Purple pushing & stirrups V active labour

[SarahLouH]

Hi,

Did anyone else feel they were steamrollered into a traditional birth? I was all geared up for a more natural "calm" birth process and had practised relaxation throughout. I was happy for pain relief! Because of this relaxation, it seems, the midwife I saw in our local Birth Centre didn't believe I was in labour - when I had been for twelve hours, on 2 paracetamol. She sent me to the delivery suite but said they wouldn't be able to do anything for me and would probably send me home. She put her hand on my stomach and watched me have a contraction - that was the exam. Upstairs I was told I was NINE cms dilated. An hour after that I was in stirrups and the doctor was threatening a cut and the venteuse suction to get the baby out. Luckily they didn't need it but I did tear and my baby was born sedated. I am very sure that if I'd been allowed to walk around, do it my way a bit more - none of this would have been necessary. But it seemed the two departments had two very different methods and they just did not communicate at all. The first midwife was very unfortunate timing. She was in the place I should have been having all the understanding and the non-intervention to do it more calmly. Maybe no tearing, definitely no stirrups or venteuse or the sedated baby who then would never breastfeed. But even so the whole experience just showed us what a rollercoaster it is when you're in labour and that a mum really doesn't have any say in anything. I felt like - who am I to argue with these professionals? When I should have had a say.

Does anyone else think something should be done about the choices we are given when delivering and if the midwives from both sides of the birthing philosophies could talk a little more? Maybe meet in the middle. I want to pursue this and see what the professionals say. My husband is really angry at what happened to me, though not at the people who did it. He says I had horrible things done to me by nice people. Hard to reconcile. He told the 3rd (senior) midwife that we'd practised breathing techniques rather than purple pushing and she just laughed and said "do what you want but this is a VIOLENT process and your wife needs to PUSH - PUSH that baby out." He argued when the stirrups came out that I was "pointing the wrong way for gravity to work". That did him no good either.

We had absolutely no control.

Any thoughts?

SarahLou (and angry husband)

i think a lot has to do with the support you get from your birth partner. with ds1 i was happy to lie on the bed with an epidural so wasnt really an issue. with ds2 i really didnt want one but the mw was very old school and actually rather rubbish, xp was crap, just went along with what she pushed me into doing and when you are in labour you will prob find it hard to argue back, especially if your 'support' is bullying you into stuff you dont want aswell!

ds3 was a fantastic waterbirth, mw listened to everything i wanted, didnt even try to push me into doing anything i didnt want and i had a lot more confidence in my birth partner supporting me! i had been doing yoga through the pregnancy and one of the exercises was relaxing your perineum - the opposite of how you would normally do pelvic floor exercises - and just relaxing, deep breathing through the contractions without pushing, let your body do the work. i had to push a couple of times at the very end but mostly i just relaxed and ds3 made his own way into the world. am hoping its going to be like this time, am due in 6 days so this is a subject very much on my mind aswell. dh has been given strict instructions that he is to speak for me as i am well aware i may not be able to and he knows exactly what i want so hopefully all should be well

Hi Belgo, yes I did see your post but it seems to be in a very small minority and I think that has been one of my worries too - I can be very bossy and forceful myself when I want to be and I guess in the moment it´s a case of deciding whether you really want to/ have the energy to fight for what you want or if you just want it to be as easy as possible? Obviously ´easy´ in this case being entirely relative!

Dh is under strict instructions that he is on MY side and that I need him to stand up for me and let the health professionals look after themselves. Let´s just hope he remembers as I can imagine if he sided with them it would be harder to resist the orders.

Maleva - I'm usually really bossy and will fight! However, after a long flase labour and longish labour I basically was too tired to even think about what was happening! I was totally exhausted and totally focused on managing through the contractions to think "this isn't what I wanted or what will work". I just did what the professionals told/advised me to do. Same for the morphine... I didn't consider that I needed more pain relief. But when a mw asks you if you want "a wee injection for the pain" mid contraction it doesn't cross your mind to say NO lol.

This time I've made it crystal clear in my birth plan that I won't be doing what they say without really good reason! DH knows my wishes and I've told him that if I forget to push for things to go MY way then he's to remind me! Best of luck!

I second that. Definitely get DH in to help remind you of what you want. If you have a long labour, you can get so tired you just don't say anything. I am usually assertive, but at the time I wasn't on planet earth...I was in labour-land.