To feel 'conned' by the whole natural childbirth/labour and breastfeeding hardsell?

[angel1976]

I don't post that much on AIBU cos I am mostly scared of most of you! But I do want to know truly if I am the only person who feels this way about childbirth/labour/BF-ing?

DS2 born last Wednesday. I am truly happy and blessed now to have two very healthy and gorgeous sons. However, both my childbirth/labour/BF-ing experience have left me feeling quite down and I wonder if I AIBU to feel this way?

DS1 - Got 'sold' all the crap facts about natural labour without pain relief, drugs are bad etc, every woman can BF etc etc. Had very 'aspirational' ideas of how the birth of DS1 would be - birthing pool, calm etc.

Reality is I had a very quick labour. Midwives did not believe I was in labour when I got into hospital. Left screaming on the floor in waiting room. Got into delivery suite, 7cm dilated, I was completely hazy with pain (can't remember the details of what happened next TBH). DS1 was in distress with each contraction. All I remembered was loads of people rushing in, DS1 delivered with ventouse, had a horrendous 48 hours in hospital with no support, no help with BF-ing. Struggled with BF-ing big-time, got told over and over again what I was going through was normal. As a background, I have a pituitary tumour that messes with my hormones and could be the reason why I struggled so much with BF-ing. Tried to get every help I could with it and even the BF-ing counsellor told me in the end to use formula and was so concerned with my state of mind (I was crying all the time cos I felt I 'failed' as a mother by not being able to BF) that she called my HV to come and see me. In the end I was very depressed for at least 6 months after DS1's birth and did not enjoy that time with him.

DS2 - Definitely wanted pain relief of some sort. Again, got to hospital late. Midwifes believe me this time about how quick everything is happening (as one of the midwives know me fairly well). Asked for pain relief straightaway and instead of giving it straight to me, the midwives tried to use gas and air as a 'bargaining' tool and held off giving it to me!

Realised straightaway gas and air is another 'con', I was in so much pain. Midwives kept telling me I was doing well and refused to give me any other pain relief. Shouted to them I could feel DS2's head but was not believed till DH shouted to them that I wasn't lying! My waters didn't break and the midwives thought my waters will break first so again, got caught unawares.

DS2 born last Wednesday, Friday I felt a lot of pressure underneath and had an emergency callout with the midwife and got diagnosed with a vaginal prolapse. Got told I wouldn't get to see a gyne for another 2-3 weeks on the NHS. Luckily DH has private healthcare and we are going down that route on Monday. Trust me, if you have a vaginal prolapse, you do not want to WAIT to see a doctor. Again, struggling with BF-ing. DH spotted that DS2 is tongue tied like DS1, confirmed by the midwife who came on the first day.

I just feel so depressed by the whole thing. I really feel I was 'mis-sold' everything about childbirth and BF-ing! I've never even heard of a vaginal prolapse before it happened to me. I know I am VERY, VERY lucky that I have two beautiful boys and that I am 'healthy' (relatively speaking) but I wished someone had warned me the 'reality' of having two natural childbirths so close together. And now to be struggling with a vaginal prolapse and BF-ing at the same time, I can almost feel the old depression that swamped so much of my early days with DS1 coming back... I have a very close friend who has had an elective C-section cos she didn't want to feel labour pains and I used to think what a wimp she was and though it wasn't by choice, I felt kinda proud of having had DS1 completely naturally.

Now I just feel cheated and angry. So what if I had two vaginal births and only with gas and air with the second one? My body is seriously f*ed up. I have women issues only faced by old women... While my friend with the C-section has no issues as far as I know other than a scar... So AIBU????????????????????

yanbu.

Re the prolapse, I'd've been straight on to my gp saying I wanted it sorted asap - I wouldn't have taken the mw's word on the timescale. But I don't blame you for going private in your situation.

And on the issue of bf, it's been many years sine I gave birth but I felt the same way, in that all the info is about the birth and very little info and support is offered afterwards.

YANBU I have had three "natural" births and although I wasnt upset by them I cant see why you would choose not to have pain relief. each time I planned all the pain relief going and each time had the baby too quickly to have any. Breastfeeding I only tried with my third and actually found that fine BUT it wasnt the magical bonding experience I had been led to believe it was just feeding.

Really sorry to hear about your experiences. But of course, the fact that these things didn't work out for you doesn't mean that either "natural childbirth" or breastfeedings are cons in themselves. Just that it wasn't right for you.

Other women have been permanently damaged by caesarians. Again, doesn't mean that caearians are always wrong.

