Are you planning an ELCS? You need to see this!

[k2togm1]

www.jentlechildbirth.org.uk/?portfolios=the-natural-caesarean

Even with cs?!

Crossed posts Panzee.

"Just google" - as opposed to, say, believe your health care professionals or what the obstetrician who is a professor suggests in the article posted by Sandalwood?

I hadn't even heard of this before this post. I have no feelings of "defensiveness", I just despair that there is this general attitude that anything that seeks to make the birth experience (which in best circumstances we were designed to do) less medical is some sort of "woo" indulgent middle-class fad, and that attempts to improve the experience are silly.

There's also a lot of talk of risks in emcs on this thread when this was clearly about elcs. Everyone wants a healthy outcome but if it can be done better, why not?

You asked and I answered. I'm not bothered either way. Why are you getting so wound up? Did you take a look?

Also, when I went for a birth debrief, I had the risks of cs spelled out in great detail (despite not requesting one!). One I remember distinctly was that the risk of your baby dying in the first month post-birth was much higher for babies born by cs regardless of why a cs had been performed. There is clearly potential for improving the safety of cs's if this is true and innovative practices that aim to improve the experience are to be welcomed. No one knows the ins and outs of everything. A calm birth is probably always going to be a better birth, let's face it. A crash section is never the first choice for any baby and while it's great we save babies in this way it's hardly ideal! I could very well have one, and if I do and my baby is safe, well and good.. but that is no reason not to want something calmer.

Here's the professor's view, it seems to make sense to me but I am not a doctor and am stupidly of the notion that perhaps google doesn't replace years of training and experience in what can and can't work in a medical context:

^"What I realised was that caesareans were done a certain way because they've always been done a certain way, but in fact they can be done differently - and in a way that parents love," says Fisk. Other doctors are sometimes shocked when they hear what he is doing. "They say, but surely you have to get the baby out fast so she can get oxygen straight away? And I say, when the baby is being born she's still attached to the umbilical cord and is still getting oxygen from the placenta. Caesarean birth can be gentle, just as vaginal birth can be gentle.

"Obstetricians are too hung up on getting from the point of incision to the birth of the baby as quickly as possible: that's been the benchmark of a skilled surgeon. But I'm challenging that because, from the baby's and from the parents' point of view, it's not very helpful.

"There's also a view that because the baby's chest hasn't been squeezed going through the birth canal, there are greater risks of breathing difficulties. But by leaving the baby's body inside the uterus for longer once the head is out, the body is squeezed and you see the lung liquid coming out of the baby's nose. Unless there are other risk factors, I've never known a baby born by my method to have problems - going straight onto the mother's chest helps regulate breathing."^

"Why are you getting so wound up?"

Why do you think I am getting so wound up? Not agreeing with an opinion does not constitute "getting wou

nd up"

It was the bits in bold that made me think you were.

Yes, bloody well google, and read each reference, carefully written up in peer reviewed respected journals, rather than take as Gospel the opinions of one obstetrician.
And the bit about babies who have been born by cs are much more likely to die in the first month of life despite the reasons for the section, is bollocks. Find me some references to that please. Try google.

No, I won't.

The reason I won't is that I have perinatal OCD and it is an unhealthy behaviour to seek out references like that when you have neither the training, expertise or experience to be able to analyse them properly or extrapolate from their results.

I say this as someone with a very high level of academic training in another field allied to medicine. I just recognise the dangers of taking too much out of isolated articles without the training and experience to contextualise them.

I'm not really sure what I said on this thread that has provoked the reaction that it has from the two of you really. I simply said I disagree with attempts to improve the birth experience being seen as "woo" or discredited as a search for a "spiritual experience" as though there were no physiological benefits and I explained carefully in my first post that it is my belief that the first minutes and months of my son's life were hard because of his birth and I would value a calmer experience, but am prepared to accept whatever is safe.

Saying things like "everyone wants a healthy outcome but if it can be done better, why not?" is hardly some sort of outrageous, "wound up" position in my mind (which is pretty sharp, OCD and all!). I value innovation and I have learned to trust the expertise and experience of medical professionals, and it seemed an interesting and valid way of doing things that I would be happy to discuss with my healthcare professionals.

