Caesarean = Failure? Article in the Times...

[SweetyDarling]

Times article about feelings of failure after ceasarean birth
Interesting comments and countering article as well.

i am about to have my third section and I have never felt the way the woman in the article has described.

I do feel that there is a 'notion' that if you have not had a vaginal birth then you are a failure of some kind. I think the media with their pushing of the 'perfect' pregnancy, birth, etc add to this along with other groups.

However for me - cs = live baby. Dd1 was an emergency - she had to be born then - luckily I had a little time and was able to have dh in the room with me and did not have a crash section. However - dd1 was taken straight to ICU/SCBU and I got to see her in passing. dh was lucky to have a little hold of her. I was not able to touch her for a couple of days and it was a week or more before I could hold her.
SHe was rather poorly with a heart defect.

We knew she would have this defect as it was diagnosed prenatally as was her down syndrome. I really believe that pregnancy and birth prepared me for the attitude I have now. I did feel in the antenatal classes that I attended - the focus was on the birth - I was more worried - and still am now on pregnancy no3 with the rest of their lives.

I could have had a vbac for dd2 - I chose to have a section because it was convenient for our family - I had a child with special needs, a husband due to start a new job the day dd2 was born and no child care on call for dd1. As we were able to schedule dd2's birth it meant dd1 was able to be cared for appropriately and dh was able to start his new job.

Now - no3 - I automatically knew I was to have a c-section. I could have fought for a vba2c but to me - it was not that important. I am able to again organise care for dd1 who has sn, dh is able to organise time off work and dd2 is able to also be cared for in an appropriate manner.

Do I feel a failure - NOPE. Do I feel less of a woman - NOPE. My ability or not to give birth (to me) does not define me as a woman. I know for other women this is very very important. After dd1 - I just wanted my babies to be okay. Luckily I healed very well and very quickly after the last two c-sections which I think helped> I had no real issues breastfeeding dd2. dd1 was ng tube fed due to her heart failure but again - did not feel like I had let her down. I just knew that we made decisions based on what was best for her at the time.

Wow - think I have written an essay - sorry just wanted to share how I felt.

i certainly agree with that littlelapin, and the rise in c.s rate is cause for concern in itself

IMHO, the most interesting part of the article are the stats at the end.

The mortality rates for 1950 are, after all, only for a generation ago (this was when my mum was born) and they are shocking compared to now.

Maybe the caesarean rates are higher than ideal, as I agree with lulumama and others that there is over-medicalisation, but the point is that birth is a lot safer now than in 1950.

I am sympathetic to everyone who feels traumatised or a failure following difficult labour (whether they had c-sections or not), but I think a woman's attitude will depend on her general psychological state and her instincts - I am fairly laid back and take everything that comes in my stride (had forceps with DS but did not feel a failure that there had to be 'intervention' as I had physically got to the point where I had instinctively done everything I could to get him out! End of, no further analysis required!). But that's not to say that I would have felt a failure if I'd had a c/s if one had become required. My attitude is to trust your instincts (there is a whole other thread about whether our 'instincts' have become watered down in our techno dominated time-poor socety) and to ask for intervention only if YOU think it is necessary.

I agree with some of the other posts that we are a 'goal orientated' society and that it is unrealistic to apply this to the natural process that is labour and birth. Again, I think people who are of a laid back disposition generally do not set themselves up to fail compared to the perfectionist types or those who have built up expectations of the birth that turn out not to be true.

Well...the first comment (after the article) really pissed me off....I had 3 children, and my 3. child was meant to be a homebirth and ended in Emergency C-section...soemthing I clearly never expected...afterall, I had given Birth pretty succesfully twice before...but it wasn't to be. The Birth experience was teaumatic and I can really sympathise with teh feeling that a C-section child is delivered ratehr then Birthed...I looked at my son, and even though he looked just like his older brothers, he didn't feel like my child at all, if I hadn't breastfed him, I probably would have chosen not to have to much contact wiht him. I know it wasn't his fault at all, my head certainly always knew that, so, did my heart, but my emotions were not reasonable once...!
I felt violated against and the total loss of control was awful, a long time after the Birth, I wished I had never had another child. It took me a long time to bond with him, and our bond is still not as strong as that with my other sons, but we are getting there.
Yes,both me and ds were fine and we are alive, however, emotionally the exerience has really taken it's toll.
I am relaxed enough, and certainly wasn't worried about the Birth ( i.e. scared of giving Birth, indeed I was looking forward to it), and my first Birth wasn't all without interventions, but didn't result in me feeling so low and I took it in my stride...I think the big difference was, that I had certain expectations of my Birth and when I failed to fullfill those I felt guilty and a failure...emotions, sadly, aren't always easy to be controlled...

I deleted everything I just wrote because I know that the people who should read it won't listen. (saved it on computer tho!)

I was traumatised by my emCS.

I am not the chattering classes and I am not a pushy parent.

And I am NOT stupid!

Some people need to THINK before they open their mouths.

If anybody out there is traumatised by their CS and by some views on this thread, I have some very good links I can point you in the direction of. Your feelings are very valid!

