To wonder why people get so outraged by other's choices?

[Mooncupflowethover]

Talking mainly about elective caesareans/vaginal births here.

Why do people care SO much about what choice a woman makes regarding how she gives birth. I have read so many heated discussions on MN about this. Why do people get so aerated about it?

As far as I'm concerned, someone wants a VB, fine. Someone wants an ELC, fine. Why are so many people bothered about how someone else gives birth?? I'd understand if they were talking about their own birth choices!!

Anyway, that's my thought for the day

I doubt I'm BU!

no,. but some hospitals refuse to do VB's for breech babies. there is one local to me who won't- ,my friend said they wouldn't even consider it for her breech baby!!

and i've def got the feeling from people on here that they're very pro-c-section and it's often offered as the only choice unless you really push the issue.

i dunno, i suppose at the end of it i just see people as trying to help, even if they do end up coming over as patronising or whatever. I don't think i'd hold it against them if their intentions were good

iam, I had nothing to compare it to, but i thought she had really strong hands and big feet(turned out to be her head) until she was diagnosed breech

She would kick in bursts, and i would feel it strongly in my bladder, hips and lower abdomen IYSWIM...

Monty - leave out the "easy" I think

Monty, sorry, just read your posts about the offered sterilisation and your baby too

I'm very sorry too.

Tethersend - OUCH!

My poor wee first one was pushing and banging to get out but couldn't fit through 5cm. lol

I am completely pro-CS, but found myself advising a poster on here that it was possible to have her breech baby vaginally; it was what she wanted and she didn't realise it was possible.

My issue is that many people assume uninformed choice when it is a CS birth- even long after the fact!

Iam - thank you. Have had another two beautiful dcs. Sort of helps with life. Would be great to have three but...

Anyway, ladies please don't argue it is emotive.

Certainly no-one should ever judge another's choice as long as no harm comes to the baby.

I think sometimes advice isn't always best given by the professionals. Who's to blame for that? So there's no point in anyone getting upset here.

OP -YANBU to wonder about this.

Personally I try no to care/judge any individual women about how she gave birth/chose to give birth.

So I am not outraged by any individual's choices more that I am outraged at the way society/the NHS disempower women during birth.

What I care about it that the over- medialisation of birth is IMO leading to less than desirable birth experiences. This can lead to problems for women and for their DC (traumatic births/breastfeeding problems/bonding issues).

This article pretty much says it for me.

"Certainly no-one should ever judge another's choice as long as no harm comes to the baby." Amen to that.

The problem with a web forum is that what may sound like tactful and sensitive advice when one person types it can sound like patronising judgementalism when someone else reads it.

Good information is vital - for all the choices involved in childbirth. For example, I knew little or nothing about the associated risks of forceps/ventouse deliveries, and very little about the risks of episiotomy, before I had ds1, and when the second stage of labour was going very slowly, and I was exhausted after more than 36 hours in labour, I wasn't given any information about them - though I think I was very close to needing forceps/ventouse, and was lucky to get away with just an episiotomy. Neither the NCT classes nor the NHS ones had given me much information on these interventions.

Second and third time round, I had homebirths, and for those, I read up on the pros and cons, and I think I was far better informed. I don't know if this made things any easier - I still had very long labours, but very short second stages, and faster recoveries.

Yes TheCrackFox, that's right, and a good article.

What about not BF because breasts may be ruined (and that was the reason and yes it was told to me)?
She also told me she was having the section because she thought it would do less damage but ....

I still can't get past it, I can't.
I don't think I'm jealous, I haven't lost any of my body to childbirth really, but I feel strongly that this was a sorry plastic surgery birth?
A birth that wasn't real, that made sure the woman was spared real childbirth, and all about her, with no consideration for the child.
I don't like it, but perhaps it's me that's wrong. I still don't like it though.

mugglewump, why do you feel women must suffer for childbirth?

TOTALLY AGREE with the OP!! I couldn't care less about most people's choices about most things unless they directly affect me or my kids.