I will not, however, google random "risks" I am not appropriately qualified to interpret because this sort of think provokes and maintains anxiety in the majority of people who do it, and it's not something I'm personally interested in doing for the sake of an online argument.

I honestly don't know where you get your opinion of me from. I said it didn't bother me whether you do it the traditional way or this. You said you'd never seen any talk of risks of delayed cord clamping, so I told you I had. Then you got all snippy. It's not me, it's you.

Actually, I didn't ask you about delayed cord clamping Panzee, someone else did and you thought I was responding to your post about googling it having asked a question. I found your response a bit snippy too. It doesn't really matter though. I don't know you, you don't know me. I don't really have an opinion of you, but I didn't understand why you asked why I was getting "wound up", you explained etc.

To be fair, it's actually BagsofHolly saying my opinion, which was fairly personal, was "silly and patronising" that probably got my goat but there you go.

Ok fair enough. Cross-purposes :) FWIW I do like a bit of woo usually! :o

And I am working hard at being more woo and less self-appointed google professor myself as I have learned my limitations!

"To be fair, it's actually BagsofHolly saying my opinion, which was fairly personal, was "silly and patronising" that probably got my goat but there you go."

No, actually I objected to this:

"How is it "woo" to want the best health outcome for your baby after birth?"

because noone has suggested that wanting the best outcome for their baby is in some way "woo". It's a given that we all want that, and silly and patronising to suggest otherwise. And noone has asked you to randomly google risks, either.

I hope your perinatal OCD clears up soon. And with that I'll step away from this thread. Very best of luck.

Fine, step away.

I really don't see how asking that question equates to suggesting that anyone who doesnt want it doesn't want the best outcome for their baby? I also think it is a given that everyone wants that, but it often seems to me on here that wanting something less mainstream is often viewed as being primarily about a mother's "experience" as though that were a selfish consideration independent of the baby's wellbeing.. the use of the word "woo" to describe it suggests it is irrational or silly (it's a fairly perjorative term on MN), and that seems a bit patronising and dismissive to me. Another example I've seen on this forum is where choice of homebirths is seen to be about wanting champagne from your fridge or the comfort of your own bed vs the belief of women who choose it that it is best for the wellbeing of their baby.

I couldn't give a fig for my own experience on an objective level, I really only want a healthy baby.... it's part of my condition that my thoughts of birth are more about death and doom and destruction than soft lighting and candlelight and whalesong. However, I know that I have to pay attention to getting the best experience possible, because if I don't take steps to manage my stress and anxiety it may very well affect my baby's development. The health of mothers and babies are very intertwined. And there is plenty of research on that I wish I didn't know about .

So if a cs can be made better and calmer for baby and for me, and a cs is what I end up having, I would like to know about that and I would like to think that obstetricians and midwives were looking into the best ways of improving practices at all times.

Gosh, so sorry this all has got quite heated!

Glad you got to do skin to skin and your elcs was good lockets!

I think that wishing the best for baby is a given, like I think all of you agree, but I am going to add that some things for the 'benefit' of the mother are being given a trashing here without considering the effects on the mothers mental health. Just saying that sometimes a bit of consideration for more than just 'surviving' would be good.

"And secondly, skin to skin is tricky with cs as the operating theatre is kept much colder than a normal room, so the baby is quickly removed from the warmth of its mother and wrapped up, NOT placed shivering and naked across her collarbone."

I don't think my operating team found that one tricky at all: perfectly easy to place baby on mother's warm chest and then put a blanket on top. He was just as warm there as he'd have been wrapped up in a cot- I kept him warm.

Wonder if I just came across an unusually bright operating team.

.

Actually I've had a quick google and I still can't see the issue with delayed cord clamping in a low risk elective section.

Interesting. I have a crash section with 1st dc. Under G/A due to foetal distress. Although it was the right thing to do I really felt I had missed out on so much. 2nd was a failed VBAC.Much better but strangely still felt sad I didn't have the strength at the time to request certain things during that section. Instead I had a doctor tell me what I had. At least I got a cuddle in theatre but that was with baby wrapped up.
This time I am having an elective. Not saying i want to go as far as a natural section but I really would like to see moment of delivery and find out baby sex for myself. Skin to skin in theatre wuld be great too. Really hoping they will be able to accomodate that.

Thank yuo. So its best to mention it on the day. Was going to mention it to consultant when I have my appointment.