I really don't think anyone here REALLY thinks women are stupid for expereienceing trauma aftaer a cs do they?
It really is a shame though that cs is presented (to pregnant women) as such a negative birth outcome. Surely it should just be presented as another possibility with it's own pros and cons, just like "natural" birth?

All women traumatised by thier birth experience whether natural of cs deserve our support and sympathy.
We should also then, be looking at ways to minimize the likelyhood of this happening to other women.
A more balanced, logical approach seems like an obvious change to me.

definitely sweety.......a traumatice birth, regardless of type or level of trauma deserves sympathy and compassion

find it really interesting the Sqeezeddonna has chosen to post so contentiously for her only posts on musmnet, or she is a name changer.....

as with doulaklaw, i am happy to point anyone who needs help re a traumatic birth in the right direction.

squeezeddonna...I find your post very offending.

Me too 3andnomore.

I had 2 css, one was an emergency after 18 hours of labour, in which both me and DS1 very nearly didn't make it. Thank god we were rushed into theatre when we were. But it was the most awful experience of my life, tbh

Anway, I had terrible feelings of failure afterwards, and had severe PND. The major factor in this was the whole attitude that my birth didn't matter and that "as long as I had a healthy baby, who cares how he got here?" Well, I cared. A hell of a lot.

I know now, after nearly 2.5 years, that yes, the birth is only the beginning of the parenthood journey, but it can be extremely traumatic.

I find your posts really offensive and patronising, squeezedonna. I know this is an internet forum, but please be aware that there are real people with real feelings behind the nicknames.

btw, I had a CS with DS2. It was a lovely experience. I didn;t feel like I had failed in any way, because I was in control and I knew what would happen.

However, if I had a pound for everytime someone said "too posh to push" I'd be one rich lady now.

what on earth has she said that's offensive?

Personally I also find Sheila Kitzinger a bit much and I happy to hold my hands up and admit to being one the chattering classes! I think she has a point - lots of women who are used to succeeding at everything (including myself) are setting themselves up for disappointment because they are targetting the "perfect birth" and actually life is not like that for most.

I had had four pregnancies with no live birth to show for it and a very difficult pg so by the time I got to birth, I could not have cared less about having a vaginal birth. I just wanted to get through it with both of us alive and well. That's what happened. Do I feel that my body let me down? No more than I feel it let me down when I had two miscarriages and a late termination for genetic abnormalities. It is possible that if the author had gone through all this before her baby was born and had faced the fear that she may never have a child, she would not have cared so much about the c section. The baby was alive and well. Hallelujah.

People do have these feelings and they can't be denied but my personal view is that the best outcome is that both mother and baby are alive and healthy and I really don't understand the agonising about how you got there.

Congrats on your successful birth Mainlymay; such stories always bring a lump to my throat.

But in Sheila Kitzinger's defence, I have heard her speak in public and she told a story in passing (as part of a much longer speech) about a woman who planned a natural birth which didn't happen because her blood pressure shot up to an alarming level, and the woman had a caesarean. SK did not imply in any way that this was any one's failure, just one of those things - just as many people have said on this thread. I think SK accepts as much as any one that caesareans are often desirable and necessary, no matter how much you plan.

i think,mainlymayday...her dismissal of the work of a well respected birth educator and the women who read her work...her attitude that we are plain stupid to feel bad about a birth experience and the general patronising tone of the posts.

maybe it is only obvious to me as i have suffered after a traumatic c.s and got heartily sick and tired of begin told i was silly and it didn;t matter how the baby got here , as long as he was safe...

well, what about how i felt? is that totally i irrelevant, is my state of health now secondary to the baby ? i am solely a vessel ? no, i have real , strong feelings..and it is not for anyone else to dismiss them as stupid

and as for the comment re 'chattering classes', well, words fail me...

if reading about birth makes you something to be looked down on, i am surely someone to be pitied.

i feel very very strongly about this, as you can tell, and find the attitude that the mode of birth is unimportant very difficult to understand.

It's interesting this has popped up now. I'm going in for an elective c-section on Tuesday. I'm not at all happy about it but have no choice. Despite having delivered 4 babies with just gas and air I am "not allowed" to deliver this one myself because it is breech and no-one at the hospital has the skills to deliver a breech baby vaginally. I do feel like I've failed and it seems an unnecessary risk to my health having to undergo major surgery, when chances are I could actually deliver this one normally with some help.

It's difficult to add anything of value to this thread, so much has been said already and many women have had their feelings hurt. It's a real shame that we are not more supportive of each other, and often try to attack instead of giving support. Sometimes I feel embarassed to be a woman, to be honnest, because I think we should support each other and stick together a lot more.

It's no use denying that other people will have different fillings that we have. It's not because one person feels a sense of failure that we should assume that everybody else should feel the same.