I have a child who is only ever going to be able to walk short distances. This does not mean that the whole concept of healthy exercise for children is a con. All it means is that I have to let go of the thought that I am failing her when I do the best I can under the circumstances.

What you need to do is to get support for your own special case, and that might mean counselling, or going through your birthnotes or whatever you think would help you. It sounds like you've had an absolutely rotten time and need all the help you can get.

Hi all,

Thanks for all your thoughts... I know it's early days and I will need the time to process what has happened. When I use the word 'con', I felt that before I had DS1, all the midwives we met really pushed for natural birth with no pain relief. They never even once mentioned that your birth could have a very different outcome. They kept going 'if you try gas and air first, then you will know if you can cope with the pain before asking for more...' I think in their minds, all births followed a pattern ('To get from 0cm to 10cm dilation, it will take that many hours...'). and certainly the pattern was one that lasted a lot longer than mine! What I felt was that they never told me about other options or possible outcomes (i.e. extremely fast labour, possible vaginal prolapse etc!) so I could have made an informed choice rather than have gone into labour having such unrealistic ideas of what childbirth constituted.

With DS2 I was very determined to have more pain relief and again, was denied that. Just felt the midwives were very dismissive about me wanting more pain relief. The attitude was very much, you've done it once, you will do it again without!

I don't think I had very high expectations of childbirth. All I saw was that it was a means to an end and all I wanted was a healthy baby at the end. And like I said, I know I should feel grateful that I do have two beautiful boys now. And thank goodness DH and I always agreed we only want two, there's no way I could push out another one without everything falling out! But to have a vaginal prolapse... is just and .

With regards to BF-ing, there's no other way to describe it than a hardsell. While still in hospital with DS1, DS1 cried all night. I had midwives come in and literally shoved him in my breast as my 'intro' into BF-ing. Every visit from midwives elicited the question of 'Are you BF-ing?' or 'They don't need formula.' I've heard BF-ing counsellors at my antenatal clinic talking to mothers-to-be saying things like: 'Bottle-fed babies are always obese.' It makes me SO angry as I bought into all that when preggers with DS1 and got so depressed at my failure to BF.

I am very close to giving up BF-ing this time. I have a 20-month-old toddler, a newborn and a vaginal prolapse to deal with and I cannot face the same struggle with BF-ing again. But I feel so guilty about that. I feel so tired and just want to be selfish this time so I can recover from the prolapse, it's such an awful thing to suffer at only 33... Thanks all for making me feel better.

Sounds awful. I would say that your experiences in hospital haven't helped with they way you feel. I agree that going through the birth notes may help plus some counselling.

I had an ECS with DS and ventouse (sp?) with DD. The ECS was much harder to deal with physically and mentally. I had PND after the ECS.

I hope you recover as quickly as possible and that your body gets back to normal. My DD is only 4 weeks old and my body is slowly recovering from the stitches and bruising. I hope you have lots of support and look after yourself.

Just to clarify that I don't mean that natural childbirth or BF-ing are 'cons' but that the way they have been 'sold' by so many midwifes as the only way to do things as the con.

Half an hour after the birth of DS2, the midwife told me how 'lucky' I was to have such a quick labour as she knew many woman with longer and more painful labours... How would she know?!!! Just because I had a quick labour doesn't mean it wasn't as traumatic as any other... It just all felt so dismissive. I would like to know whether the midwife still thinks I had a good experience when I now have a vagina that is falling out..

sorry you feel so sad and have had such gruelling physical/mental experiences. perhaps go to gp/mw for debrief about your birth experiences. it can help to have support to go over your notes.put in in context and debrief

don't suffer all this turmoil.tell someone how you feel

To say I am sympathetic doesn't begin to cover it. i too have experienced do-goody, holier than thou, patronising midwives who assure me it will all be worth it in the end (I am 38 weeeks and have been suicidal on and off throughout). It seems that unless you are deliriously happy with all the crap,(much of it which comes courtesy of the health service)that goes with pregnancy, birth and beyond you are aberant/less of a woman/an unfit mother.
Who exactly wants to have a prolapse and how does having a healthy son compensate for this exactly? Given my experiences of the way antenatal depression is mishandled/exacerbated by the helth service I would be very suspicious of their approach to PND, I have certainly already formed the view that the sooner I can get away from these zeolots the better for me and mine.

Yanbu and would reiterate what everyone has said about going and talking to people about your experiences to try and make sense of them.

I would add though that my last emcs ended up with me in intensive care and I cant now have any more dcs so every type of birth has risks and nothing is a walk in the park.

