C Section is 'not a real birth'

[concretevase]

Please read the post before commenting.

Birth of my daughter was a traumatic emergency C Section, after six days of an induction.

I'm about to have a baby and because of GDM am being pressured into a planned C Section or induction.

I hate hate hate the idea of going through all that again. I hate the idea of recovering from another C Section now with a toddler and a newborn and not much paternity leave for my husband.

To make matters worse I have convinced myself that if I don't push a baby out I am missing out on something about womanhood.

Has anyone experienced the same thoughts? If so how did you rationalise them?

So if you don’t push the baby out and it gets pulled out by ventouse or forceps presumably that’s not giving birth either if that’s the metric you’re using?

Your first birth sounds exhausting and traumatic, totally unlike my elective c-section. Good luck with it.

No. I just did a quick google and that’s how it was worded. No metric, hadn’t really thought about it till this thread and people became really angry with the poster who pointed out there is a difference between the two. I happen to agree with that poster.

That's right.

Maybe you could link?

I just get this "No results found for "The act of giving birth is to push the child through the birth canal". When I Google the wording the pp says came up on their search.

I was too for a while. Everyone around me seemed to be giving birth like shucking peas.
You're not in a profession that will take you away from it either.
I bloody love babies though and you get to see lots of them. Breastfeeding was a lovely experience (after the initial days of excruciating tenderness).

I’m sure your patients are delighted to know that after hours and hours of labour, for their baby to be pulled out at the end by ventouse to save their life that you, their midwife, now think they haven’t actually given birth.

I’m so glad I had 2 ELCSs. Always horrified by the vaginal birth injuries my friends have suffered. From prolapse to incontinence and everything in between. You don’t have to think about that.

Also, an ELCS seems to be a very different procedure and recovery to a EMCS!! Your body hasn’t gone through days of pushing and stress beforehand.

As you have worked out, many of us find your opinions bizarre, especially if you are a midwife.

What do you call your children's birthdays if you didn't actually give birth to them? Their Extraction Days? Happy Extraction Day instead of Happy Birthday for them?

You want someone to post a link that shows how a vaginal birth differs from a c section?!

No.

OP, I was lucky with my C sections.Both were planned due to transverse position of both babies. Very different experience from emergency C-section. Very relaxing and I healed way quicker than any of my friends who had natural births. Now I am sixty I realise there's the added benefit of much stronger pelvic floor.

I would have preferred an easy natural birth in an ideal world but there's no guarantee of that and the friend who had the worst most traumatic birth and wounds that grew seriously infected gave birth naturally.

Planned C-sections and emergency C-sections are nothing like each other.

Bloody hell. I do not think for one minute that you, a midwife, truly believes this. You are an educated adult, how can you think this?

Being birthed and giving birth are not the same thing. I don’t understand how people are finding it confusing.

A woman does not need to give birth as we have c sections and other interventions to ensure a baby is birthed as safely as possible.

I guess it makes sense in my head!

Please post that link confirming a section is not giving birth, that giving birth is a very specific term used for a vaginal birth (unaided by ventouse etc), might help with the confusion to see it from a reliable source?

Being birthed and giving birth are not the same thing. I don’t understand how people are finding it confusing.

A woman does not need to give birth as we have c sections and other interventions to ensure a baby is birthed as safely as possible.

I guess it makes sense in my head!

So what you're saying is that from the baby's perspective, either way, they are born.

But from the mother's perspective, it's a case of passive versus active participation. "Giving" birth (active) versus maybe "undergoing" a birth?

I still think it's a bizarre distinction for anyone other than a HCP to make.

I used your search where you insisted you received no results. The results I got were pages full of information regarding labour and the stages of labour. About women bringing forth a child to be born.

To be fair if you want to stick to acting all confused about it that’s fine. But you’re being disingenuous to say you’re completely clueless and unable to find your own links.

I still think it's a bizarre distinction for anyone other than a HCP to make.

A midwife above did and posters didn’t like it even then. Plus you worded it very well whether you agree or not.

When I put that search term in you referenced, not me, I get no results found.

Hence asking for the link you got it from. Can you share?

@PennyPugwash same experience for me.

@concretevase my best friend insisted on vaginal delivery because she believed that was the only true way to say you’ve ‘given birth’. Let’s just say she’s had truly horrendous issues from it physically and mentally, even 3 years later. Giving birth is birthing a baby from your body. Please don’t put pressure on yourself to do something frankly ridiculous when a planned c section has good chances of being really good in comparison. I will also say that three years on nobody is comparing birth stories and she’s still suffering the consequences. I genuinely feel awful for her.

Sorry I hadn’t meant to reference anything. I was just writing sentences.

Try and search giving birth maybe 🤷‍♀️ I don’t know, I just would have come up with my own search. Maybe you could research your own argument maybe. I’m always happy to learn new stuff.

Thanks.

I was thinking more that it was bizarre for OP's OH to be making the distinction, but I can see there's been a lot of mission drift on the thread.

@Sometimeswinning the literal definition of giving birth is making way for something, to give birth…. Funnily enough having your insides opened and stretched enough to pull a baby from inside would fit this definition. Dictionary may help you perhaps?

Oops. I completely imagined the OP's OH scenario.

"It’s langauge which takes a quick Google. The act of giving birth is to push the child through the birth canal. Birth is bringing a child forward into the world."

"No. I just did a quick google and that’s how it was worded."

"I used your search where you insisted you received no results. The results I got were pages full of information regarding labour and the stages of labour. About women bringing forth a child to be born"

Ah ok, so when you said ^^ you saw that "act of giving birth" etc. definition on your quick Google search, you didn't mean that, you just wrote a sentence?

Anyway, you can't link to anything reliable to back up your claim, that's cool. I couldn't find anything reliable either to back your claim up, so you're in good company!