Forceps delivery - anyone got experience they will share?

[NearlyDue112]

So with DD I agreed to a forceps delivery (baby distressed and very stuck) but at the last minute it was decided that emcs was a better option so we didn't try forceps in the end. When I've mentioned this to a few people the reactions have scared me a little. Quite a few women have suggested I was very lucky to have cs rather than forceps and one friend told me about her forceps delivery where the force of 2 doctors was needed to get baby out and she was torn and traumatised by it all and she was sure it must have hurt baby (she blames his colic on the delivery). So Im not sure I would consent to forceps again after what I've heard unless other options were ruled out first. If you have had forceps delivery before WWYD? Would you do it again or would you take cs if that was also an option? Is it as bad as people have made out to me? Or have I just heard the bad stories? I do recognise that we may have no choice as cs is not always an option.

I had a terrible forceps/episiotomy delivery and was in hospital for some time and recovery took forever. I don't think I'll have a second child due to an awful pregnancy, labour, birth, recovery and newborn stage, but if I do, I think I'd like a section as I'd be petrified of history repeating itself.

Xmasbaby11 were you offered ELCS because of your previous birth or was it for other reasons?

I had a high forceps delivery with DS1 as an emergency plus episiotomy. It was horrific, and with DS2 I had "no forceps" all over my notes. Despite a 43 hour labour and every sign going, nobody realised he was back to back. We had 3 goes at forceps before crash c-section, and the 3rd time I heard "we will just have to go for it".

DS was left with a massive cut down one side of his face, grazing down the other and his whole face was swollen and blue. He still has a scar at nearly 9 years. I ended up with a hell of a lot of internal stitches as well as episiotomy because of internal damage from the forceps, and it took 2.5 years to heal - I couldn't stand still for longer than a couple of minutes without agonising pain where it felt like my vagina was going to fall out because of the mass of scar tissue.

Forceps for a stuck distressed baby.
I remember the tiny consultant with her foot up pulling and me getting massive gas and air giggles as I was like a prize cow.
Lots of bruising but all DD had were tong marks. All I think is thank god she was alive . They let me feel the head before they eased her out , straight onto me so I don't know any other way . It was still a lovely moment.

Forceps here (failed rotational - tried to turn him but he was out in two 'pushes' facing the wrong way?), 'bad' tear but healed perfectly, no side effects to baby (back to back large baby like another poster).

If I understand correctly if baby has descended too far into the birth canal EMCS is more dangerous as they have to pull it back out.

I ended up with an indwelling catheter for 10 weeks post birth. Awful things!

Forceps delivery then insisted on el LSCS for number 2. recover from LSCS much much easier than forceps.

I didn't have a forceps delivery but did have ventouse delivery with episiotomy which led to third degree tear and spending the first hour of my son's life in surgery. I had an elective csection for my next child as tests showed there were residual issues from the tear which might be made worse by a subsequent 'natural' birth. The csection was so so so so so (x a million) much better than the ventouse delivery - the theatre was full of joy and excitement, unlike the first birth with the alarm pressing and the people running in etc, and they did a 'natural' caesarean where they dropped the curtain and delivered him up onto my chest and he fed. Honestly, it was such a positive experience. The recovery was painful and it did take longer for me to walk up the street than after the bad tear, but I have such wonderful memories of ds2's birth, whereas ds1's was just horrendous.

My forceps delivery was way more painful than my other. I was sore for much longer, it was hard to walk far for at least two weeks and my bladder suffered much more, it was again at least two weeks before I had any real control.

I'm surprised at the amount of people here who have had a high forceps delivery. I've worked as a midwife in different units for 12 years on labour ward and only ever seen mid cavity forceps.

I don't think forceps are banned in America. I think they just don't use keillands/rotational forceps. May be wrong.

For my second dc I made it clear on my notes that I was to have a section over forceps (fortunately neither were needed). A good friend of mine is a bowel care specialist and says that in 15 years of treating women with incontinence issues, of the ones due to birth injuries they have almost all involved forceps.