Blueshoes...that is another AIBU topic . I don't get why women have to suffer the agony of labour to have a 'proper' birth experience either!

I feel I had a great birth experience.

Mugglewump - your last post pretty much sums up the reason for my OP. Why can't you get past it? It wasn't your child, it wasn't your birth experience, it isn't really your concern..please don't be offended by what I'm saying.

Why does it bother you so much? I just don't get it.

Birth isn't quite a random lottery. There are certain things you can do to improve your chances of a successful birth.

I like the analogy that birth is a dealt hand and it's a matter of how you play it. Sometimes you may get an absolutely impossible hand - the baby is stuck fast and you have loads of complications that can't be overcome. Sometimes, there are surmountable difficulties - say, the baby is positioned awkwardly but you can swing the balance by using positioning techniques to help the baby move. Sometimes you have an easy birth and you just have to sneeze the baby out.

There's not a lot you can do about the impossible hand or the easy hand. They are what they are. But most of us are somewhere in the middle and do have a bit of influence over our birth experience (and I say this as someone who has had a C-Section for failure to progress and two other births, one at home). Activity, positioning, relaxation, support etc. can tip the balance if a woman /wants/ a vaginal delivery. I do feel with hindsight that being upright and active in my first labour could have made a big difference.

With regards to the OP. I am a fairly hardcore home birth advocate, mainly because I operate in the US where getting a home birth can be very difficult and the legal situation for midwives is under threat. But I would never tell someone to just have a home birth if it was obvious they really didn't want one.

I'm not outraged by women making an informed choice. A close friend of mine had an ELCS. I totally understand her reasons (not that she had to justify them to me) and I wouldn't dream (or have dreamt) of trying to convince her to do anything else.

But a lot of people do dismiss home birth or accept what their consultant says without really doing any research, and a lot of women are blatantly lied to by their doctors in the US who are operating on very suspicious political and financial agendas.

I AM outraged that home birth is dismissed, often in very rude terms and I'm outraged that many doctors describe caesareans, epidurals, hospital birth etc. as completely safe.

Home birth and hospital birth both carry risks. ALL birth carries risk. There are plenty of anecdotes about bad births in both situations. Statistically, they are comparable with regards to maternal and infant mortality (both very rare with professional medical attention) but home birth has consistently been shown to have much fewer complications.

I'm currently planning a birth class for the newly pregnant focussing on birth choices. I'm just happy when women realise they DO have a choice. I've met plenty of professional, intelligent women who assume that all babies are born in hospital and aren't aware of birth centres or home birth as viable options.

The 'suffering' for birth thing is really interesting.

Yes, pain isn't a lot of fun and birth hurts a lot.

But when I've talked to women about birth trauma, most of them don't talk about the pain, they talk about feeling abandoned or scared or out of control. It's usually linked to the support they received (or didn't receive) or feelings of fear.

Why do so many women who've had a 'good' home birth, drug-free rave about them and say they'd do it again?

The Western mindset is that pain is the worst thing that can ever happen to someone. At the first sign of pain, we down painkillers. We fear pain. I see US doctors really playing into this fear and portraying the pain of childbirth as abnormal and unbearable.

Yet there is a strong mind-body interaction where pain is concerned. And with proper support, our body contains some very strong coping mechanisms and hormone interactions which deal with the pain. Techniques such as hypnobirthing support this interaction.

There's a lot more that could be said on this subject, but I think 'suffering' doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to everyone. Personally, I 'suffered' far more recovering from my C-Section than I did during or after the drug-free and yes, bloody painful home birth with baby #3.

Carmen, cultural or not, pain is very much in the eyes of the beholder.

The last thing you want to do when you are leading a birth class is to downplay pain.

Or give the impression is that one type of pain (natural birth) is somehow better than another type (cs).

Your job is to objectively put forward all the information women need to make their choices.

I am slightly concerned about your being too evangelistic about one choice or another, as that is actually denying women choice.

