Anyone else 'tricked' out of epidural? (part 2)

[Chynah]

For those that feel the discussion still had some way to go........... please continue.....

So Nonames, you did not know about back to back labours. Do you know about the fact that women have different pelvis size and shape? or that normal labour can take one or 30 hours? do you know about PROM? do you know about oblique presentation? and about all the other factors that can influence the level of pain a woman experiences in labour, even in so-called "normal" circumstances?

I bet there is indeed quite a lot you don't know. So what qualifies you to make a sweeping statement, twice on this thread, that women who are "fit and healthy" should not receive epidurals?

I am at your post to mshappy telling her that her labour was not as she describes it. What sheer arrogance - unless you were there?

I demanded an epidural with my 3rd before I needed it because I wasn't going to get caught out again and fobbed off. It fuckin hurts, its like having surgery without an anaesthetic, and women ought to have to right to choose without being judged.

My SIL said that the stitches in her episiotomy were worse than her labour pain - its all relative. My labour pain was horrific and traumatic, initially I was worried I was going to die, then I worried that i was NOT going to. It was like I imagine torture to be.

Its a relative concept.

prima - yeah I know about those things except proms - please educate me.

If the pain of labour was that bad then women would not have had multiple births before epidurals were invented. The human race would have died out.

Good job im not a midwife eh? I wouldnt put up with any nonsense.

IME nonames, some people like you are MWs. Hence me sufferin from PTSD and PND for several years after having DS.

'If the pain of labour was that bad then women would not have had multiple births before epidurals were invented. The human race would have died out.'

It's a well-known fact that, until quite recently in Western society and presently in a number of human societies, a woman had or has no choice over her own reproduction.

Indeed, married women in many societies cannot even chose when to have sex as marital rape is not considered a crime.

So there goes that theory . . .

nonamesavailable You are not intelligent enough to be a Midwife.

The often repeated comment that if the pain of labour was that bad women wouldn't have had multiple births and the human race would have died out is absolute crap and ignores the fact for the majority of history women have had no control over their conception, contraception or even over their own bodies for most of that time.

The pain of my labour was "that bad" and I didn't have any pain relief to speak of (since gas and air did bugger all). Eventually after 3 years I was brave enough to let my DH near me and try for another one. I did it again. Women do - even setting aside issues of compulsion, the biological urge to reproduce is very strong.

PROM - prelabour rupture of membranes. Leads to "dry labour", with nothing cushioning the baby as it powers through your pelvis. A lot of women report it being more painful than "wet labour" where your waters break later on in the process.

I don't even know where to start on your middle paragraph. The idea that a woman can resist her husband's sexual advances is very recent - until a few years ago it was not a crime for a husband to rape his wife. Oh, and just 100 years ago that woman had 1 in 8 chances of dying in childbirth. Let's turn back the clock shall we?

Excellent job you are not a midwife, though maybe not for the reason you think.

Ah yes, I didn't realise that was what it stood for. I had that with my first. Waters went very early on and it was like someone cranked up the contractions, and the pain, about fifty notches in one go. My CMW this time around said that PROM might have been part of the reason why my labour was so dreadfully painful.

Second time my waters went at some point, but neither me nor the MW could say when! They had gone by the time DD was born but without a trace...

Yep Gaelic, I had that too.

Also had to fight the triage midwife who was trying to convince me my waters hadn't gone. She insinuated I was making it up in order to be given an induction

She changed her tune when I started gushing on her shoes.

1 in 8 died in childbirth, 100 years ago?
According to these stats it was nothing like as bad as that:

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm

Oh, sorry Margles, you are right - I should really be going to bed. I meant 200 years ago, not 100. The rate was about 1 to 2% of dying in childbirth as a result of exhaustion, dehydration, infection, hemorrhage, or convulsions. The typical mother (in America - sorry don't have figures for the UK) gave birth to between five and eight children, so her lifetime chances of dying in childbirth ran at about 1 in 8.