I had a rotational forceps delivery with Dc1 in 2013 after a long labour and two hours of pushing. Dc1 was a big baby who was positioned back to back with the cord round the neck. As a pp has mentioned, the baby had descended too far for emcs. Frankly by the time they suggested forceps i just wanted the baby out safely. Dc1 was delivered with the paediatric crash team at the end of the bed but was thankfully fine save for a couple of marks on the cheek which faded after a couple of days. I was bruised with a lot of stitches but healed well in a couple of weeks. Whilst it wasn't pleasant, it is a bit of a blur now. I was half expecting a repeat performance with DC2 but that was a far easier delivery.

I think DD would have been a 'high' forceps delivery too given what the doctor said to me before hand, also they moved to cs without hesitation and they didn't mention any issue with baby being too far descended for cs.

Possum - given you've seen lots of births what's your personal view on forceps? What would you tell me if I was your friend/relative?

I had forceps and small cut, baby was fine and bruising faded quickly. I healed really well, cut was small, had great recovery (I even went for a little jog when he was 3 weeks old for example - only thing that hurt a bit was my boobs!). Despite all that I must admit I can't say I'd do it again, even if it meant avoiding a cs - perhaps I would, but I have come across a few scary stories since. Making that decision after 30 hours of labour is so hard!
It's true that in the US it is either not done at all or hardly ever, insurers don't cover it due to risks to baby, a family member told me about that. But then over there the c section rate is pretty high for similar reasons, so it's not straightforward!

I would say be guided by the drs. I've never seen a forceps which I thought was awful, seen a few failed ones where they've tried, it's not worked so converted to lscs. But I suppose if there are problems down the line such as incontinence or ongoing pain for these women I wouldn't be aware of them.

I do know that an instrumental is more common for your first baby but much less common for subsequent babies so hopefully it wouldn't be an issue for you.

I do know that I've seen the odd situation where dr has said forceps, mum has been very anti forceps and said that they want a lscs and the dr has been very unhappy due to how low the baby was. Pushing a baby back up in order to do a lscs is not the best option. Lscs in second stage is less safe for the mum than a lscs in 1st stage due to the higher chances of bleeding as well.

Just found this article which is interesting

'Injury to the pelvic floor and trauma to the baby are more common after forceps delivery, but major maternal haemorrhage and separation from the baby are more common after caesarean section'

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC420176/#!po=61.2069

I suppose if the baby isn't in distress next time we'd have the option to wait another hour or so and see if we can deliver naturally. Fingers crossed.

Well I would expect forceps are banned in the US because of medical litigation.

I turned down emergency section in 2006 for DC1 because I was not expecting the doctor to ask me my preference - forceps or emergency c-section. At the time that he asked, I was determined to achieve what I set out to do when I started labour - to birth the child with my own body. I was under the influence of various medicines to help with child-birth pain. I defiantly told the doctor 'forceps'.

With hindsight it was the wrong choice. I am still angry that I was given such a 'choice'.

My small, less than average head size son was born (not breathing but we are so lucky that he was brought to life just in time) by forceps. He had an APGAR score of 3. High risk for cerebral palsy.

Because baby had not progressed down, the doctor had to use a particular type of forceps which have a hyphenated name (which I forget), which my medico sister told me later are large but are needed when baby has not descended.

I was badly damaged by the forceps. Spinal block kept me pain free for the first day. Following that, I couldn't sleep for a few days with the pain. Bowel incontinent in the early days. Other incontinence continues to this day, but I can (just) cope. I was in hospital for a week & discharged myself because I just wanted to go home.

Sorry TMI but some of the inside of the birth canal was protruding. In addition, the forceps caused damage which swelled inside birth canal which in turn caused the bowel to protrude. I found it absolutely disgusting to have some sort of flesh protruding from my vag and basically quite a bit of bowel protruding from my bottom - not just for a day or 2, but for months, and months, and months.

The above was very painful - affected everything. This meant that after my dh went back to work, I basically lay in bed, with the baby lying next to me. To get out of bed was very difficult as I could not sit - at all - the pain was too great. I learnt to breastfeed lying on my side.

