Avoiding negative reinforcement of labour experience. Bloody impossible it would seem?

[ChineapplePunk]

This is just going to be a moan thread, so be forewarned. :)

I absolutely understand that my impending childbirth is, by it's vary nature, an unknown scenario, and I am fully aware that anything can happen and an open mind is essential. However, when trying to adopt a positive attitude towards childbirth, it would seem that you are fighting a losing battle. At every turn the media, the public, AND the medical profession constantly push the idea of unbearable pain, inevitable intervention, and trauma.

I've just completed a hypnobirthing course and absolutely accept that my birth experience can be a fulfilling, trauma-free, and manageable process (barring any unforeseen medical emergencies, and even then, I feel that I have the tools to cope with this). I guess I'm just PO'd with the barriers that are in place when trying to maintain a positive outlook, which is at the core of preparing for a natural, calm, and relaxed birth. It's difficult to not let these negative reinforcements mess with your head. A case in point - DH and I attended a physio/antenatal class this week and the physiotherapist started the introduction with, "I'll try to make this class as quick and painless as possible, UNLIKE your Labour"!!!!???? And then had the audacity later on in the class to stress the importance of staying positive and relaxed in regard to labour, as "tensing up" is one of the worst things you can do. She also peppered the class with little clichéd molten droplets of wisdom such as, "they don't call it Labour for nothing". Yawn.

It would seem to me that, short of living in a bubble for the next two months, the negative reinforcement that women receive is absolutely unavoidable. In saying that, at least this rant proves that I am going to rally against this BS at every available opportunity and return my head to "the good place". :-)

Totally agree with every word you say. Officially, in the media and even in person people seem to delight with trying to scare you death about the impending unavoidable event as if somehow they are doing you a favour to forewarn you. I think it is horrible.

May I just balance it out a little, by telling you that my labour was nothing bad - was totally do-able and didn't take long, and that was with first baby. I wasn't damaged in any way and just used some gas and air to help with the birth bit.

That is not a boast, I feel bad if anyone else didn't get an easy time, but I think expectant mothers should know that it is entirely possible it will all be A-OK.

hth

Thanks, Snowbeetle. Doesn't sound like a boast at all. That's what's missing - the balance! The unexciting (although I think they are very exciting) stories of manageable and non-traumatic births.

I noticed this at my sisters antenatal class a few weeks ago and keep telling her that both my labours were fine. Painful but not hugely bad and seriously worth it!

I actually find that people like contradicting whatever you say. If You think you'll be OK - out come the horror stories. If You accept the horror stories and assume you're going to have a terrible time, all you get is hours of tedious 'oh you'll be fine' stuff.

This is why i like to avoid talking about it altogether. Difficult though. Looking forward to getting the thing out so we can stop talking about birth.

I didn't do AN classes, partly for this reason! I did do the hypnobirthing though and it was hugely valuable.

To some extent I think it makes sense for them to warn you that it isn't going to be that easy - because if you then do have an easy birth, you can be relieved, happy, grateful whatever - whereas if you think it's all going to be easy and light and have a horrific time, it could send you plummeting into terrible shock and feelings of failure.

The trick you have to learn is to avoid accepting the negatives - it's up to you how much of it stays in your head! I agree that the old clichés don't help anyone - but a realistic (up to a point) view of how it may go is important.

RosyRosie - I find that in the majority of mummy groups I go to, the conversation will inevitably come round to labour at least once in a session!! No end of that in sight and DS is 8 months old :( it does get tedious after a while....

I am a great fan of reality. :) I don't believe anything unless it's backed up by scientific evidence. And the pain-tension-fear syndrome absolutely resinates with me.

*resonates :)

You read posts that go the other way and talk about a culture of positivity that cannot be backed up by the average NHS midwife, working as she usually does. A lot of women have been very disappointed in the system (and sometimes in themselves) after being sold a vision of almost orgasmic calm.