Is there anything that can be done? I want to kick off at someone. I have two healthy children, the eldest of which turns four soon. I should be able to cope with seeing an advert for one born every minute.

IT IS NOT FAIR. I trusted the midwives, and they betrsyed that trust, not for medical reasons, not even for lack of resources, but just because they looked at a naked, bleeding, vomiting, sobbing and petrified 22 year old, who was begging her mum to kill her because of the pain, who they had just met, and decided that she was coping fine and could manage on a paracetomol tablet that it clearly said in her notes that she wouldn't be able to swallow. I asked the birth afterthoughts woman and she (after apoligising for talking about embarrassing things - I mean, wtf?) said that she had had a look and my genitals didn't look like those of a woman in the late stages of labour. I wasn't examined between 3cm (and them telling me to go home, and me refusing because I couldn't walk as I had one minute between contractions of my first labour, which was prem, and I had already been in hospital during the preganancy) and 10cm, at which point they discovered that I had been laburing with a back to back breech baby who was by then seriously stuck and distressed. I was in the hospital for 14 hours before the section, and I signed the consent forms (apparently - I don't remember) as they put in a canula, shaved me and took DH off to get into scrubs. I can honestly say I was in no fit state to give consent- my mum determines that as part of her work, and she said that she very nearly spoke up, but realised that it was best to just get it done.

I still get intrusive flashbacks.

For some reason, I had another baby, by ELCS (there was no other realistic option, given all the complications - I knew I had to have one when even a VBAC campaigner on here told me to have one) and I cried daily during that pregnancy because I was so scared. When the baby was conceived I was till on heavy doses of psychiractric drugs to help with the trauma of the first birth.

I can honestly say that my worst fear (apart from the obvious ones about things happening to my loved ones) is getting pregnant again.

butterpieify I agree, it is absolutely horrific, and for a MW to asses a woman in such distress and not facilitate them having an epidural is just completely wrong. Its Barbaric.

Before the invention of anaesthesia, people had to endure terrible pain, there was no choice. So people would have to cope with the pain of surgery whilst they were conscious. The thought of a human having a limb amputated without pain relief, and whilst remaining conscious is unimaginable nowadays. So why is it that people can stand and witness another human being writhing around in agony and worse still, decide that they are not going to provide ready available, safe relief of that pain ??

i think there are three main possible reasons. Men have not experienced it for one. Then there are the likes of nonamesavailable who have experienced a relatively small amount of pain in their labour, and therefore stupidly presume that all women in labour experience the same amount of pain as them and then wrongly conclude that the women must be over reacting in some way. And also, the fact that the pain is intermittent is confused with the intensity of the pain when it is present.

Once again, women are treated like second rate members of society.

Mentioning no names, it must be like dropping a baby out of a bucket for some

I am glad I found this thread. I wanted to answer some questions raised from my previous post about how things have worked for me here in the US:

1 - My OBN is the doctor who coordinates my care. My obn is a group of 4 OBN doctors who are board certified which means they have gone through years of additional training after finishing medical school.

The hospital that my obn uses is a teaching hospital which means that a student doctor might perform a procedure on me but this is only done under the direct supervision of my obn. At my 20 weeks scan a 3rd year medical student was observing our sonogram which was initally performed by a technician and then everything was checked over by an obn (perinatal specialist).

As far as I am aware a midwife has had 3-4 years of education through a bachelor degree program. I do not think midwives should be coordinating care as, in my opinion, they do not have the education to care for the health of the mother and baby. My obn has had extensive medical training and experience to draw from. My obn has sung the praises of the work that the midwives do, which is run the classes, help with establishing breastfeeding, assist during labour and help identify mothers who show early signs of postnatal depression.

2 - Being induced is not a 'choice' but a way to try to avoid needing an CS. I have damaged my back and due to the limited range of mobility the OBN has strongly suggested me being induced at 39 weeks. They are also sending me to the chiropractor for weekly appointments.