At around the 10 week mark I could slowly walk. A bit later I could (gently) sit down. At the six month mark I had vag. surgery. A wonderful surgeon took 2 hours to fix it all up. Incontinence greatly improved.

I have since then had 2 elective c-sections and thoroughly recommend them as a wonderful and safe experience for mother and baby.

Compared to forceps, C-section did not affect my mobility. After c-section I could sit, walk, shower, take care of my children. The only restriction (which I obeyed because it would void our car insurance) was not allowed to do was drive the car for 6 weeks. There is some restriction on picking up 'heavy' objects but I had no trouble picking up my toddlers after c-section.

Sorry for writing a novel about this, but the question brought back hidden (traumatic) memories.

Yep, horrific forceps delivery. Awful episiotomy, small prolapsed bowel, double incontinence and needed 4months of physio. Psychological trauma. Wanted a section several hours earlier but they kept telling me baby would be out very soon. 4hours of second stage.

Ill never have more children due to the experience and PTSD.

Horrific rushed forceps and episiotomy with my 1st DS after the cord was around his neck.
Despite having an epiduaral, I'll never forget that feeling of force the doc used to get him out with the forceps.
Took me about 2 months before I could sit down without any pain. Would have preferred a cs. But then again the grass is always greener isn't it?

Dc1 was born by ventouse after a very ling stalled labour that required a drip to get it going again. The only reason he wasn't forceps was they had a 4th go with the ventouse, apparently they are only supposed to try three times. I had a really deep episiotomy that got infected, the stitches failed completely and had to be restitched two weeks later. It was weeks before i could walk very far or drive. The scar is still sore. DS had a badly bruised head, and got jaundice badly - linked to the bruising. I wouldn't have asked for a c section rather than going on the drip, but with hind sight it would have probably have meant a quicker recovery for me.

With DC2 I opted for a home birth as it had the lowest chances of intervention so least chances of me needing another episiotomy. I would have asked for a c section rather than any interventions. Having delivered Dc1 vaginally meant it was a far easier delivery the 2nd time round, despite stitches and a 2nd degree tear I was up and about immediately. It's helped me come to terms with the damage done by DC1''s birth.

I have on my birth plan that I will not accept a forceps delivery I want a c section instead. OH has been briefed as well and told to make sure he doesn't consent to one on my behalf and to be very vocal.

I know too many people who have been seriously damaged by forceps deliveries and have life long continence issues because of them.

I had Keillands (rotational) forceps with DS1 after an awful long labour with foetal distress and scalp monitoring. I had terrible bruising and couldn't sit for over a week. DS was fine!
I spoke to the consultant before I had DD about having an elective section. He said there was no need, and actually I had a really quick easy delivery with both DD and DS2, although my episiotomy scattered both times.
I don't feel particularly upset by the experience although when I tell other people about that first labour, they are horrified!

I had a forceps delivery with DC1, it was totally straightforward & recovery was quick. DCs 2 & 3 were easy births that didn't require any intervention, but if it had been necessary I wouldn't have had a problem having forceps again.

I had forceps. They didn't do the episiotomy cut beforehand though so I had a huge 4th degree tear, PPH, two hours of stitching in surgery and two blood transfusions. I really wish I'd had a Caesarian to be honest. The tear was very painful, took ages to repair, my coccyx was also damaged in labour which means 4 years on I'm having cortisone objections into my tailbone once a year. 9 months after giving birth I had to have an endo rectal scan to see if the damage had healed. The consultant said if I have any more kids (I'm not going to) then I can only have a Caesarian as it's likely to cause me too much damage again.

All labour experiences are different but I don't think forceps is great at all. Most American hospitals have banned them.

Keilands rotation forceps. Yes, it was a bit gruesome and physical recovery took several weeks. Stiches were agony and I needed a catheter for 2 days because my bladder refused to work. Psychologically, it took until the birth of my second baby to get over. The flashbacks and nightmares stopped once I realised that not all births were as difficult and wasn't something I'd done wrong. Don't think I was ever given the choice to not have forceps - getting baby out fast was the main consideration.