In the UK, we already have that from the overzealous teachers of (some) NCT classes.

"But when I've talked to women about birth trauma, most of them don't talk about the pain, they talk about feeling abandoned or scared or out of control. It's usually linked to the support they received (or didn't receive) or feelings of fear"

I only started feeling relaxed and in control once I agreed to the CS. The hours before that when I was mostly sick because of the G&A and the synto I felt utterly helpless and frightened. Before it happened I never thought I'd have a section, or painkillers or anything, as I thought it'd be easy. I was more informed about the risks and dangers of a CS than about VB.
I was surprised how quickly I recovered from my CS, too, as it had always been portrayed as so difficult.

Hi Blueshoes.

I agree with you on pretty much all counts. I certainly don't and wouldn't downplay pain. But I do think the UK and US have a strongly fearful cultural attitude towards pain which influences how we deal with it, especially having talked to midwives about their experiences in Africa etc. Obviously, I recognise that cultural attitude in classes and work within that.

I am also clear before people sign up that my classes spin towards natural birth (and the evidence shows that natural birth is USUALLY the safest and least traumatic option for normal pregnancy so I am comfortable with this bias.) I work within clear guidelines set by ICEA (the body who I have trained with.

I think your concern might be better placed with the hospital classes which are shocking over here. The series I sat through recently actually BANNED any mention of home birth by the teacher. The video the hospital showed suggested that planning birth without an epidural was not 'realistic'.

I took NCT classes with my first two babies. My teacher was a wonderful lady. Half the class were planning caesareans and she had no problem with that.

Because other people are doing it wrong.

HTH

I think it's really hard to prepare for pain actually.

You don't know how it will feel until you're there. It's different for every woman. The best we can do is teach coping mechanisms like visualisation, massage and breathing and practice them (maybe using focuses like ice cubes or white noise).

The fear->pain cycle is very real. Women should be in an environment where they feel safe and in control. For some women, that is the hospital, but where I am, most women are shocked when they find how much intervention happens in a hospital and how out of control they are. The OBs simply don't tell them what will happen to them.

Pitocin/Synto is the standard. Most women are confined to bed. Stirrups are still common. Women's arms are strapped down during caesareans. I operate in a very different environment to the UK, sadly. For that reason, I have to be a bit more proactive in my natural birth mission, purely because the hospitals are so militant in their management and medicalisation of birth.

at Trillian

Carmen, apart from cultural attitudes towards pain, there are also genetic differences in pain thresholds.

I grew up in a racially mixed society, dominated by a few races. It was acknowledged amongst medical circles than Indians had a lower pain threshold than Orientals.

I think the discussion about different attitudes and perception to pain is interesting. But not very helpful when you boil it down to an individual's choices.

The hospital-run antenatal classes in my UK hospital were so basic they are next to useless. I think the sub-text was lie back and let us do whatever.

Even if a woman is pro-natural birth to begin with, it does not mean that you have carte blanche to not be sensitive to other birth choices (not saying you would). At the end of the day, it may not be that woman's choice to have an emcs or instrumental delivery. Therefore, it is better not to be too evangelistic about one option over another, whatever your target audience (like your NCT teacher).

That is really interesting, blueshoes. I haven't heard that.

Pain threshold varies considerably from woman to woman, as do attitudes to pain. I do think fear of pain plays a strong part in women's birth choices though and it does deserve some thought and discussion.

Entirely agree about evangelising. I've learned one thing from observing the hospital teacher which is that she makes a very big deal of reassuring women that if they have given birth, they have given birth, it doesn't matter how. It's really important not to set women up to feel they've failed if they do end up with a birth they didn't choose.

And I've heard of women over here being allowed epidurals at 9-10cms to stop them being disappointed that they didn't get the epidural they were promised so the sense of failure can work the other way!

There's a difference between teaching that natural birth is perhaps the safest type of birth and easiest to recover from and teaching that you're only a real woman and a success if you have a natural birth. A good teacher should be able to do the former without the latter.