Very much looking forward to birth!

[Snowlet]

Right, let's fill this thread with positivity.

I feel empowered, educated, calm, at peace with what my body was born to do and ready to not feel like a truck anymore! (which is so sad because I'm only 29 weeks)

Whatever we'd like our birth plans/preferences to be, whatever choices we make, I'd love for every woman to feel that they are HERS, that she is powerful and that her wishes are important.

It does matter what you want, you should picture your 'perfect' birth over and over again and you can't receive what you don't ask for.

So then, is anyone else looking forward to labour and birth as the unique, life changing experience it will undoubtedly be?

Honey I love the sound of your Dad!

The op sounds a bit naive and preachy. However good on you to think about being empowered and positive about your upcoming birth. Stay positive and keep an open mind. Good luck.

LaVolcan I was thinking about your last post:
"The resignation exhibited on this thread is a bit depressing: 'birth goes wrong, suck it up', seems to be something of a theme. If previous generations had thought like that, we probably wouldn't have seen the end to compulsory shaves and enemas when we did, or had Dads in the labour wards, or today, the increasing use of doulas. It's because people aren't happy about their experiences that they decide they will try to do something. IMO it's better to be positive than resigned."

I totally agree about never giving up on dignity and kindness and not being treated like a baby-machine by 'the man'.

I am wondering now- based on this discussion and others I've seen- whether 'newbies' like me!! (especially if perhaps they've not had the medical hoo-ha I've had in my life) sometimes confuse:
-Striving for the "ideal" in terms of dignity and quality of care (which can be changed and controlled- maybe not every time, but if we campaign or choose our care well) eg. things being explained, kindness, respect of personal beliefs...
AND
-The 'ideal' in terms of the clinical side (i.e. if the baby's breech/stuck, C section, if the placenta doesn't come out alone) which can be down to luck (there's a bit of cross over of course depending on MW/Dr experience too).

To me the two things are different... perhaps because of my medical history I'm acutely aware the same medical intervention can be given either with cold heartlessness/incompetence or with genuine care and clear communication.

Hope that makes sense!

'my point is that in labour circumstances are taken out of your control, mostly because your body and your baby can't/don't follow what you'd like to happen. Childbirth is unpredictable.'

It is, but you can vastly improve your outcomes with planning, preparation and by adjusting your thinking.

Agree with a lot of the pp.

Sick and tired of having to defend myself when I say I liked labour, love breastfeeding and actually rather love being a mum.
I'm not smug. Just happy and proud.

Spaniel IMO, Vaginal examinations and induction (including) sweeps can interfere with the positioning of the baby, and their ability to turn during early labour.

I researched this hugely and planned accordingly.

Your body may have 'failed' and interference may have made no difference to that at all, but I feel that you can increase your chances of your body 'not' failing by being empowered, in control and listening carefully to your body.

I suppose what I am saying is that at least to a small extent, positioning of the baby IS within your control.

thegreatgatsby101 I love labour (dislike pushing) and BFing too. Don't feel bad about it.

I don't think the positioning was within Spaniel's control. She arrived at the hospital 5cm dilated and with the baby's foot through her cervix and it's other leg across the cervix. No mention of any examinations etc prior to the one that discovered this situation.
Surely Spaniel didn't have any control over the positioning at the point this was discovered.

Spaniel apologies for referring to your ds as it.

I am wondering if spaniel did anything, or had anything done to her (i.e. sweep) that triggered labour too early.

Regardless there will still be footling breech babies, of course, but there are things you can do, not do, refuse or embrace which can 'increase your luck' in this.

RaRa i would disagree with that. I was always told baby was head down, the only examination I had was on arrival at hospital to see how far I was and they couldn't feel her head, so was sent for a scan which showed her the wrong way round. If there was something I could have done to ensure baby was the right way around, and we knew about it in advance then I'd like to know.

I think the difference in people's responses to the OP's glowing positivity is if they're in the good birth / bad birth camp - we interpret her words differently because, despite us having felt positive too, we realise that ultimately it may not change things. Residing in the 'bad birth' camp, I feel, in my experience, there's only so far a positive outlook will take you and only so much you can control. I think that's what others are trying to say.

I've heard of things you can do to influence positioning (like scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees - not so keen on trying this one out so am glad baby is head down at the moment!) but I don't know if there is much you can do to prevent a footling breech and that experience sounds very scary.

I don't believe positive thinking is going to make an easy labour happen but the way you think about these experiences is very important. For example, I had trouble establishing bfing and ds kept hitting me with his tiny fists when I tried to feed him. In my vulnerable, hormonal state I interpreted this as a rejection and that he was angry with me for failing him. A lovely mw observed this and said "well done, baby, trying to help your mummy' and explained to me that he was instinctively trying to start the milk flowing. Once I viewed his behaviour as working with me rather than fighting against me, I relaxed and feeding got easier. Stress, fear and panic inhibit your body's natural responses. Trying to reduce the impact of these is a good thing - it won't guarantee everything working out but it can and does help.

I'm not trying to say that positive thinking works miracles but that doesn't make it useless and I think it's beneficial even if things don't end up going as planned.

