to want to slap the girl on 'one born every minute'?

[HoopsIsGettingMassive]

in the title really, she is really making a meal of it!!

MILLY "But why would you choose a painful labour if there was another option ?"

I cant beleive that you are still here, still CONVINCED that if you make the effort labour is pain free. Its a crock of shit. labours HURTS. stop it, its not helping!!!

"scoring points over who was the biggest howler"

Milly, are you usually this offensive? People are talking about their experiences of intense pain, not a screaming competition.

Is it any wonder nobody is interested in learning anything from you with an attitude like yours?

If i didn't scream when my hand was chopped off, and i thought it was relatively pain free does that mean that everyone else will feel that way? No exactly.

Everyone is different, and will experience labour differently.

Milly you come across very badly, i hope you're not saying if i can have a pain free labour so can everyone else, because tbh that's the way it reads.

I refuse to believe that a grown woman can be so stupid though.

And everyone else who has enjoyed pulling this poor girl apart, shame on you!

I can't believe how this thread has affected me, for the first time in 5/6 years i actually shouted at my monitor.

What a fucking disgrace, and this is coming from someone who had drug free non screaming labours.

i was making a right racket at 2cm - surely not only 2? after four days of it...

i can see where milly is coming from as i read the same in juju sundin's book, birth skills, and other active birth books, and in a way it is a muscle just getting tired so shouldn't be that painful, i thought. i have also done yoga for years and was the only one who could do a full squat in my yoga class. i completely maximised my chances of it not being painful but after two days it was, and after four -sheesh, and i was only two cm! but then if you used a leg muscle for four days it would hurt, and sometimes in labout bladders and intestines can get squashed and that hurts...

i still felt sorry for that girl and didn't think she was helped at all.

i didn't choose a painful labour, i chose a non painful labour utilising various techniques to lower adrenaline and ENABLE my body - i got an emcs for brow presentation?!

"It was for me not painful and the factors that I would say contributed to that, despite the baby being OP were.
1 to 1 midwifery care, constant reassurance, massage, changing of position, yoga breathing exercises, but mainly somebody reminding you the whole way through that you can do this."

i did all of this, and got to the caesarian with only gas and air. it still fucking hurt, which was wy i needed all the massage, yoga, breathing and oils!

Q: Would anyone expect you not to cry out in pain if you hand was being hacked off?

A: No.

Q: Would anyone expect you not to cry out in pain during an excrutiatingly painful labour?

A: Yes, is seems that quite a lot of people here would.

There is no doult that good quality ante natal classes can improve the labour experience. Even when the woman experiences bad luck, good education makes the woman more in control of the situation. She understands why medical decisions and is still made to feel part of the process.

I felt sorry for Sam, her experience was truely and utterly wretched. Maybe she should have done X, Y or Z. However it was too late. She was terrified and a fellow human being. She has feelings like the rest of us.

People forget that she might be reading this thread.

Yes Gen, but if you were having your hand cut off nobody would expect you to do it without pain relief.

In fact, if you suggested to your medical staff that you wanted to try and breathe through the pain, they'd look at you like you were a nutter!

You know this is why nothing changes despite hundreds of years of research because women seem to want the whole circus around childbirth and programmes like one born every minute re enforce that.
As I said before it seems to be the female equivalent of who can piss the highest.

I am probably a million years too late for this debate, but what annoyed me about Sam was not the "fuss" she made during contractions, or the hyperventilating she did (been there, got the t-shirt) or the crying she did about how she could not do this (ditto).

It was the screaming and thrashing about she did between contractions. Surely she should have been encouraged to calm down and save her energies for the contractions? (as I was, frequently )

MillyMollyMoo the sort of change you are talking about isn't going to be brought about by berating women over their labour experiences.

Milly, why are you targeting women who (in your understanding) are ill-informed and don't know how to do what's best for them?

Your approach seems rather like knowing about Nestle's attitude towards formula milk, knowing about crushing poverty in African countries, knowing that women often aren't educated and can't read instructions on packaging, knowing that sources of clean water aren't found ... and then attacking women who poison their babies with formula made up with dirty milk.

It's not that you're necessarily wrong, but you're attacking the people who are in the most vulnerable position first. I do understand you're trying to help and I am generally absolutely grateful for any advice going since I know I don't know what's going to happen - but this seems unbalanced.

