Do women feel as if they're being told 'you shouldn't have a section'???

[tiktok]

Various organisations, including NCT, campaign for choice of place of birth and type of birth, and point to the rising caesarean section rate with concern. This is because the high numbers contrast with the likely figure of women and babies who need a section for medical reasons. It also reflects concern that on the whole, recovery after a section can be longer and more difficult. I don't think this is the equivalent of telling individual women they shouldn't have sections (clearly, the op is life saving for some, anyway), but this is how it seems to be interpreted. Comments?

I wa th lucky that my labours were striaght forward. It not called labour for nothing. It hurts , you push and its over.

I dont see why women cant face a degree of pain ( unless things obv go hideously wrong) as they have for 100s of years

But to me a c section is not a birth so to speak - I am sorry if I am not making sense - it is a medical intervention and to me should only be used in certain circumstances.

I knew you were going to say about 'natural'etc Aloha - but to me a c section is an entirely different thing - it is not natural it is in cases of women who want one for no medical reason an unnessecary medical procedure and quite a serious one at that.

That is how I feel - I think it should only be an option if the mother or baby is in danger - but I really don't feel strongly enough to get into a debate or slanging match with anyone about it - they are my personal feelings - feeling of someone who went through 26 not very comfortable hours of labour and came out with a beautiful perfect little girl - maybe if the case had been different I would not be saying what I am!!

Oh right twinkie, if it's not a birth then what is it? Oddly I seem to have a child though have been now deemed not to have given birth.

also, it is not as though c-sections are without risk. anecdotal evidence that people recover quickly is all well and good, but the evidence suggests that the risks associated with c-section are higher. i also hate the thought that the predominantly male medical establishment can push c-sections as straightforward because they happen exclusively to women. this kind of abdominal operation is considered major surgery if conducted for any other reason.

aloha, i think there is a world of difference between your situation and some c-sections. i do know people who claim to want a section for quite trivial reasons.

Cods - all that horrible, undignified writhing in agony for hours, your bits all ripped and stitches in your nether region. Yuk.

No - you have given birth - but not the natural way - god I knew I would phrase this wrong - sort of 'Oh did your tooth fall out of its own accord' - 'no I had an extraction' - to me they are different things one a natural thing and the other a medical thing.

Well naughty me

I knew that I should have carried on for another week with that induction, against medical advice etc....

Now all I need is to manage to have the next one without having to be pregnant

The risks of an elective section with local anaesthesia are absolutely minute - doctors now call sections 'safe' - even Michel Odent says caesareans under local anaesthetic are as safe as vaginal birth. And don't forget there are plenty of dead and damaged babies because c-sections weren't given. That's a risk too - as any medical negligence lawyer will tell you. I don't see sections as a male conspiracy at all. The demand for elective c-sections is coming from women.

And I know I am using the term 'elective' here when I mean 'for choice' but there isn't a really good way of putting it!

Well lets get nasty and rude eh!!!

It is how I feel and I would rather you not try and belittle me thanks - no to me you did not give birth, maybe I should have put naturally after that but I have tried to explain myself over and over again.

And CD I don't think you should have carried on how rideculous - if there is a madical reason yes I agree with c sections but only if there is to me they are unecessary and not 'natural'.

I have tried to phrase what I have said as nicely as possible and feel that maybe you should do the same and not be so patronising.

I do think women should be able to have a section if they want, actually, whether the reason is medical or psychologcal. I am not too happy about the health service booking a mum in so she doesn't have her holidays messed up, but I don't know, if that's her choice, maybe that should be an option, too.

I think just as home birth should be an option, and a real one, supported and valued, women who want a section for preference should be able to do so....but part of this should be giving their reasons, Batters, otherwise it cannot be the informed decision you rightly ask for . I agree with the NICE guidelines that women wanting an elective section should be offered counselling (in the sense that they are listened to, not in the sense they need therapy!!) and information....a mother might want a section because she has totally the wrong idea of it, or of the alternatives. She needs to know before she can make up her mind.

The stats on recovery from caesarean section are not to hand, but it is very variable. You can't look at posts on Mumsnet and say 'that proves saying 6 weeks is rubbish'. Come on! Six weeks sounds about right to me, for the average mother.

Midwife-led births, birthing centres, home births and so on are a lot cheaper than having more sections - there are figures on this.

My personal feeling is that nothing on earth would convince me that an elective section would be right for me (apart from dire health reasons) but that is my personal feeling. I can quite believe others feel just as strongly the other way.

