AIBU to not want to tell pregnant friend about my birth trauma?

[Ginnyfromtheblock]

A friend of mine is 3 months behind me in her pregnancy journey but has recently found it she might be in a similar situation to be with regards to reduced fetal growth and being induced.

She seemed quite upset and panicked so I reassured her everything will be ok and baby will be fine (my baby was born healthy). I described the steps taken for my induction and at what stage I took different pain relief etc. However I did have a traumatic birth (currently having therapy) but I didn't mention all the bits that I found difficult (a not so great midwife, not realising baby's heart rate has dropped, forceps, haemorrhaging etc). Should I tell her? I feel like it will cause unnecessary anxiety but my DH said she should know the risks etc.

I went in for my induction quite relaxed because I had a fairly positive approach to giving birth. Now however,I don't think I ever want to risk going through that again because of my experience and I just feel it won't be helpful for my friend to have the information about my friend. Maybe one day after she has had her baby, I will tell her, but I feel like it isn't fair to do so now. I also do wonder if she will be upset I didn't tell her the full truth.

YABU - you should tell your friend ahead of her induction
YANBU - you shouldn't tell your friend ahead of her induction

As someone who also had a bad experience, your story is yours to tell in an environment that’s right for you. I would point her towards professional advice and information and tell her that you feel uncomfortable sharing your very personal and individual experience outside of a counselling or healthcare setting.

I wouldn’t tell her, I agree that it will just cause anxiety to her.
She is on her path now, knowing what happened to you won’t change her outcome or how her journey goes. I had a traumatic first birth, the fear it would happen again on my second made me ill with worry. It could have the same effect on your friend knowing your experience.

No don't tell her. You could say something along the lines of "I had a difficult time but every woman is different." But I really wouldn't go into detail.

I had a very difficult first birth and people asked me directly about it afterwards. I never knew what to say. I didn't want to scare my friends, but at the same time I felt that I wasn't really prepared for the birth. And the horrible way it played out was a terrible shock to me. The birthing classes had been all relaxing breathing and candles, music etc which in hindsight was ridiculous. Turns out they only brought the women to speak who'd had "textbook" births!

I felt my first birth taught me some important lessons for my second, like not taking the midwifes' opinions as gospel, advocating for myself when something wasn't working for me and that I could request things rather than being a passive receiver.

So maybe leave out the gory details, but give her some tips on how to be assertive and that if something isn't brilliant, you can ask for a change of midwife or a review of pain relief etc. And the critical need for a proactive birthing partner who will fight your corner too.

Dont she will have her own experience, no need to cause anxiety.

Dont tell her. We all experience things differently, and what you found traumatic she might not (even if those things happen to her), so there is no benefit in "warning" her, it will just scare her.

I think your partner is wrong because it isn't your place to decide what she needs to know or not.
If she is interested and is asking how it went then fell free to elaborate, however I don't think you need to be too graphic when someone is about to go through it, and also just because she is going to be induced doesn't mean she will have the same experience as you.

Don’t tell her. She’s aware that birth can be traumatic, there are a wealth of stories in existence. Going into it scared won’t prepare her in any way at all. I’ve had a horrendous first birth too, nothing anyone said could have prepared me or changed how I felt in the aftermath. Plus I’ve heard a lot of people be induced and it be totally fine, some of us are just plain unlucky.

No. She doesn't need to know.

There's no reason to think she will experience the same so why frighten an already anxious person without a very valid reason. No good will come of it.

Congrats on your baby!

I went through a very similar experience to you with DD2 but didn't find it traumatic.

I don't say this to belittle your experience at all (in fact, I 100% empathise), rather that I might be traumatised by things that you wouldn't give two figs about! We are all different and no experience is exactly the same.

So, YANBU to not tell her because, even if she goes through similar, she might not be scarred by it, IYSWIM.

I dont think this is a yes or no answer. If you think that she could use the information positively (eg if she was aware there were risks with induction and she could then weigh up the pros and cons of induction vs c section) then I'd tell her.

For example I learnt some things from my labours that I found really useful and wish someone had told me (like if you have a really slow labour and can't cope any more with the pain and no sleep, you can demand some pain relief and refuse to leave til you've got it, even if they tell you that you're not far along enough to be admitted, and then you can get some proper sleep before being dilated enough to be admitted).