Theborrower, You could do everything there was to do and still have a breech baby. It is no way as simple as that nor are there any guarantees.

However, the data shows that breech babies are on the increase and that it is likely to be caused by lifestyle and possibly some antenatal interference including stress towards the end of pregnancy caused by a looming induction date.

Detaching yourself from the above increases your chances of the baby turning. It doesn't mean they WILL turn.

Also, many breech babies can be birthed safely and have got themselves into a good position to travel through the birth canal. The breech itself isn't a 'failure', often. The 'failure' is in the inexperience of the caregivers and their fear-fuel unnecessary intervention.

I agree with RaRa to some extent. When I hear of someone saying, 'I had to be induced.... EMCS... they saved my babies life', I sometimes think, well, did they endanger his/her life in the first place? Was the induction necessary? Was there genuine concern about the welfare of the baby, or the mother, or was it just a date on a calendar had been reached?

But I say nothing out loud. I can't be the only one who thinks like that - I read of people who had an EMCS and are determined to have a HBAC the next time, and think is it because they question the intervention the previous time?

I read a lot of the Ina May literature, did pregnancy yoga from 12 weeks, compiled a sheet of. Positive affirmations which I read before bed every night, ate what I felt like eating, exercised moderately if I felt like it and was in a very similar frame of mind to the OP.

You must keep an open mind though. The yoga was amazing in helping me with the breathing, I didn't have any pain relief or gas and air. I felt empowered by my ability to manage the pain (extreme pain). However When my waters broke (after about eight hours of contractions) I had to go to the labour ward. Midwives and doctors were in conflict what to do prior to this the doctor had wanted to break my waters and the mv wanted to help me continue naturally. In the end needed an episiotomy and ventouse delivery.

I didn't care though I felt amazing and my 9lb DS was safe in my arms.

It's ok to be naive with the first I think, I know if I have another I'm not sure I'll be able to delude myself with the positive affirmations as well but I'll try al the same.

Good luck with the last few weeks

Are you suggesting RaRa that perhaps the routine use of sweeps can help to cause breech births? It would be good to see if anyone has done any research to see if there is a link.

I forgot so say when my waters broke there was meconium hence the urgency to get baby out!

I'm making a massive leap Volcan. I don't think sweeps cause breech births, but they can start births earlier than they would do if the baby had been left to it, and that extra time might just be the essential space the baby needed to turn.

I'm talking undx breech, obviously.

I doubt dx breech get sweeps!?

I am in the bad birth camp. So are a majority of my friends. I realise anecdotes do not translate into hard facts. But people with so called textbook births are lucky in the extreme.

FWIW, I am a very laid-back person and have a "glass half full" personality. Ultimately it did help me to weather my labour and birth trauma (three days of contractions, induction, low foetal heartbeat, cord prolapse, crash C section under GA). It wasn't a perfect birth by any means, but still very, very desirable as DD and I came through it unscathed and healthy.

At the end of it, I woke up from anaesthesia after two hours, no skin to skin, DD was in observation, but I still cried when I held her and could bond immediately. No problems breast feeding

What I am trying to say is, if I had been too fixated on positive vibes and good things happening, I would have been too shell shocked after the birth. The key, I think, is to mentally prepare yourself and go with the flow and keep an open mind.

And yes, I agree with posters who say the positivity will help you deal with scary situations. But I feel we are bickering amongst ourselves and turning against each other. "if you are not for enthusiasm, you are against all that is good in the world. It is this or the other" is not a good stand to take.

LaVolcan I think that is interesting. Many private midwives have a CS rate of around 10% and low intervention rates. At my local MLU only around 45% of women avoid a CS or intervention (I'm using the MLU to exclude women who start off as high risk). It's a huge difference.

LaVolcan I had specifically asked for no induction. But after 72 hours of contractions, not dilating, I think anterior waters breaking, induction was inevitable.

By this time I was actually begging for a C section as I was scared of infection, but NHS guidelines apparently dictated a labouring woman can go for 72 hours after waters break before medical intervention is needed. And by god, they stuck to those guidelines!! The most galling thing was they even got my admission dates wrong by a day and they assumed I had been in for only 48 hours!

So no they don't intervene to tick off dates, I don't think...

Not just depriving the babies of the additional time to turn, but I also think sweeps triggering labour too early lead to much longer labours due to the baby not being in the position they need to be (which would then trigger labour, but a much shorter one).

Longer labours then lead to an increased chance of the need for intervention.

But what this OP wanted was a thread to share positivity in the lead-up to birth. A lot of people took a great deal of pleasure in pouring scorn on her optimismand delighted in telling her she was naive, preachy, deluded etc and that birth is inevitably a terrible ordeal. That's what turned people onto bickering and arguing - why couldn't people just let her be hopeful? It was clear from the start that she was fully aware that being positive wouldn't give her the ideal experience automatically and she is prepared for thingsto go wrong. I don't buy that all the naysayers were simply concerned that she may be setting herself up for disappointment - they just wanted to puncture her enthusiasm out of the misguided perception that her hopeful attitude translated into a criticism of them and their birth experience.