Is wanting a natrual birth unrealistic? Is it all down to luck?

[digggers]

my own experience and the experience of friends really makes me wonder about this. There's no ryhme or reason, it's just so random.

Are people who prepare for and experience the birth they want just lucky? Is childbirth something you can prepare for and influence? Or is an open mind and a thankfulness that in our country we have medical help on hand the best approach? Or should all medical help be viewed with distrust!

Obviously I was pushing but I had to make myself do it rather than helping my body along>

I hate to say it, but luck definitely plays a role.

I had a fantastic natural birth with DD. In preparation for her arrival, I did it all: hypnotherapy, yoga, made DH take active birth, aromatherapy and massage classes with me and read everything I could get my hands on. All these things undoubtedly helped me manage my labour, particularly in the earlier stages. But I doubt they played as significant a role as the fact it was a quick labour and that the baby was in the right position and never showed any signs of distress.

In my antenatal group we were all keen on natural childbirth, but I was the only one who actually had one. Everyone else had some level of intervention. It had nothing to do with them being less committed or prepared and everything to do with them having much longer and more difficult labours and deliveries.

Its all just luck. For every woman who says they did hypnobirthing, waterpool, yogic meditation and had a wonderful birth because of it you'll also find a woman who said she did all those things but shouldn't have bothered because she ended up with a emcs anyway.

Though, having said all that I was determined not to have epidurals because in my circle of friends, those who had epis went on to have intervention of some kind because things slowed down for them. As it turns out though, I doubt anything could slow down my labours, I don't give birth to my babies so much as I expel them at great speed!

luck plays a role, but the stats don't lie....what you plan and the kind of road you choose is important -

homebirth halves the chance of C/S
MLU - reduces chance of C/S
epidural increases that chance...

different countries have different levels of intervention because the strategy adopted does change what happens.

wow! thanks - although now i feel i could have hung on in there. mind you, it was mindboggingly sore. dh says i bit him. i deny this utterly
anyhoo, good to know if we do this again

Luck.

I was fully prepared for a home birth with DC1 - very positive had done all the courses on yoga/breathing/optimum positions etc.

She was induced early due to complications and we very nearly both died.

With DC2 I was terrified - I felt panicky thinking about birth, broke down in tears when I went for the hospital visit a few days before he arrived. I found it really really distressing thinking about labour felt sick and shaky and was exceptionally negative.

But I went into labour and 17 hours later delivered my DS, having spent 16 hours at home actually (almost) enjoying the experience.

I hink I agree with you starlight, as in my limitted experience(just have 1 DC), I was better able to cope with pain when I felt relaxed an in control, and I was able to feel as relaxed and in control as possible because I had read loads about labour and birth and had been and looked around the hospital in advance. (Things I knew would help me). But I had to be induced, couldn't move around much/at all, ended up with emergency cs after 24 hrs of labour, under GA, after failed forceps delivery because in the end DD needed out, fast! There was nothing I could have done to avoid any of that but I was only scared right at the end, most of the experience was manageable, partly because I'd prepared myself as best I could (I think). But in terms of whether you can do it 'naturally' or not, I think it's almost entirely luck! x

Preparation can take you so far I think but in the end its down to luck as to whether your labour takes the course you hoped for or if something happens to change everything.

You do whats necessary when it comes down to it.

i don't see how luck plays a part unless there are life threatening circumstances e.g baby is simply not going to fit through pelvis or premature

in my (limited) experience being prepared to have a natural birth and being in control or your own body is going to be the biggest factor.

i planned my births with military precision and they happened exactly the way i planned them because i feel i was totally prepared and did everything i could to influence the way i laboured and gave birth i.e totally in control with minimum/no intervention. i wanted a natural birth and i made darn sure i did everything in my power to get one.

i hope it's not true about 3rd births being trickier than 2nd's cause i'm planning my 3rd home birth and will be totally gutted if i end up in hospital. i don't mistrust medical intervention, i just see birth as a natural event that shouldn't need medical intervention in most cases. i'd rather be surrounded by professionals whose priority is a more natural, drug/instrument free approach than doctors who are ready to pounce with needles and forceps.

Like Haliborange i also have a dogy pelvis (thanks to an accident) and my DS also got stuck. It was something we had worried about, and I had gone through MRI scans etc, but it still happened. I prepared as well as I could for a natural birth.... pregnancy yoga, hypnobirthing cds, meditation,all that jazz, and it simply ended up that it was impossible.

In the end DS was born vaginally, but he needed to be dragged out, and it fractured my pelvis in the process. I am so grateful for being in the UK, as I would have died without intervention, as would have DS.

I do think that this is unique though. But, it does annoy me when people imply that I could have tried harder to have had an intervention-free birth. (A 'friend' who has also given me grief because I ended up having difficulties breastfeeding and told me that this too was due to my not trying hard enough).

Incidentally, some years back in another country I worked with a woman who was an obstetrician herself (in the medical field). She died giving birth to her second child because the standards of medical care were not great. She had a manual removal of the placenta that went wrong. I think we need to thank our lucky stars that we have good medical care available to us when needed.

but naturalbaby i don't think it's always black and white in terms of life-threatening - for example my DD may have been in distress (she'd pooed) and then other factors were taken into account and, as i understand it, drs act based on the level of risk that the situation may have been life-threatening. For all I know, intervention free, DD may have been ok, I'll never know whether she was distressed or not or how serious this would have been. I think it's luck whether you end up in the grey area where they have to balance up all the risks, IYSWIM?