Remember its your experience and you can share parts of it, it doesnt have to be all or nothing

Absolutely don’t tell her!
For every bad experience, there is some one who was induced and everything went smoothly and they had a great experience. I’m so sorry this wasn’t the case for you 💐 but telling your friend will achieve nothing and will only serve to terrify her.
Have you been offered a debrief appointment to discuss your birth with a senior doctor? If not it may be worth contacting your maternity unit and requesting one. This might help you process your own experience and come to terms with how things went. X

No don't tell her right now
It's not going to do her any good.
I had a very traumatic first birth and wouldn't tell any details to friends expecting because I didn't want to scare them. The chances of them experiencing the same things as me were literally slim to none so it wasn't a case of telling them someonthing that a flowery nct course wouldn't.
I think all the things you've explained to her are the right things that she needs to hear at the moment.
We done for getting counselling and I hope you start to heal from it all. Congratulations on your little one

Your experience isn't her experience

This, absolutely.

I know someone who had an early induction due to suspected small baby and it was an utter shit show, hugely traumatic for her and baby born by EMCS and had to be resuscitated. I would find it very hard not to encourage a pregnant woman to consider ELCS in that scenario - and would certainly stress the importance of a supportive and assertive birth partner.

You don’t have to tell her anything you don’t want to.

I would maybe mention something like doing her research on interventions she’d be willing to have, or at what stage she’d move to c-section, just because my nhs antenatal class was very pro-natural, the midwife was negative about epidurals, and never really mentioned ventouse/forceps, and I ended up with all of it without feeling in control of the decision.

I felt absolutely lied to by birth programmes, midwives advocating for natural as possible births etc. Epidurals only mentioned by bringing out the giant needle to scare you etc. Nobody mentioned birth injuries. Nobody mentioned that a planned c section is much safer.
For my second birth I had an elcs. If that had been my first experience as well I would probably have bonded much faster with dd1.

I would have found it difficult to talk about neutrally during the first year. Perhaps what you could do is find some videos that capture some useful aspects of what you would tell her and share them. A conversation might go too far into the scary aspects. I made the mistake of telling a pregnant woman about the birth once, tbf she asked, but I won’t do it again.

Gosh, that’s tricky! I think I’d tell her anything that could be useful (especially if she’s going to the same hospital as you).

In your friend’s shoes, I’d really want to know if they’d missed things like your baby’s heart rate dropping so I could make sure my DH was watching out for this happening to me. I’m glad you and your baby were ok in the end

This. Share the bits that you think would be useful for her to know, not the bits that she can't change and would only make her feel more panicky.

I hope you're starting to recover from your own experience.

I found it really helpful to read genuine birth stories in Ida May Gaskin books (available on Amazon). Made me much more aware of risks, outcomes etc and better able to advocate more for myself and prime my DH on what interventions I was and wasn’t willing to have.

maybe direct her to somewhere like that to remove your personal story from the equation but help her to get an understanding and make her own choices?

First off, it is your experience to share. If you don't want to, absolutely don't do it.
Personally, I didn't mind hearing about my friends' traumatic stories prior to birth.

I actually found it helped me prepare mentally better than if I'd only stuck to hypnobirthing ("just breathe the baby out"), NCT courses ("epidural is bad") and the usual natural birth talk.
I know women who felt they failed because they couldn't "achieve" a drug free birth.
I had a difficult birth with long recovery and was very happy I had epidural and someone to share with. I'd have felt cheated if my friends only told me about their experience after I gave birth.

I would say your birth didn’t go as you expected and that’s taken some time to work through afterwards. I would also say what you might have done that might have changed the course e.g. asked for pain relief sooner, or at this point asked for a c-section, asked for more/less monitoring.

I think there are a lot of negative induction stories out there. Knowing you’re having an induction it can be quite overwhelming presented with the negativity. However, not all inductions are bad, mine was really great. I was aware of the interventions associated with induction but in the later stages of my pregnancy I decided to focus on positive stories. I would make her aware that NCT/antenatal gives the very best case scenario so it doesn’t mean she needs to feel bad if she can’t match those expectations.

Of course you don't tell her. Don't put your trauma on her. But if there are things that you think are useful to her: tell those things. Not the scary parts

Don’t tell her anything, why would you want
to add to her stress.

Give her stuff to be aware of eg what to pack, what you found useful etc. But not everyone see’s the same experiences as traumatic, it’s all subjective to the individual. One persons birth trauma is another’s average birth.

If she does have a bad time, support her in her own experience and don’t try to trauma dump on her, but empathise.