experience of birth, but there are more vulnerable/gullible women who believe this when they're told it and then feel they've failed if they opt for pain relief etc etc. Which is a steady path to PND. It's bloody dangerous clap trap.

@LadyLaSnack

I've had 2 x 48 hour induced + very painful labours eventually resulting in 2 x C-sections.

Recently when out for drinks with someone I hadn't seen for 20 years and she felt the need to 'aww so you couldn't manage it' and 'I did the whole thing at home, no drugs'.

I've only ever had this from other women.

Another friend - 'oh when you have a VAGINAL birth it's all dignity out the window, you wouldn't know but you you have to flash your bits to anyone that walks in the room'

How on earth she thought they were assessing me for failure to progress I don't know. Crystal ball?

This made me LOL - I had the same from a woman at work. I responded by saying that after 8 rounds of IVF it feels like half of London has had a hand up my foof, not to mention all the fannying about prior to the EMCS

Totally agree with this. My birth plan for both of my DDs was to give birth. I think ultimately we have very little control over how a birth will progress and it's important to know that and be informed about the different complications that could arise.

I had two very different births and on my second suffered a serious PPH. It was scary but as I didn't go in with any expectations about what the birth would be like I don't feel like the experience was ruined for me.

I also don't really like the term 'experience'. I think it suggests that it should be something magical and empowering. When really, however you give birth, you are going through a major medical event which is dangerous and could lead to complications. We don't talk about the experience for other medical procedures in the same way.

I think they need to encourage diamorphine more. I was only given g and a and struggled with that and never was I told about the diamorph

I was pretty well informed about straightforward vaginal birth, my mum and sister and sis in law had 12 between them. I didn’t expect a calm relaxed hypnobirth experience.
However I wasn’t prepared for a c section, for some reason it never even entered my mind and nobody mentioned the possibility to me. When I had my first there were no classes in my town, and my midwife never mentioned much about birth let alone c sections. So I was not prepared for days of labour followed by a crash section, it couldn’t have been further away from my planned birth and that combined with terrible post natal care was a very traumatic experience.
However sometimes no matter how informed you are, you can be upset and traumatised by your experiences. My third child was another traumatic birth, I had been through two previously but it was still very difficult and upsetting.