And bf-ing itself isnt a con - you just need really good support - the con is that that support often isnt available.

i debriefed with gp.it really helped me

YANBU - I feel very strongly that I'd like a ceasarean with this baby but I know I'm not likely to get one.

I don't want someone cutting me open with a pair of scissors whilst denying me pain relief ever again.

I even find myself hoping this baby will turn out to be breech sometimes.

Congratulations on your new little one, very glad he arrived safe and sound (you were the very kind lady who sold me a breastfeeding cushion a while ago!)

sorry you feel like this - sounds like you've had a rough time
Just wanted to say congratulations on the birth of your DS I knew you were pg but thought you had a few months to go for some reason
Should probably have put this on a birth announcement but remaining brain cell died

Sorry to hear you have had such a terrible time of it. It sounds as though the lack or anyone listening to you, taking you seriously and providing the necessary support has understandably tipped you over the edge.

I can also understand how you feel cheated as noone had told you how things can be. My first ds was born by emergency section after becoming distressed and I can be thankful for my own medical knowledge (I am a doc) that I knew that just because I had on my birht plan that I wanted a water birth it didn't mean it would happen like that!

He also had a tongue tie and although it was mentioned to me I had absolutely no idea how difficult that makes bf and also how easy it is to correct.

I now have ds2 who was born my elective section, no tongue tie, but found it difficult to bf as he was a big grazer and after my problems bf ds1 (managed to mix feed him for 6 months with the help of nipple shields to stop the trauma caused by his tongue tie) I had no confidence in how to help him to take longer feeds and therefore he ended up feeding for hours at a time and was still hungry. I am not talking about cluster feeds either - more than this. I didn't have the confidence to continue and didn't see how it was prcatically possible to with a 20 month old toddler.

Fast forward 2 years and I have 2 lovely happy boys who light up my life and watching them play together is worth all the crap.

My advice to you is:

1. Try nipple shields temporarily. They were a life saver to me and without them I would never have managed to bf ds1 for 6 months.
2. First thing tomorrow speak to your mw about getting ds2's tongue tie dealt with. if necessary go and see her / postnatal ward and refuse to leave until they get you an urgent (this week) appointment with someone who can divide it. This can be done in a newborn without even any local anaesthetic and to my mind it is neglegent that a mum who is bf is allowed home without this being discussed with her given that it is one of the biggest factors accounting for failure to bf. Your lo will have no ill efffects from having this done (small risk of bleeding but minimal) and the positive effect on your bf is in my mind well worth it
3. Speak to the NCT bf support line - you do not need to be a member or have gone to any of their classes to do this and they are fantastic at this even though they are part of the issue you are ranting about in your op!
4. If all else fails then bf is not the be all and end all - if you are happier to bf given everything else that is going on just now that is a perfectly valid choice and one I made at 6 weeks with ds2. In the end I was much happier which can only be a good thing for everyone

Good luck xxx

I should add that if you have already reached the end of your tether wrt bf then ignore my advice - certainly don't feel under pressure to keep at it if you have already had enough. you don't need extra pressure from a well meaning stranger if you have had enough! Was just trying to give you practical tips in case you would benefit from them....

just have to acknowledge you are not alone in feeling how you do.unfortunately not many others experiencing such feelings speak up - fear of reprisals/shame/guilt/fantasy that every other mum is coping admirably

do let someone help you,don't suffer alone
emergency gp appt.if you cant talk write it down.if you can print your op

You have had a terrible time. It's been very traumatic and you have not been treated well at all, I can understand why you feel 'conned.'

Birth is so unpredictable, many women do have a terrible time, through nobodies fault (theor own or the midwives) but many also have a good experience and do it naturally.

I've experienced both.

Sounds like you've, very unluckily, had 2 bad birth experiences and now have to contend with the prolapse and the struggle that bf can be.

You need to get your head around the births, acknowledge they were traumatic and talk it through to understand why and how, so that you don't bottle up the anger/resentent/guilt which if supressed will just prolong and deepen any depression.

Feeling low right now is entirely understandable, but you need to work on enduring that you take steps to prevent it not becoming longer term depression.

I'd suggest:

Talk thourgh you birth with hosptial MW's.

Get some bf support immediately, get on to NCT or your hospital and request bf counsellor to come to you.

OR give up on bf if you think this is going to make you very depressed and you are better concentrating on other things. (controversial on MN I know, but I know poele who have taken this step and found it a life saver and who wished they'd taken it sooner.) You decide for yourself.

Go easy on yourself. Do not expect too much of yourself. Just getting thorugh the day and taing care of the children is enough right now.