I think luck plays a massive part. With DS I was going to "go natural", do what I could until I felt I couldn't physically cope any more (if that happened) and then have some pain relief (all ifs and whens etc).........my body decided to go down the pre-eclampsia route and I had DS by EMCS at 33weeks!! Nothing anybody could have done to stop that.

I think you can do things to prepare, read books, be aware that being upright and bobile os beneficial, avoiding an epidural, etc. However a lot of it is still down to luck.

Childbirth is about the 3 Ps - the Passage, The Passenger and The Power. To a certain extent you can influence the Passage and The Power by being upright and mobile and in good positions but there isn't a lot you can do about the Passenger. If baby is in a brow presentation, etc.....

"i planned my births with military precision and they happened exactly the way i planned them because i feel i was totally prepared"

natural- Do you really mean that? I could have planned and planned all I liked, it still wouldn't have happened the way I wanted because, at the end of the day, DD was in the wrong position and I went for 48 hours of extremely painful contractions with no progress.

Nothing I planned would have changed that. However, as I have said further up, maybe better medical care would have changed the overall outcome (whilst I felt I had prepared for a long labour, when it came to it DH and I simply were not with it enough as we got into day four of no sleep (well, he'd had some naps) to start suggesting things or remembering our preparation - we needed the medical team to suggest and support (which they didn't).

Your post suggests (perhaps unitentionally) that if your birth doesn't go to plan, you didn't prepare enough. I think it's the other way round - preparing can help the outcome of your birth and can help you make informed choices if the outcome isn't what you hoped for.

I think CuppaTeaJanice's thoughts are really interesting in that you can do a lot to influence labour (and if you've had a calm labour that has gone to plan that should have an impact on your birth) but there is MORE about the actual giving birth (i.e. second stage) that can't be controlled.

It's not unrealistic to want a natural birth, but I think luck has a lot to do with it and you have to play the hand you're dealt when things kick off.

I planned a homebirth with pool using hypnobirthing for my first (DD born 9 weeks ago). Read all the Ina May books, Childbirth Without Fear, Active Birth, had my hypnobirthing CD's on Ipod which I listened to dutifully every night, so you can imagine the type of birth I was planning...

Ended up being transferred to hospital by ambulance, Syntocinon drip to ramp up contractions after only dilating to 2cm after 18 hours of contractions, epidural and forceps assisted delivery. BUT, I'm glad I prepared in the way I did, if it had gone as I planned it would have been a great way to do it, but in the event I got a beautiful baby girl and the birth was great despite the interventions - mainly I suspect due to the lovely doctors and midwives who helped my little girl into the world and made it the best experience it could have been in the circumstances.

I agree that it's luck.

With DD1 I prepared in every way possible (yoga, hypnobirthing etc), wrote a detailed birth plan etc but she was forehead first, I failed to progress (we're talking days) and I ended up with an emcs.

With DD2 I thought 'sod that' and booked an elcs but a week before my booked date I went into labour spontaneously and had a natural birth in under 3 hours. It was a marvellous experience but if I'm honest, it was really and truly beyond my control.

I would love to have had natural births. I prepared for them, I was calm and chilled when my waters broke. When I found I had grade 2 meconium I stayed calm. When being induced wasn't working I stayed calm. I even stayed calm when my son's heart rate dropped down to 80bpm and they attached a monitor to his head. When his heart rate dropped down to 40bpm after 14 hours of induced labour and I was only 1cm dilated I was still relatively calm. On the operating table I was nervous but still quite calm. When they suctioned my baby and revived him I was stressed. When I nearly died 2 days later I was scared.

After 8 weeks of non-productive labour and a rupturing womb I was fairly calm.

I wonder which of these events I should have prepared for better....

After 8 weeks of non-productive labour and a rupturing womb I was fairly calm.

Oh this makes me spit!

Stats do bloody lie of course, in this case anyway, because people in at high risk groups do not generally go for homebirths, nor do teenage Mums.

Loads of people prepare themselves for birth by reading, attending classes doing exercises and so on and still go on to have intervention, those that are lucky enough to have a completely natural delivery think it's due to being prepared.

It is deeply unhelpful to talk about people feeling 'in control' of their bodies during labour as if those of us whose bodies do not perform as required are somewhat lacking in skill or determination.

I had three natural births and I think it is primarily luck

I think speed of delivery does have an effect too.
With Ds1 I probably would have taken some pain relief but there wasn't any time.I wanted intervention free but when labour started it was really fast and painful and frankly I would have taken anything going because my mind was just thinking 'if I am in this much pain now, what will it be like in 8/10/16 hours?
What I didn't know was that Ds1 would be born in about an hour.So delivery was too fast and furious to get any pain relief to help
Once I had done it once I felt less scared of the pain and more in control.

But it was a huge dollop of luck in spite of my preparation

Sorry for random repeated sentence