There is a real art to leading an antenatal class, there's no room for cheesiness or crap jokes whatsoever and it is a bit tactless to harp on about the pain, there are better ways of approaching that aspect of birth (though it varies so much it's kind of hard to approach at all).

To put a slightly different slant on it, if labour is a lot more painful than you are expecting, that can be very frightening in itself - and fear does make your body produce adrenaline which slows down labour and makes it more painful. So if people ask me about labour I don't pretend it wasn't extremely painful, because it was, and I wouldn't want to give someone unrealistic expectations that actually make it harder to deal with. Have you read Ina May's guide to childbirth? I think she's got it about right - labour can be incredibly painful but with the right support it can be a very positive and fulfilling experience.

I am talking about the constant reinforcement and absolute acceptance that unbearable pain is inevitable. I do not think for a minute that women are lying when they say labour was painful for them.

I agree, I'm pregnant with my first and seem inundated with horror stories too. I totally appreciate that some women do have traumatic births, their experience is valid and they probably need to talk about the experience to process it. I wonder though if those who have untraumatic births just don't feel the need to talk about it so much?

I think it is good to know what could happen if I have a difficult birth - so that I understand what is happening to me and my baby if we need medical assistance in an emergency. It's also good to know what I can refuse and what choices I'll need to make and make our caregivers aware of.

But equally, I think it's important that we don't get ourselves too frightened about birth too. Going in expecting a straight-forward birth is likely to make you more relaxed and confident and better able to handle whatever does occur. I am convinced that pain becomes more intense if we are scared. That's not to blame women who do feel a lot of pain, but just to say that I think that feeling relaxed is helpful. I'm also reading about hypnobirthing at present.

I think a balance of positive experience and information about what can go wrong is probably best. If someone went in completely unaware of possible complications or what doctors would do in case of the baby needing emergency medical assistance then they could be traumatised by the experience of birth if those circumstances arose. We do need to be able to give informed consent/refusal of consent.

Hope we all have great birth experiences though!

On the money, Spiritedwolf! :)

But if women did find it unbearably painful then they will put that view across because that's what their experence was, no? I think that for generations women in the UK and elsewhere have had less than ideal birthing experiences because birth has become so medicalised and midwives have so little time to support women emotionally during labour. So that's the ingrained culture of childbirth we have to deal with. I'm not saying it's right, just that it's perfectly understandable why people talk about their birth experiences in that way. As Anxious says, if your labour doesn't live up to your expectations that can lead to feelings of failure etc which are very hard to erase.

I don't think that referring to pain is the same thing as accepting that it will be unbearable.

Yes, of course people put forward their individual experiences, however, the negative individual experiences are the ones that seem to be held in highest regard in terms of the "reality" of childbirth. And again, this is what permeates through our culture.

It's a numbers game. I agree they're held in the highest regard, and I think it's because they've become so numerous that anything outside that norm is suspicious somehow.

I agree that simply referring to pain is not the same as referring to unbearable pain. Pain is manageable.

That's a tough one. It's hard to strike the right balance at something so general as an AN class. The mw can't anticipate the individual needs of every woman in the room and so they have to make it clear that labour and birth does carry (in many cases) and high level of pain and things sometimes don't go to plan while also trying to explain what happens when everything goes smoothly.

I also agree with rosyrosie that depending on your pov, you'll either be inundated with horror stories (if you're feeling positive) or indundated with it'll be fine (if you're worried). Personally, I've always kept my birth experiences to myself amongst friends and family unless they've asked me specifically.

I've had good and bad birth experiences and I can attest to the fact that for me, I needed to talk far more about the bad one as a way of processing what happened and trying to get over it. But good exoeriences are just that. They're good and so ime you are able to devote all your time and attention to enjoying your baby and that's what you do.

wrt the pain, I remember saying to a friend expecting DC1 while I was expecting DC2, yes labour does hurt, but to my knowledge, no-one has died from labour pains. I do think they could put more emphasis on non medical ways to manage pain such as positooning, hypnobirthing etc as there seems to be plenty of women around with good experiences linked to these. Maybe AN services should be trying to engage with new mums to see if they can add anything to AN classes, RL experiences. That might give a better balance.

