To think that having a drug free natural child birth does not mean you are a better/ stronger person or have more guts

[Reallytired]

Every childbirth experience is different. I am glad that there are options of intervention like caeseran section, drugs for pain relief. It would be horrendous to live somewhere like Chad where maternal death in childbirth is extremely common.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4459880.stm

People forget that modern intervention means living mothers and babies.

I hate it when women who have had an easy birth experience belittle those who had complications. There are no prizes for putting up with pain.

I think its sad when women are bullied against a medicalised birth by NCT types. Sometimes its the best decision.

Ah, an essay on the joys of the NCT. More than slightly evangelical on the subject, I feel, Fabsmum.

I'd have liked to give birth in my sleep actually. If the NCT campaigned for birth-in-sleep, they'd have my vote. In fact, birth-in-sleep is a subject even I could evangelise about.

Can't be arsed to read all 20 pages, but yes, I believe there is pressure. I felt it most from the midwives, who, in this area, have 2 MW led units. I can't say they pressured me because I wanted to try for a natural labour. It being my first, I wanted to see if I could cope before asking for help.
I did cope.
For far too long.
After 3 days, I was stuck at 8cm and I was delirious with pain and lack of sleep. I was transferred by ambulance to consultant led unit. DS was suffering serious decelerations and they still tried to get me to go for a natural birth. Even after the epidural when I was pain free, I knew DS was in trouble and cried and cried for a C-section.
I eventualy got it due to foetal distress.
They had to use forceps to get DS out of my pelvis as he was so wedged.
He was back to back with his head at a funny angle (face presenting) and no amount of classes and empowerment would have got him out.

I wish to God that I hadn't made the decision I did, and that I might have been in a better position to recognise that DS was seriously ill, when all the medical staff didn't .

So no, it doesn't make you a better person.
I wish I had been 'empowered' enough to say no.

abbeya, a lot of women do seek help

many don't , or find help too late, becasue they are told they should be grateful/ move on/ healthy baby is all that matters..

letting it cloud their lives is not a choice they want to make

milamae, i have no issue at all with doctor's saving babies and mothers' lives, but was i was talking about is a totally different thing

how many women who have an induced/augmented labour just because they are a few days past due date or their labour is not progressing as the text book says.

There seems to be an awful lot of importance placed one one day.
It is like having the 'perfect' wedding.It is lovely to have a huge, white wedding on a day when the sun shines and every thing is colour coordinated; but someone who pops down to the local registry office on a wet, Monday morning in February and gets two strangers as witnesses can have a much better marriage! It is lovely to look back on, but it is what happens afterwards that is important.
It is wonderful that organisations like the NCT offer classes and that there are no end of books, magazines etc devoted to it. I went to NCT classes and they were very helpful. However, if you don't get the experience you hoped for, it is what comes afterwards that matters! People who have traumatic births can be fantastic mothers, those that had the birth of their dreams can be dreadful mothers!

Afraid Fabsmum that this was an NCT teacher; I really can't help this; it's how it happened. I was there.

"No amount of information would have changed our needs"

"I'm sorry - but this is simply not true in the case of some of our clients. Women come to their NCT classes with all sorts of medical concerns and worries that they've not been able to get answers to from their care-givers because of a lack of continuity of care."

I never said it was true of all your clients- I said it was true of me.

I got all my medical answers from the hospital- because frankly they were the ones who knew about the slightly unusual cases, about medical complications, about cases that resembled mine.

I kept telling my friend- and my other evangelising friends- that I was not short of information, because the local hospital care was in fact excellent and the ante-natal course provided could not be faulted. And the consultants did actually answer questions and were very reassuring.

You seem to assume that anyone who is happy with their "medicalised birth" thinks that women should not be given information or kindly supported in hospital. This is not true: I am alll for informing and supporting women and so were the caregivers who looked after me in pregnancy. I was given information and supported by the NHS.

It was the NCT teacher who told me that I couldn't possibly have been cared for as a woman and well informed if I did it all through the NHS. And other friends chimed in and agreed that if I had only done their course I would have had a totally different empowered birth.