Look for support on here from others who've been where you are. there will be LOADS. Start a thread not in AIBU, about traumatic birth and /or vaginal prolapse, realising your experiences are normal and shared, howver awful does, suprisingly, help.

oh, and comgrayulations on your new baby boy!!!

Kind thoghts and strength being sent your way xxx.

angel - YANBU to feel the way you are feeling. I hate hate hate this whole "breast is best" shit, because it isn't. Breastfeeding will not stop your child having eczema, it will not stop your child having allergies, it will not make your child super intelligent or have superpowers.

The same goes for natural childbirth. FWIW, I've had one medicalised, and one natural birth, and the natural one left me feeling less shell-shocked, but only because I knew what to expect!

I do think you need to talk to someone about how you're feeling, and also perhaps get some help in, if that's an option for you. Have you thought about hiring a postnatal doula? They can help with childcare for your toddler and also things like preparing meals, shopping, or whatever you need help with. You need to be focusing on you and your new baby, especially if you do want to stick at the breastfeeding.

Have you spoken to anyone about the tongue tie? It's shocking (IMO) that they don't routinely check for tongue tie when they're doing the discharge at hospital, or even as part of the Apgar scoring. It is possible to get it cut, I think, although only certain hospitals do it, so you might have to travel if you do want it snipped.

Anyway, I'm so, so sorry you feel cheated by your births. I agree that the hardsell of breastfeeding - which is then backed up with little or no support - is stupid and demoralising for women. I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks all.

GhoulsAreLoud - Good luck! Hope it all goes well for you. I'm sure you got a lot more use out of the BF-ing pillow than I did!

StealthPolarBear - Thanks and LOL...

alicet - Thanks for your story, it does make me feel better. I struggled so badly with BF-ing with DS1 (even after he got his TT sorted at 3 weeks plus). I tried everything and in the end, I gave up BF-ing DS1 at 6 weeks but the decision to stop was the hardest I ever made. I really felt I was letting him down. He is now the healthiest 20-month-old toddler I know so I know BF-ing is not the be-all and end-all of everything BUT I dread stopping as I know the midwives will question it.

scottishmummy - Thanks for the support. Midwife coming tomorrow and I will definitely try and get GP appointment tomorrow as well.

I do know that a c-section has it own dangers as well and I am sure 10 years down the road, I will feel glad for the way things happened BUT it is so hard to feel positive about it right at this moment. Thank you to those who remind me that I do still have two beautiful and healthy sons and at the end of it all, I would die for them so what I have been through is worth it just for them. Goodnight all!

angel1976 i really do appreciate that you have had a very traumatice experience with both you labours and births. however you seem to feel as though the midwives had a conspiracy to not allow you pain relief.

the midwives hope for all births to go as naturally as possible with as little intervention as possible because that is the safest way for a baby to be delivered. there is a higher risk of complications when pain relief is involved. thats not to say that they wont intervene when necessary, they do. and its not to say you have in any way failed because you chose to have pain relief. labour is HARD, we all try to make it as easy as possible for ourselves. nobody is going to mark you out of ten for effort.

the fact that they didnt warn you about what could go wrong, well, really there are any number of things that can go wrong during labour and for a midwife to tell you about them all beforehand would be ridiculous as it would worry you unnecessarily and it also might influence your decision over things like intervention/caeserean/forceps. you could refuse to allow them to do something that would be in the best interests of your baby, based on what the midwife had told you might go wrong.

for what its worth i took pethidine when in labour with my ds2 and as a result, he stopped breathing when he was born. it also completely stopped my labour and i had to be induced which meant the labour then became very fast and extremely intense. if i have abother baby i will be hoping for a natural birth. but again, i will not rule out all pain relief as these things very rarely follow a plan and i am open to this.

wrt to the midwives asking if you were breastfeeding, i can only see that as a positive thing. however the way in which they executed their 'support' sounds terrible. it is well known that midwives are short on the ground and just dont seem to have the time to properly support breastfeeding mothers. you were let down and you are right to feel angry about this.

you do need to revisit your labour and birth and get answers for all your questions but i do think you need to realise that perhaps you maybe held an ideal in your own mind of what birth was like and didnt allow for any deviation from that ideal.

oh angel you have had a terrible experience! congrats on the new baby, i'm getting all brudy.. i cant believe they nhs were going to let you wait for 2-3 weeks for a vaginal prolapse..thats not on and should be treated as an emergency. i dont balme you for feeling a bit down, i would be too if i were you. btw you a def not bu