3 - Here you choose your obn and in my case I have found a place were they allow the woman to choose. There are obns who will happily do scheduled CS for anyone. I did my research and chose an obn who promotes breastfeeding and vaginal births.

Also, not all hospitals have the fantastic ratios that our local hospital has. Also, if you don't coordinate your own coverage through charity you have to be admitted through the emergency room for delivery. Most hospitals have free clinics for women.

butterpieify - what you went through sounds horrific and I can't imagine how it must have felt to have no control over your own care.

Ah, I had PROM and back to back with DD1. It helps explain the pain a bit more. I didnt know the lack of waters added to the pain tbh. The midwive kept trying to break my waters and didnt realise there was nothing there, until she got her supervisor to try who said 'that's the head you're poking'.

lol! You make it sound like I squatted and it was all over in 5 mins. I laboured for 20 hours with my first. I have a lot of other opinions that will piss you off but I'll save them for another day. You have deliberately misinterpreted what I have been saying all the way through.

On edge - im leaving this thread because I can't talk to people who aren't intelligent enough to have a good discussion without getting silly.

Prima - talk about scaremongering! You think every single woman who lived more than 100 years ago wasn't in a loving relationship and didn't want to have children? I must tell that to my nanna who had 9 kids.

So long nonames. One last time, data is not the plural for anecdote. All you have been doing on this thread is drawing from your own experience as if you represent the world. Can you really not allow for the fact that you are not everyone, and that different people experience different levels of pain (to name just one thing) to your own? Empathy is something that normally appears in children around the age of 2, yet you don't seem to have any. That is very disconcerting. Do you suffer from narcissistic personality disorder?

And once again, the idea that love is central to marriage is a very recent one in Western societies, and not at all integrated in many others. Not to mention that your grandmother must be very old if she gave birth 200 years ago :)

"1 - My OBN is the doctor who coordinates my care. My obn is a group of 4 OBN doctors who are board certified which means they have gone through years of additional training after finishing medical school.

The hospital that my obn uses is a teaching hospital which means that a student doctor might perform a procedure on me but this is only done under the direct supervision of my obn. At my 20 weeks scan a 3rd year medical student was observing our sonogram which was initally performed by a technician and then everything was checked over by an obn (perinatal specialist).

As far as I am aware a midwife has had 3-4 years of education through a bachelor degree program. I do not think midwives should be coordinating care as, in my opinion, they do not have the education to care for the health of the mother and baby. My obn has had extensive medical training and experience to draw from. My obn has sung the praises of the work that the midwives do, which is run the classes, help with establishing breastfeeding, assist during labour and help identify mothers who show early signs of postnatal depression."

This is in the US and bears absolutely no relation to the maternity services we have here in the UK. Just taking the place where I work as an example, the majority of doctors, including those at consultant level have not seen a 'normal' delivery since they were in medical school. Yes they have the basic medical know how of how the normal mechanisms of labour work and how a normal delivery should happen and how a normal pregnancy progresses. However, in reality all they ever see is when things go wrong, when they are required to solve a problem, it gives them a very skewed picture of pregnancy and birth - that it is a 'dangerous thing'. Midwives spend 3 sometimes longer, years at university learning about pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. 3 years on the one subject. Many SHO's you meet on the ward have no idea which end of a pregnant woman a baby comes out of. A lot of time the registrar will say to the midwife looking after the woman that they have been called to review "What do you think?" this is because a midwife knows a hell of a lot more than you have just given them credit for. We are a highly skilled profession not just glorified support workers!

Yes there are bad midwives as there are bad anaesthetists, bad obstetricians and bad nurses, there are also some flippin brilliant examples of the above and it really wouldn't hurt for us here to recognise that.

God I said I wouldn't come back, I couldn't help it....

Well said DrMdDreamy

I am resisting the urge to reply - its just not worth the bashing.