I have never said that all NCT teachers are like this, or that no women should do the NCT ante-natal course. I'm sure it's fine. I was happier on the hospital course, because it suited me better. It was not all about medicalisation, very far from it, all options were explored and given equal weight, and there was a lot of time for us to be women together.

But in my precarious situtation, I did feel good about the vast amount of experience that the course leader had from a lifetime as a midwife; this was really somebody whose brains I could pick.

On the contrary, the NCT teacher had never worked as a midwife, so her personal experience was limited to her own births. I know she had had good training, but most of it was theory to her. I wanted somebody who had first-hand experience of resuscitations, because I knew that might be relevant to me.

And the same midwife visited me after childbirth so I certainly did not go short of continuity.

To sum up Fabsmum: I know the NCT do a wonderful job with their courses. I just wanted them to leave me alone and accept that other people may be fine with their totally different experiences. It was the badgering that got to me, and the suggestion that any good support I had had must have come from them (this while shoving an NCT collecting tin into my hand).

I know they're not all like that- but if you are allowed to recount your experiences, then I am allowed to recount mine.

I felt well informed and well supported by the local hospital. I spent a lot of time in the ante-natal ward after a couple of bad scares and found it very reassuring.

But to me, as to Abbey, the birth itself was not a very crucial experience. After all, I have an adopted sibling- I know my mother feels just as much his mother even though he was delivered by Scandinavian Airlines in a completely high-tech way. Bonding is an ongoing process.

oh ffs - I don't let one bad day 'cloud my parenting', I don't spend days weeping over DS' bad birth, I am not less of a parent because I'm being pathetic about letting a bad experience hang over us.

But if you don't acknowledge and recognise that women can and do have bad birth experiences (and they don't have to be so severe that they cause PTSD) and that they need to debrief about them and talk about them, and not be told to move on and shut up and pull themselves together, then no wonder people carry on feeling like failures and feel that people are smug with them.

And just maybe if people were allowed to talk and debrief, they'd have better birth experiences next time.

It's nothing like a wedding and to suggest it is is just to dismiss women who are upset about their births as hysterical females.

Tsk.

I am fine with people debriefing and I do understand that many will need it. This should be available to all women who want it.

What I cannot accept is something that I have experienced several times: people offering unsolicited counselling because of their assumptions that you must feel a failure. People basically telling you that you must be so upset at having failed this important start to motherhood.

Like the midwife who rang up my SIL and offered her counselling for her feelings of failure after her section- suggesting that she ought to have these feelings and that there was now a risk to their bonding. Nice way of saying congratulations.

(nothing to do with the NCT, Fabsmum!- though not NHS either, different country)

Like the friends who told me that I must feel so disempowered and unhappy because my experience wasn't what they would have chosen. Err...how about asking me how I feel instead?

As a matter of fact, there were parts of early motherhood that traumatised me- but they were nothing to do with the section.

I do know women who have had their birth experiences clouded by others telling them what a shame it was that it happened that way and how they must feel they have missed out on something essential.

I think we should allow each other the right to our own feelings. Women who are told that they should feel in a particular way are as far from being empowered as you can be.

100 % agree Littlemy

a wedding is not going to leave you feeling violated/ out of control/ frightened. nor will it be done under general aneasthetic so you can;t see the actual moment, or with so many drugs you are vomiting and shaking so much you miss it,

'
"But to me, as to Abbey, the birth itself was not a very crucial experience"

well, it might not be to you, but that does not mean you can dismiss it for every other mother

especially those who have shared their experiences on this thread

good for you that you feel great about it, what about those that don;t??

Sort of agree. Ds was born at home after a long and difficult labour. I had fantastic midwife care and a better experience than almost anyone I know. I also enjoy fairly good mental health. It actually took me a long time to process my experience and not get 'flashbacks'. Dh and my sister said that they felt the same and it wasn't until I had an 'easy' second birth that they realised how hard the first had been.

I don't think that this had a huge impact on my relationship with my son and the love I felt for him, but it made things harder to begin with. Dd's birth was incredible and I felt really 'high'. I think this was a better start. I wouldn't underestimate the importance of 'one day' in an emotional sense, let alone the impact on physical health.