Anyway, in my experience, I've had an emergency c sec after 28 hours of labour, and a string of complications - both with me and with the baby. I have had no sense of failure whatsoever, but I did cry an awful lot after the birth. I felt that the midwives were not supporting me enough emotionally, they were just too busy, and I was really out of my depth in all sorts of feelings. Many books I had read talk about 'hormonal' stuff happening, and note that the new mum 'might' feel baby blues (or whatever you want to call it). I remember crying so much and my community midwife asking me 'are you dissapointed you've had a c section' and I replied 'no i'm really happy I have a gorgeous little boy' but the tears were running down my face... it's a very difficult period and should be underestimated. This should be shared with mums to be in case they feel the same. It can be a normal part of becoming a mum.

There you go, I've written my memoirs now... sorry for the long post!

By the way, I am pregnant again and will probably have a planned c section because of low lying placenta and baby is transverse. I feel no guilt or sense of failure and I am really looking forward to giving birth.

In another time and/or another country, I and the baby would probably die because of this situation...

mainlymayday, no one is arguing that it ISN'T important that both mother and Baby are alive...of course that is very important, however, that doesn't mean one can go ahead and just say, seeing that it really doesn't matter how anyway, so, don't be upset, be happy...it doesn't work that way!
Yes, I know, it was my own fault really that I felt so let down by myself, I had high hopes and expectations, and dispite acknowledging, in theory...i.e. putting it in my Birthplan, that of course there was a possibility things wouldn't go to plan, and even an Emergency C-section COULD happen...I jsut never reallllly thought it would...!
It didn't help that my transfer to Hospital was very sudden ( I was fully dilated, and we origianl had called the ambulance to get more gas and air, and suddenly I was being pressurised to go in), when I got to Hospital, the m/w's looked at my care plan, but didn't really bother wiht me, I was freaked out and upset, scared there was somehting they hadn't told me, scared my Baby might be dead as I hadn't felt him move at since getting into teh ambulance, it didn't do me any favours that the Doc "caring" for me probably would have needed a dictionary to actually look up what it means to care and that he had the bedside manner and personality of a serial killer, that he gave me an internal so painful I just cried, I felt raped by him, there was no warning. The first thing I then knew there was a C-section on the card was when he told me he would be getting the Anaestesiologist down for an Epidural, on my meek objection that I didn't want one he said, well, we will do a Ventouse and if it doesn't work you will get a C-section....he hadn't mentioned any of that to me till then...!
I really think, that, IF I was cared for in a better manner , in a more caring and less humiliating way, I would have been in a better emotional state, but as things were...my youngest son and I didn't get the start we deserved.And it didn't just effect us 2, but also effected my relationships with my other sons and my dh.
I realise that there are plenty of people who have come through much worse, and that those may feel it's just silly to wallop in so much selfsorrow...however, one just can't just disregard anothers experience, because there are soooo many things that influence our reaction to anything we experience.

Actually that sounded a bit more strident than I meant it to - sorry!

It also makes me angry when people assume that women must feel bad etc when someone has had a section or medicalised birth, etc. It works both ways.

3andnomore, that sounds like a horrible experience. I think you put your finger on it when you describe your high hopes. I think the "birth community" of midwives etc are trying to give women confidence that they can go through labour without intervention and in trying to give that message, the message about the possibility that some women will have to face intervention anyway gets lost. That's why some women feel so robbed and shocked because they never considered it a real possibility.

Because of family history I knew it was such a big possibility that I actively chose cs so I didn't feel robbed of something I never thought I could have.

It's a bit like bf - I thought I would find it easy. It never crossed my mind I would have problems and although I understand why the bf community don't advertise the problems in advance (again, to give women confidence) I really wish they had. So I would have known I might not be able to bf easily and then I would have been prepared. (Got there in the end but only after months of struggle and an expensive lactation consultant!)

That's why when my community midwife said things like "oh if the human race couldn't breast feed naturally we would have died out centuries ago" it drove me mad. My baby was losing weight and I was clearly struggling to bf and it didn't matter how "natural" bfing was - it wasn't helping us to get through it. The answer was a very sensible consultant who got me building up my premature baby with little bits of formula so she had the energy to struggle with bf till we both got it. Not "natural" but it got us there.

I guess my body let me down in this case - I couldn't bf on instict, I had to learn. I was shocked that it didn't come easily but to feel a sense of failure about it? No. Just gratitude to live now when we have cs and formula and all that stuff to keep us alive and well when nature lets us down from time to time.

nineunlikelytales I do take your point, but I also think that women don't need to feel like this and there are ways to tackle it such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

It's not that anyone who feels that way is wrong to feel that way. As you say, feelings are feelings and they cannot be denied. But because it seems unnecessary to feel bad about it and I think with this sort of approach it is possible to resolve these feelings and get closure. Sorry to lapse into babble...

BTW, I didn't mean to sound as though no one has the right to complain if they haven't had a difficult history like I did. But I really do give thanks every day for every step of my medicalised pg and birth.

The consultants at my hospital decide to do c section as was not going into labour, other option was being reinduced, and then probably emergency section. I have no negative feelings about this. Our dd was born perfectly in a very calm atmosphere and was healthy. There wa nothing more I could have wanted.