I agree. OBEM is a case in point!

There are some great videos & DVDs available of straightforward births. There are some short clips on youtube, and things like "Birth as we know it".

I've had 2 straightforward home waterbirths with no intervention at all. In one of them it all seemed so calm and uneventful we didn't call the midwife in time because didn't realise baby was so near to arriving. The same thing happened to a close friend as well. The second time with me delivery unit only sentt a midwife because I'd told them what had happened the previous time. They wouldn't have assessed me as that far on over the phone because I wasn't making enough odd/pained noises.

Hypnobirthing is great

I did hypnobirthing with my 3rd, and it was brilliant - everything I hoped it would be and by far the easiest, most relaxed, most comfortable of the 3. I can get quite evangelical about it and wished I'd tried it with the other 2 births.

I know what you mean about the messages from all around - especially the standard movie cliche of the woman in stirrups screaming in pain. You can't grow up in this country without knowing about screaming in unbearable agony births, so I read as much as I could by people like Ina May Gaskin to counterbalance that. There are also some lovely birth stories on "tell me your lovely birth experience"-type threads on here.

Good luck!

Chineapplepunk, also pregnant with my first baby (getting on for 36 weeks), and I could have written this. It's constantly on my mind, recently - that I seem to be stuck between two different, muutally-exclusive discourses about giving birth - the Medical Disaster/Unbearable Pain one, and the Positive Slightly Hippy/Marie Mongan one. I'm enjoying my hypnobirthing classes, and have read Ina May Gaskin with enjoyment - why wouldn't I enjoy them, when they are two of the only places in which labour isn't automatically viewed as frightening and disempowering? - but the sceptical, rational part of me accepts that this is as much an ideology as the Medical/Pain discourse, it's just a more pleasant one.

One of the least pleasant things about my pregnancy has been the continual negativity and fear-mongering of the Irish-based medical professionals I saw when my care was mostly happening in Ireland - my (female, and a mother) GP appeared to think I wasn't frightened enough of giving birth, and kept emphasising the 'unbearable pain' of labour, and an obstetric consultant (also female - I have had no complications, but all public anenatal care in Ireland is consultant-led), when asked if she could recommend any reading on labour and birth, said 'The important thing is that you fully realise the extent of the pain in advance. Many women are not prepared for this.'

It was hard not to connect these responses in both cases to the fact that I was not clearly automatically accepting the Birth as terrifying Medicalised Experience script in advance, and also that I wasn't passively accepting medical opinion from GP and consultant - I was doing a lot of reading myself, and asking them to back up their assertions with studies. Basically, I showed up to these appointments much too cheerful and well-informed, and needed to be smacked down.

I haven't had this from my UK midwife, and am hoping that there will at least be less negative reinforcement here. However, I have had to ask her not to keep saying 'The only important outcome is a healthy baby', which isn't true as far as I concerned. Obviously that is massively important - and doesn't need pointing out to me of all people (I have, after all, been carrying this baby about and eating properly and talking to him and loving him for eight months) - but my body and mind are also important, and my concerns about birth injuries and lack of consultation are of course important! For me to show concern about my own physical and mental well-being in and after labour is not some kind of whiny Birthzilla phenomenon, for crying out loud.

I found the exact opposite tbh.

But there does have to be a balance. I wasn't scared of labour at all, ibwas excited and looking forward to it. But I think being prepared cuts both ways.

I have to say that people did try to give me the whole "oh you'll be fine, don't worry" stuff beforei had dc1. My own mum actually told me "contractions aren't painful just a little uncomfortable like period pain". I really believed that would be the case and when it wasn't I flew into wild panic. However, when pregnant with dc2 I watched the first series of obem and realised that actually I could do this, realised that lots of people had good birth experiences (although I know they don't all on that programme), and was souch calmer. However, you sound realistic, well informed and positive, which I was not! I'm sure your good attitude will put you in a great starting position for a good birth experience.

Souch= so much