Lulumama, if you had read my threads at all, you would see that I am not dismissing the importance of the birth for every other mother. I said counselling should be available for every mother who wants it.

What I said - again and again and again- is that the only thing I resent is when other people tell me how I ought to feel about giving birth. Particularly that I ought to feel a failure, because that's what they would have felt.

How does this translate into my wanting to tell other mothers how they ought to feel? My whole point is that nobody should project their own feelings onto anybody else.

My vaginal birth was drawn out, I bled heavily and did not fully recover for a year (infected stitches). But the thing that actually traumatised me was dd being Failure to Thrive. Early signs of the genetic condition which has since left her disabled, but I did not know, so thought I was a useless mother .

Noone should be left unsupported. But noone should be rung up, as my SIL was, and told they should feel they had failed in a crucial aspect of motherhood.

It's about not wanting to dismiss anybody's experiences. Including my SIL's delight at her newborn- that was well and truly dismissed by that midwife, wasn't it?

well, we agree on that then , i apologise if i misconstrued what you were saying

That's all right. I think we are on the same side

I agree with you Reallytired. I had a c-section and I do feel judged sometimes by those who have had natural births/ no complications. At the end of the day we are lucky to have the option of medical intervention as it saves many lives of babies and mothers! People assume I must be traumatised by my birth, but actually I was fine and was so happy when my DS was born. I generally felt well cared for by the hospital staff. For me his birth was not hard to deal with, but other people's comments and assumptions have been - i.e. comments like 'oh were you too posh to push' etc are pretty annoying!

Cory I wasn't addressing my post to you btw - the thread moved on before I posted! I agree with you in that people telling you how you ought to feel is rubbish.

"More than slightly evangelical on the subject"

I think if you're fair Quatto you'll admit that my post isn't about proselytizing - it's about defending the organisation I make my living out of working for from accusations that they betray the women they claim to be advocating for.

"I just wanted them to leave me alone"

Cory - you make it sound as though the massed ranks of the NCT - the teachers, the tutors, those people who work for the organisation were standing on your doorstep harrassing you about your birth. In what sense were they not 'leaving you alone'? How are the NCT responsible for the insensitive behaviour of your friends?

"It was the NCT teacher who told me that I couldn't possibly have been cared for as a woman and well informed if I did it all through the NHS."

If the teacher said these actual words to you then I agree - she shouldn't have. Most people are happy with the maternity care they get and a lot of hospital classes are brilliant. Did she actually say those words to you, or did she say something along the lines of 'sometimes it's hard to get the information and the care you need in the NHS?'

I find it very hard sometimes to have to sit and listen to people's birth stories without saying anything, without commenting on the care they had (though sit and listen and not say anything critical is exactly what you ought to be doing). The care in my local hospital can be very, very poor - basically because of staffing issues, but also because some of the midwives haven't updated their practice in the last 15 years and are still adhering to unhelpful protocols that even the hospital itself claims to have abandoned.

The thing is though - the midwives are mostly incredibly kind and want what they see as best and safest for the mothers they care for. When the mums talk about their births afterwards they're so grateful for the kindness they were shown. I feel sad though that the kindness doesn't always go hand in hand with evidence based practice so that fewer of these women ended up with assisted births, third degree tears, postnatal infections and breastfeeding difficulties.......

"You seem to assume that anyone who is happy with their "medicalised birth" thinks that women should not be given information or kindly supported in hospital".

No - I didn't say this and don't hold it to be true. Actually I've learned that women are mostly very loyal to their birth choices and birth experiences. I was the same with my first. Went around for years saying 'thank god for doctors, monitors, epidurals and forceps otherwise me and my daughter wouldn't be here now. It was only the very different approach of a midwife to a similarly complicated, difficult subsequent labour which made me question whether the way my first labour was managed was in the best interests of my daughter and myself.

