For DH to insist on vaginal birth not ceasarean

[Anguish]

Asking for a friend. Why would he care either way? She has a low pain tolerance and doesn't want to experience the most painful thing that can happen to a woman.

EDIT: He's absolutely lovely and basically a perfect partner in every conceivable way, which is why it's slightly out of character.

She should keep an open mind. Csections are MAJOR surgery. I don’t understand why women voluntarily elect to have them.

My husband "assumed" I'd be birthing our daughter (his first and last baby) in hospital. He assumed wrongly! I opted for a home birth and he was incredibly supportive.
My body, my choice!

My friend was under anasthetic as they had a 'crash' situation - it was unclear whether either of them would survive. Thankfully they did, although her child was in NICU for a month or so.

I had an epidural, as an "emergency" after everything else failed in terms of birth going smoothly.

Either way, or whether we'd had forceps intervention, or a vaginal delivery, we ended up with our children. That was the most important factor - making sure everyone survived it.

@Silvergreenblue

@babytakemehome is of course right, however there is a lot of literature on this.

‘Various theories have been proposed to explain the relationship between delivery by cesarean section and ASD, and include oxytocin dysregulation, the microbiota-gut-brain axis, and neurotoxicity due to general anesthesia administered during cesarean section.’

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8015537/#:~:text=Various%20theories%20have%20been%20proposed,anesthesia%20administered%20during%20cesarean%20section.

I would read around it if you are interested.

I didn’t want a busted fanny. Or the sense of panic if things went wrong. Or hours of pain. Or the stats that VB is lower risk for mothers and CS is lower risk for babies - I wanted the risk on me, not the baby.

@babytakemehome

You being ND is a valid reason for caesarean - the sensory overload, completely unregulated chaotic environment, new people, new experience, not knowing what’s happening next would all be very distressing for you and your level of stress could impact the birth negatively or lead to you needing a lot more drugs!!

I realise that my DC would be predisposed genetically, I will never know if the birth lead to the expression or greater expression of genes or altered early brain development. My only conclusion from the experience is that I wish I had been lucky enough to go without it really.

Well, I can’t see any controlling red flags in this relationship - no Siree, Bob. Nothing to see here! 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

Your third sentence contradicts your first.

My ELCS was fine. No pain during or afterwards. Up and about within 24 hours. Scar healed quickly. No damage to pelvic floor. Walking fine. No complications at all.

I know this is not everyone’s experience but it was great for me.

It was necessary, because I had pre-eclampsia and my son had IUGR, but I would choose CS every time.

There's a lot of varying advice and experiences on this thread.

I hope the woman in question has been able to research and receive professional advice about HER delivery choices.

I hope we're not yet at the stage where a man can overrule his partner's decision about HER delivery choice.

If he is going to carry on insisting about something that isn’t his choice to make, he would be better banished from the delivery, as he sounds less than supportive.
His role should be to support HER delivery choices, to hold her hand, tell her she's doing marvellously, mop her brow, etc…
… and then to get out of the way.

Bless him. He has no say at all. What a dickhead. Some "natural" births end in emergency c sections anyway. What's he going to do then?

He's clearly not a perfect partner if he thinks he has any say in how her child is born. That's up to her and the obstetrics team. And circumstances on the day.

He's been watching too much Call the Midwife.

You are generalising badly there and shouldn't be.

I was almost pain free within less than a fortnight of my caesarean. The same could NOT be said of my very traumatic first vaginal delivery, which remained very painful for almost six months.

Again….. everyone’s different and some handle the recovery better than others

And I’m sure you was running that before aswel! I didn’t generalise just trying to point out to OP that it isn’t just an easy option like it’s been described

That's interesting. A few hours? I was in labour for 72 hours.

All over? Why don't you tell that to the many women who suffer prolapses and multiple other injuries from vaginal birth.

Jesus.

My experience of CS was as an emergency after a long labour and 2 hours of pushing. It was the labour and pregnancy that had a greater toll on me for recovery than the CS.

Having come so near, I went for a VBAC because my odds of success were considered high. It was a success, in that baby did come out that way, but it reached the point of action being required by which ever way they could pull baby out. The impact of the forceps and tearing had me sitting on cushions for a month and aggravated my SPD so I could barely walk for months. Many years later, I still have to be careful with my pelvis.

It's a lottery. VB can be great, but there's no guarentees on whether it would be simple or have a heavy recovery with birth injuries. EMCS can be difficult because of the toll of labour and difficultly positioned babies. Other than when there are medically complex causes, ELCS tends to have the most consistent experiences/ recoveries.

Ultimately it is between the woman and her medical team. Fathers are not the patient and there is no parental responsibility until baby is born.

There are specialist MWs that can help with issues like birth anxiety. I found them very supportive and useful in my second pregnancy and while the birth injuries were far from ideal, their preparation did help significantly for much of the labour stage.

He's absolutely lovely and basically a perfect partner in every conceivable way,

He's not. You're mistaken.

who appointed you the arbiter of who should or shouldn’t be a mother? And all births have risks. I was fine my whole pregnancy, needed an EMCS because the baby was unwell, I ended up developing cardiomyopathy on the operating table, without any previous signs of cardiac risk. It absolutely stunned the doctors. A friend who had a vaginal birth had grade 4 tears, her baby almost didn’t survive, they had to use the whole caboodle (forceps, ventouse, you name it) to get her baby out, she was in pain and struggled psychologically for over a year.

Someone with birth anxiety or low pain threshold needs support with it, because shit can hit the fan anytime and regardless. They don’t need to be told that they shouldn’t be a mother.

Tbf she’s not misinformed - it is major abdominal surgery and has a number of risks - organ damage, sepsis, to name a couple.
vaginal births also come with risks, of course, they’re not mutually exclusive.

the whole thing is medieval. If men were the ones giving birth we would’ve come up with a way to grow babies in pods and done away with the whole thing.

What does having a low pain threshold have to do with being a mother? Am I missing something? Most of motherhood is not painful - often hard work and sometimes tedious but not painful.

If we're harking back to the archaic "the pain of childbirth prepares women for the sacrifices of motherhood" nonsense, then surely men should be subjected to a set number of hours of electric shock or other torture to prepare them for fatherhood?

Bizarre way to think.

Completely up to her!

But for the record, birth is not the most painful thing that's ever happened to me! It's not that bad for everyone.

Unfortunately there’s been massive brainwashing by the NHS going on for years with regards to natural births vs CS and actually their main concern is money.
Id seen enough horror stories (plus been traumatised by watching a vid of birth at school) to know I would always want a CS.
The consultant I met shouldn’t have been working that that day, he is one of the top obstetricians, was head of one of the councils, regularly quoted in the Times etc. He said don’t worry you don’t need to cry or anything I understand why you want one it’s controlled, it’s safer for baby and for mum the risks are largely the same but in a different place I.e. infection and pain. My wife has had 3 CS. Baby was also IUGR.
It was such a relief but as I left one f the nurses said Mr F has been giving out far too many CS today!
I had 2 CS ended up being emergency (even at that point midwife trying to ignore my wishes and agreement by consultant)
Recovered well from both, up and about quickly and absolutely happy with my choice.
2 friends bullied out of their choice to have a CS horrific experience and nearly died.
I listen to all the horror stories in the news coming out of maternity wards lately of babies and mothers dying or being permanently disabled and I know I made the right choice!

I’m so sorry you experienced this. My c section was a dream, honestly so easy and so much better than labour and vaginal. We’re all different.