I don't consider I am targeting anyone Reddragon, I am responding to posts.
With respect it's no skin off my nose how anyone labours or births their babies.
My original point on this thread was that poor Sam didn't cope because nobody helped her and it strikes me that many don't want their care to improve they are happy with the current status quo and then their tales of woe afterwards.
Plenty of midwifes have already been on this thread and said exactly what I have that hyperventilating by screaming your head off, distresses you, makes labour less effective, distresses the baby and leads to intervention.

Morloth I am responding to certain posters, not betrating anyone in general, if people are reading responses to certain posters and taking them to heart then that is simply not how I believe threads work, when the intended receiptant is highlighted.

Quite, Woosam.

It is utterly beyond me why some women seem to think that we as women are under some sort of obligation to "breathe through the pain" of labour simply because we're women and "our bodies are designed to do that".

Pain is pain. End of. Anyone normal wants to be relieved of pain don't they? I just don't get all this "wanting to feel it" just because its "natural" shit.

Fine, if there are people out there who think that they get one up on others just because they "felt it", go for it. Just don't bloody well judge and moralise over others who don't.

And don't judge and moralise over people who feel pain and let others know about it.

If you were in your death throwes suffering terrible pain people would think it was utterly inhumane to leave you like that.

If you were having a limb amputated you'd be given a general anaesthetic.

It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I think people are getting very het up over this thread, that girl Sam will probably watch the programme back and feel very ashamed of what she was like........but then again probably not, it was not my intention of slagging off anyone's birh experiences, just wanted to bring the girl back to earth cause she was flapping big time!!

Yes she should have had lots more support from her mother and partner but she didn't want it, her choice...

guttersnipe that was my point exactly she should have been made to calm as much as possible in between contractions so she could save her energy for the actual contractions....

milly I think you are fighting a losing battle

From an antropological standpoint, our bodies aren't very well designed for it, though.

As pointed out, it was a trade off of bipedal locomotion. We should gestate for 13 months, but of course, the female pelvis shortened to accommodate walking on two legs and our babies are born very very immature.

You don't hear of many chimps dying in childbirth.

But yes, all you who had a lot of pain in labour, you all know it was only because you wanted the circus-like atmosphere of it all, you silly, melodramatic women.

People are happy with their tales of woe?

Yes, that's right, people want to go through excruciating labours just to have a story to tell afterwards.

You really are being incredibly ridiculous now.

Absolutely if what you mean is people can give themselves the bst odds of a good birth I will stand with you and fly the flag,but nothing in life is that predictable. You can maximise your chances but you can't guarantee anything. When it does go badly awry people become at risk of PTSD and PND and all sorts,and telling them if they had only tried harder it might not have happened- and whether you are saying tjhat or not it is being read as that by many- is going to reinforce theeir issues and actually riskseveredistress. How can you equate that with being on the side of empowering women?

My HB was great and probably the sort of doula ledlow intervention thing you love; however my first,an induction with no epiduraland early so no help from endorphins and all the rest,ws just as much of an achievement but from a very diferent starting point. The ther two became natural steps up the ladder, teaching me things nobody else could about how my body works and responds,things that no book could tell me because they are unique to me and everything that has happened to me,my body and my mind over 30 odd years.

HoopsIsGettingMassive "I think people are getting very het up over this thread..."

You misunderstand the nature of AIBU, we like getting het up about shit, it passes the time between cups of tea and biscuits.

Expat you know what evolution really fucked up? Knees, ever seen the inside of a human knee? It is ridiculously over-complicated and all so we can walk upright. The surprise isn't when people's knees stop working, it is that they work at all, ever.

Sometimes I think we sacrificed too much to walk upright, clearly a design flaw, from now on all evolutionary decisions should be left to me.

Morloth - assuming you get the job of cheif evolutionary director, could we have tails please?

Quite right Morloth,is there any point to AIBU otehrwise? It would become a self satisfiedsmuggery fest where you would post AIBU and everyone would say oooh no ofcourse not you'realways right...... yuck

It's like fight club only with less rules and no real names innit?

That's ok then........first rule of AIBU....there are no rules

In that case I'm glad I posted, to give you all entertainment in between