"On the contrary, the NCT teacher had never worked as a midwife, so her personal experience was limited to her own births"

And of course the dozens and dozens of births she would have had feedback on during her time as a teacher. Because that's the difference - most midwives who work on the labour ward get very little detailed feedback about the way women feel about their births or the longer term sequalae from difficult births. They get the 'thankyou - you were absolutely amazing and we're so grateful' comments after the birth, or occasionally really aggressive abuse from people who are unhappy. And as I said - in the aftermath of the birth women are so appreciative of having got through the whole thing safely, of the kindness of midwives, and of their hard work that they tend not to raise the things they were unhappy about that might later come back to haunt them in subsequent pregnancies. Midwives don't get feedback from the mothers weeks after the birth, when they've had time to reflect on the way it all went. For me this is the crucial thing - I try to see each birth from the POV of the mother, and not from an organisational point of view. But as I said - I try very hard to keep my mouth firmly shut when I meet up with mums again after the birth and not to say anything that questions the way the mum was cared for in labour - even if in my mind I'm saying 'offs that's awful'. Your friend - the NCT teacher - she should have kept her mouth shut too.

Yes, she should have. And so, to be fair, should my SIL's midwife abroad.

My midwife, in addition to 20 years experience on labour wards, ran ante-natal classes and visited mothers after birth, so she got lots of feedback. Everybody around here got regular community midwife visits after giving birth. Invaluable for me as I needed lots of breastfeeding support due to my dd's condition. The hospital breastfeeding counsellor was also very good and enabled me to carry on bf'ing.

I thought I made it clear that by "them" I meant a particular group of women- one NCT teacher and a number of local women who were strongly engaged in the NCT in my area- not NCT members in general. This particular local group were very evangelical in the sense of loudly telling everybody that their approach was the only correct one.

Hardly think I am living in a post-partum haze as both dc's are now of school age. I know I was very ill before ds was born and very strongly doubt a different labour approach could have helped with that. He was underweight and born prematurely. I had the same problems since my early 20s, am still on medication 8 years after my last child and know I will need medical support until I die. But hopefully, with the appropriate medical support, that won't be too early

Both my dc's have inherited a separate genetic condition which meant they had extra problems as babies apart from being in this not-very-healthy- womb.

As far as I am concerned, an unmedicated life isn't going to happen. But Life is happening all the time. That's good enough for me

Sorry you were treated with such insensitivity by your 'friends' Cory.

But hope you continue to stay well.

I was also unwell in my pregnancies (not life-threateningly so, but had a lot of anxieties and more than one surgical procedure involving spinal anaesthesia and hospital stays). Never thought I'd be glad to put my baby days behind me, but I am. The further away from it I get the harder I feel it all was. Glad I'll never have to do it again! (oops - shouldn't be saying that really I suppose, but when I'm teaching I sometimes get huge surges of pity for the mums, knowing what some of them are going to go through..... and thinking 'rather you than me!')

'remembering a little voice that once said to me, through the pouring rain, on a cold and miserable afternoon: 'you are the right Mummy for me'

How absolutely lovely. You've made me well up here. Can I still use hormones as an excuse even though ds is now 6 months old?

Fabsmum - sorry to come so late on this but "Authors' conclusions -
All women should have support throughout labour and birth." doesn't argue for "using doulas have lower intervention rates than others" or sthg similar you said. One extrapolation too far? Reasonable to make but not supported by evidence.

Olifin and Cory - your quote in the rain made me tearful too.

How wonderful it all is.

here

(Full NICE guideline for caesarean section)

You need to look at page 39, which gives a breakdown of the evidence. The research does support the view that one to one continuous support from doulas/female birth supporters - (with or without prior training), reduces the likelyhood of caesarean section. There is only a reduction associated with continuous care when when the person providing support is not a member of the hospital staff.

here

(Full NICE guideline for caesarean section)

You need to look at page 39, which gives a breakdown of the evidence. The research does support the view that one to one continuous support from doulas/female birth supporters - (with or without prior training), reduces the likelyhood of caesarean section. There is only a reduction associated with continuous care when when the person providing support is not a member of the hospital staff.

I think it is also important to remember that doulas are not just supportive people that turn up on the day and get the woman through the birth.

They help the woman make decisions in advance of the birth that will increase her chances of feeling happy about it and empowered on the day ensuring they enter labour relaxed.

They also give the mother debriefing and reflection opportunities with a person that was actually present as a witness and enable the mother to fill in any blanks. This can help to avoid false memories.

These roles are valuable even if the doula doesn't actually make the birth for some reason.