However, on a population level, 26 per cent or whatever section rate is way too high - there are women in that stat who would have preferred not to have a section and ended up doing so.

Was not being patronising, am just pissed of that you can discount my dd's birth in one little phrase. Of course it's a birth.

Tiktok, she didn't say 'on average' or anything. She said "AT LEAST six weeks' which simply isn't true. And she must knw it isn't true. Which leads me to think of it as propaganda rather than information.
My objection to obligatory counselling is that it implies that not wanting hours of agony in labour and the dangers and pain of delivery is somehow a sign of mental illness. Which it clearly is not. You surely wouldn't suggest compulsory counselling for women who want homebirths or epidurals or any other kind of birth experience?

Raed my posts then I said that I am not trying to take anything away or make births less valid if they are c section births - my take on it is madness to want to go through somethig this serious and I listened to a nice senior ob gyn trying to talk the women out of having a c section whilst I was in the first throws of labour and everything he said hit me hard enough to make me think - my goodness I never want to go through that - labour and having a baby is about squeezing it out of your nether regions has been for hundreds of years and unless a c section is better for mother and/or baby I cannot for the life of me see why anyone should be able to demand one.

And you know I agree with you on that, on a personal level. BUT I still don't think you should say that a C-section is not a birth when it patently is. As for the hundreds of year, Queen Victoria had c-sections FFS!!!

Twinkie, I know you don't want one. Nobody is suggesting anyone should have one when they don't want one. But why do you think other people shouldn't have the choice? C-sections are safe - doctors agree on that. So why do you think it is a good idea to deny women the choice?

On another point, people suffered the agony of tooth decay for centuries - amoung many other kinds of pain and suffering. We wouldn't accept it now though. I don't get that argument at all.

Given the choice i would of had a 'normal' delivery with all of my 3 children. As it was i had 3 sections. The first one was elective but not my choice iykwim. DD was breech and i had already had probs whilst pregnant so section it was. With Dd2 i was going to try for a normal delivery but she was in distress and i didn't dilate at all so i had an emergency section.
I was then told that because i'd had two sections i couldn't have a normal delivery with Ds. I just sgreed with them because i thought that was the norm, but i've since read of several women who have had vbac deliveries after 2 sections.

Now i am faced with the situation where i would dearly love another baby but i've been told not to have more than 3 sections.
If at all possible i would go for a normal delivery every time. Having a section limits your choices in future deliveries and takes a long time to recover from.

It only limits your choice if you want a vaginal delivery - not if you honestly can't think of anything much worse!
I'm not arguing this for myself - my c-section was 100% unavoidable (and very nice too and not a problem to recover from). But for other women who I think should have a choice in how they give birth. Be that homebirth, waterbirth, epidural, or c-section.

I had a section with dd after hours in labour and she was in distress - not what I would have chosen but that is the way things happened, I have no bad feelings of how she came into the world. I am sick of reading articles however of how a section is the easier option though and it is only when I tell people about dd's birth that I get any sympathy, its as if I am 'too posh to push' ffs and have to 'justify' what happened.

However, I am now 5 months pregnant and am worried about what lies ahead for me - a normal birth (if such a thing exists), another emergency section after a long labour or a elective section?

Sorry Aloha, i meant to say that it limits how many kids you can have.

Umm, trivial point. Victoria didn't have a c-section. She did use gas-and-air (early version, chloroform) for the births of her 8th and 9th children though, which meant other British women started to use it too). Cs's only started being safe enough to be anything other than a completely desperate last resort, in the 1940's. They've been doing them since the Romans, but only to save the baby. Not much hope for the mum.

My dd was born by elective cs, but it was the consultant who elected, not me! And I do feel that I didn't give birth; she was extracted. Please nobody bite my head off, I realise other people feel differently... My body made a gorgeous baby, but I didn't give birth any more than dh did. (now there's a way to make cs available to any who ask - if men were pg).

I think there is more support available for homebirth etc than for elective cs, because cs is a socially-acceptable option and is easier to get than a homebirth. Its only recently that people have started to question cs as an option. If you want a homebirth, you are expected to justify it to every semi-stranger who asks where you're having the baby. If you're having a cs and people ask why, you can just say "medical reasons" and they shut up. And I would have to fight very hard for a homebirth on the NHS next time, whereas I could get a cs very easily, even though the cs would be more dangerous (have looked at the stats, no teeth marks in my neck please).